Almost all cassette decks have a 3. 5mm headphone jack, so you’ll usually only need a standard 3. 5mm cable to connect the deck to your computer. Some cassette decks have unbalanced line outputs. You’ll recognize those as having red and white ports. For these, you will need an RCA-to-3. 5mm cable. High-end cassette decks may sport balanced line outputs, with dual 3-pin XLR-F connectors or balanced 1/4" phone jacks. You will need to buy an adapter that fits both your computer’s 3. 5mm jack and the cassette deck’s outputs.

Desktop computer users will usually find this jack either on the back or the front of the computer’s tower. Laptop computers almost always have a monophonic line-in and line-out jack. This means that, while you can use the jack for transferring your cassette deck’s audio, you won’t be able to record in stereo.

Skip this step if you’re connecting either a 3. 5mm cassette deck or an unbalanced cassette deck.

3. 5mm — Plug one end (it doesn’t matter which one) of the 3. 5mm cable into your cassette deck’s 3. 5mm line-out (not headphone) port. Unbalanced — Plug the red RCA cable into the red port and the white RCA cable into the white port. Balanced — Plug the XLR or 1/4" cables into their inputs on the deck.

Again, the line-in port is usually pink on computers that have separate microphone and headphone inputs. If you’re using an adapter, you’ll plug the 3. 5mm cable into the adapter’s free end.

Windows — Open Start {“smallUrl”:“https://www. wikihow. com/images/0/07/Windowsstart. png”,“bigUrl”:"/images/thumb/0/07/Windowsstart. png/30px-Windowsstart. png",“smallWidth”:460,“smallHeight”:460,“bigWidth”:30,“bigHeight”:30,“licensing”:"<div class="mw-parser-output">

I edited this screenshot of a Windows icon. \n</p>

License: <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener" class="external text" href="http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Public_domain">Public Domain</a>
\n</p></div>"}, type in sound, click Sound, click the Recording tab, double-click your cassette deck’s input, click the Levels tab, and drag the “Microphone” slider left or right to lower or raise its volume. Click OK on both open windows when you’re done. Mac — Open the Apple menu {“smallUrl”:“https://www. wikihow. com/images/f/ff/Macapple1. png”,“bigUrl”:"/images/thumb/f/ff/Macapple1. png/29px-Macapple1. png",“smallWidth”:460,“smallHeight”:476,“bigWidth”:29,“bigHeight”:30,“licensing”:"<div class="mw-parser-output">

I edited this screenshot of a Mac icon. \n</p>

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\n</p></div>"}, click System Preferences. . . , click Sound, click Input, select your cassette deck’s input, and drag the “Input Volume” slider left or right to decrease or increase its volume. Start with a very low volume on the cassette deck or stereo, as your computer’s input circuitry can be damaged by high-level input.

Go to https://www. audacityteam. org/download/ in your web browser. Click Audacity for Windows. Click the Audacity 2. 2. 2 installer link. Double-click the installer file once it finishes downloading. Follow the setup prompts.

Click File in the top-left corner of the window. Select Export in the resulting drop-down menu. Click Export as MP3 in the pop-out menu. Select a save location. Enter a file name in the “File name” text box. Click Save. Click OK when prompted.

If the recording is too quiet or too noisy (the music is quiet but there’s lots “fuzzy” noise), the output was too low and the recording did not have enough signal to offset the noise. If the recorded sound sounds like it’s being played through a broken speaker or a meat grinder, your recording was too loud, and the sound’s distorted. You can adjust your computer’s sound settings to help offset the above issues.

When editing, it is a good idea to keep the original file as a backup and change the names of edited files when you save them in case you find you made a mistake. When you’re sure you like the edited file, you can delete the original to save drive space on your computer.

Most audio-editing programs offer some form of normalization.