- Plug and play USB device convert your old mix tapes and cassette to MP3 to Playback on iPod / MP3 player or burn to CD.
- Flexible battery or USB-powered operation.Comes with tape converter software to guide you through transfer.
- Portable design fits in virtually any bag and enables you to play and transfer anywhere.Audio editing software included.
- Audio output enables you to listen on your stereo, headphones, or other speaker system.
- Features Auto Reverse.Rediscover your old cassette tapes on the go.
Once you have the setup done, just pop in a tape, start audacity, hit RECORD on audacity, and then PLAY on the unit. The tape will play at the usual speed, this is not a high-speed dubbing unit. Note that audacity will save the file in its own format, but you can then go in and select sections and export them in MP3 format.
HOW TO DO IT
If you have a Windows 7 PC, go to Audacity's website and download the Win7 version, and install it BEFORE you plug in the Taotronics unit.
Now plug in the TaoTronics unit. Skip Windows looking for an update to the driver.
After a pause, you should be informed that the unit is installed and ready for use. Subsequent uses on my Win7 PC did not acknowledge that the unit had been plugged in but it still worked.
Run Audacity. These are the settings that worked for me on a Windows 7 PC:
For sound level, you can either work with the microphone input level, or you can use the Volume wheel on the unit.
The unit will do an "auto reverse" which means it will play the entire cassette, sides 1 and 2, and then stop. It also has a setting that looks like it is for "endless play".
The player will stop at the end of the tape, but if you rewind/fast forward it appears to just wait for you to hit "stop" so I wouldn't do either of these and leave the room or you might stretch your tape.
Readers Digest walkthrough:
1. Install audacity.
2. Plug in the Taotronics unit.
3. Put the tape in the unit. If you haven't played it for a while, you might want to fast forward and then rewind to make sure the tape isn't wound too lose or too tight.
4. Hit the record button on audacity.
5. Hit the play button on the Taotronics.
6. Make sure you have the unit set to just play two sides. The player will stop at the end of the tape, but Audacity will keep recording so you have to stop Audacity yourself.
7. If you want MP3s, you will need to:
a. save the file as an audacity project
b. select sections of the project in audacity and "export" them in MP3 format. To do this you will need to download the Lame encoder and let Audacity know where that file is. I suggest you put it in the Audacity folder.
c. keep doing b until the end of the audacity project file.
UPDATE: Audacity will automatically export tracks for you!
Using audacity to automatically split and save your album tracks
Go to the beginning of your project and delete all but about 3 seconds of silence. Do the same at the end of the project and in the middle of the project (between the album "sides"). Don't delete it all, as audacity will be using the silences in your project to split the tracks. You will have to make sure of enough silence before the first track or it won't be recognized.
Select Analyze / Silence Finder. Accept the defaults and click OK. Audacity will now find the spaces between songs using the silence areas.
Audacity does a pretty good job of finding the spaces between tracks but it's not perfect, so you should take a look and make sure there aren't extra tracks were the silence between songs was too long. You can delete a label by editing its name and just backspacing until it disappears. NOTE: you will almost always get a label at the end of the project.
Now put in the names for the tracks in the label markers. Do this with Tracks / Edit Labels.
Now set up the MP3 tags for the files. This is how an MP3 player can show you the title, album, etc. when you play an MP3:
Go to Edit / Preferences and untick Show Metadata Editor Prior to Export Step.
Go to File / Open Metadata Editor and enter the performer name and album name.
Go to File / Export Multiple.
Set the format for your exported files (Mp3 usually). Audacity should remember this after the first time you do it.
Set the export location (audacity can create a folder if it doesn't already exist.)
Select "split files based on labels"
Select "numbering before label/track name" (to insert the track number so the files sort properly)
Select Export
Wait
Hope this helps everyone. Please consider doing a "how to" like this in your own product reviews!Summary: If you want a device that just provides the audio source and gets out of your way, this device is perfect. If you need things a little more automatic (to do the recording and noise reduction for you), it may be a little *too* basic for your needs.
