How to Convert Audio Tape to MP3

With time, the sound quality of audio tapes deteriorates; as the result, the songs that your love to hear again and again are lost forever. The best way to make your favorite music more long lasting is to convert the audio tapes into MP3 format. Music in MP3 format can easily be heard on the computer, cell phones and iPods. The sound quality is as good as that of the music stored in the CD. Furthermore, MP3 files occupy lesser amount of space, and they can also be uploaded on the internet. With so many advantages, it is certainly worthwhile to convert audio tapes to MP3.

Before you start the process of converting your audio tapes into MP3 format, you would need to collect a few things.

Requirements to Convert Audio Tape to MP3

  • A computer, which has a sound card
  • Ripping program, which is an application that records WAV files
  • Encoder, which is a program that converts WAV files into MP3 files
  • A cable with 1/8th inch male connector at each end

These days, a number of superlative audio recording software are available. Most of them are free of cost and can be easily be downloaded. The characteristic feature of these audio recording software is that they convert the audio tapes directly into MP3 format. Thus, there is no hassle to converting the tapes first into WAV format and then into MP3 format.

Steps to Convert Audio Tape to MP3

The first thing that you need to do is to connect your tape recorder to your computer. Insert one end of the audio cable into the headphone jack of the tape recorder and the other end of the cable into the microphone input of the computer. The microphone input is normally present on the back side of the system unit; in the laptops, it is present on the front side.

Insert the audio tape in the tape recorder and press play. Check whether your computer is receiving the signals or not. If there are no signals, then open the Control Panel on Windows and make sure that in the audio settings the microphone line is activated. Open the audio recording software and check the input levels. If the signal is very low, then recording would not take place properly. Hence, turn on the speakers, but make sure that the sound is not too loud else the recording would be distorted.

After all the adjustments have been made, re-start the tape recorder and select the Record option in the audio recording software.  The audio tape will be converted into MP3 format. In addition to conversion, the audio recording software helps you to edit the audio file. You would need the encoder, if the software doesn’t have the feature to export MP3 files.