There's not a lot to this device, which makes it incredibly simple to use. When I plugged it into my Windows 8 PC, it identified it as a "USB Microphone". All that's required to use it is the sound recording program of your choice. (The enclosed CD contains an older version of the program Audacity -a newer version is available from and is completely free to use.)
Because it's so simple and doesn't try to do anything "fancy", there are a few manual steps you will have to do yourself to get a good recording. The more difficult part was balancing the volume levels on the unit itself and the recording level on my PC, to get the maximum volume without distortion. Then, once the whole tape is recorded, you have to use your software's noise reduction feature to eliminate the tape hiss.
While I prefer a device to just do its basic functions, so it doesn't get in my way, novice users may find it difficult to do all of these steps manually.
The whole unit, from the mechanical latch to the buttons, feel like one of the more cheaply-made portable tape players I had back in the 1980s, but the unit has so far made it through my entire collection of Harry Potter books on tape and is working on the Lord of the Rings, and it hasn't faltered once.
As an added bonus, it has a standard headphone jack and a battery compartment, so it can be used as a standalone portable cassette player. (Batteries are *not* required when connected to the computer; it is fully powered by USB.)
Some negatives:
I have run into issues with insufficient shielding, where I hear the telltale signs of cellphone interference (whether that's from the player, the cable, or internal to my PC, I'm not sure). I have to unplug my USB mouse (which was connected into the USB port right next to the tape player) and keep my cell phone at least a few feet away when recording.
When recording audio books, I like to take the entire book and save it as a single file. Audacity does not do well with 8-hour or longer sound files -it sucks down disk space in its "temp" directory, and it slows down and eventually crashes before I can save the file. I instead use the program GoldWave (but again, since it's just a generic audio source, any program will do). Audacity *does* work just fine for a typical 2-hour cassette, and its noise reduction feature works just fine.Overall, this is a great product to save my old tapes (those were never released in digital format).
I am surprised with the recorded sound quality; the mp3 file (320kbps and changed other settings to best quality) sounds as good as the tape. If your audio tape has a lot of hiss, the recorded file will be a mirror image. I got this only for a day, so I have not played with other audio effects such as amplifer, noise reduction, echo, etc. I am not sure if these effects will yield better quality than the original tape, but I can accept if it is at least sound 100% like the tape, no less.
The CD came with this converter is useless for those who has Windows 7 (me included). ..Just google "audacity", download and install the file for Windows 7 OS. With this file compatible with Windows 7 OS, it will link you to the website where you can download codec for converting your sound "project" into mp3 format (the mp3 decoding is not built in).
Also, expect to play around a little bit to get any recordings...I first followed the instructions which told me about changing the drop down bar to "USB audio device"...that never showed up on my list...i had to spend sometime to get it to work because of the settings.First of all the instructions do not tell you that if you have Windows 7 you must upload Audicity from the Audacity.com website for the latest version. We found that idea on the Taotronics website. So after we finally did that, then next problem was getting it to realize that the tape player was connected to the usb port. Once we finally did that (by unplugging and replugging into the usb port several times and opening and closing the audacity program several times) then we started a recording. Well, about 5 minutes into the recording, all of a sudden, the Audacity program did not recognize the tape player. So, we went back and repeated the plugging in and unplugging, etc and finally got it to recognize it again. Then about 15 mins into the recording, all of a sudden Audacity did not recognize it again after it had already recorded about 15 mins of the tape and we restarted again. Well,,, by now you know the story. This piece of junk is going back to Amazon tomorrow!!
This thing most definitely needs a driver!!! Don't buy...piece of Junk!!!
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product started out great, i completed about 20 cassette and then it simply stopped working. the cassette player still works, but when i hook it up to the computer it squeels... the cable of connection is bad... i really looked forward to this and was enjoying it until it broke...
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