Luckily the good news is, unless you're needing to capture some very unusual format, it is a relatively easy exercise to find appropriate equipment for purchase. Even reel to reel tape players can be easily found for a price.
Continuing on from Part I of this article, we will break this down into three main use cases for the Impatient, the Libran and the Perfectionist.
If you are interested in capturing from Reel to Reel tapes, please see the related page on the topic here.
The Impatient Option
Capturing from Cassette
Equipment Needed
USB Cassette Deck - The best way to get this done if you don't care about quality too much, is to get a deck or unit that has an in-built usb port, which you can connect directly to a computer, or a unit that saves directly to an SD Card / USB stick without even needing a computer. This significantly reduces complication, time and financial outlay. However, be warned if you value what's on the tape, then you are going to get a less than optimal result. These units have cheap play heads in them and provide limited output quality options that result in lower quality compressed audio on top of the already cheap play head. For the most part I would not recommend doing it this way, but for some this may be all you need.
Buying options to get you started:
- USB Walkman - Saves to Computer
- USB Walkman - saves to USB stick (no computer required)
- USB Walkman - Saves to micro SD Card / Computer
- Pyle Cassette deck - Saves to MP3 via computer
The Libran Option
Cassette Player - For someone trying to find that balanced sweet spot of price vs quality, the first main component I recommend, is a second hand, good quality rack style tape deck. This is because you will not be able to produce any better quality sound than that of the first item in the chain, your tape deck. No cables, interface or software is going to improve the tape deck quality for you, in fact, everything in the audio chain from here on is only going to degrade the sound, therefore a quality tape deck has to be the first recommendation.
You can of course also try your luck with any new equipment that is still available for purchase, such as the Marantz Professional PMD-300CP, the Tascam 202MKVII or the Onkyo TA-RW311. Generally this new equipment doesn't quite output the audio quality that the equipment made in the late 80's / early 90's did when the format was most popular. As such, you're more likely to get a better deal all round with the second hand options and that's why it's recommended, though most people are likely to be happy with either and this will be driven more by your budget.
Buying recommendations to get you started:
- Pioneer CT-F1000
- Akai GX
- DENON DRM-740
- Nakamichi if you can find it at the right price, usually quite expensive
- Many others
The good news is there has been renewed interest in analogue cassette decks, so you can still buy these new. Have a look at https://audiophiles.co/tape-deck/ for some suggestions on new equipment. Otherwise, to find a good quality deck in your area, my suggestion is to look up the recommendations on places like https://audiophiles.co/tape-deck/ or other enthusiast sites you can find on the internet by searching. Have a look what they recommend and compare this this to what is available in your local auction web site such as eBay (US), Mecardo Libre (Colombia), Gumtree (Australia) or Trademe (New Zealand).
Comprehensive Tape Deck Listing - We are attempting to create a list of recommended available Tape Decks, please reach out if you would like to contribute.
Tip: Cassette Decks made in the 80's are usually more repairable being that they don't have a lot of proprietary integrated circuits on silicon chips. If you purchase an 80's era deck and something goes wrong, an electronics engineer is going to be more able to repair your unit without specialist parts.
Tip: Many people recommend 3 head decks saying that they offer a better quality sound because the recording head is separated from the play head. Physically speaking, the dedicated play head is certainly easier for a technician to adjust to the tape path and the 3 head unit was generally a more expensive unit therefore may have a better quality head. That said, there are plenty of excellent quality 2 head units also. The main thing here is just to get a quality tape deck, such as those recommended on AudioKarma or TapeHeads.
Tip: If purchasing secondhand, make sure to check for rusty heads, which are common on older units not well kept. Picture here
Analog Capture Interface - Providing a significant step up in quality, getting a proper analog capture interface is the second main recommended component. Not only does it surpass the quality of the inbuilt USB interfaces mentioned in the above 'impatient' guide, they also offer independent gain controls, level metering, balanced inputs and outputs and proper high resolution audio capture. These are readily made and sold at your local music store and a myriad of options are available.
Buying options to get you started:
- Focusrite 4i4 - Desktop Audio Interface, portable, middle of the range, great quality DAC's, local gain controls with hardware metering. This is my recommended pick if you want the middle of the road quality for importing audio from tape based devices.
- Behringer UMC 202-HD - If the Focusrite seems a bit expensive, try the Behringer UMC 202-HD. Also equipped with excellent pre-amps and DAC but costs less than half of the Focusrite, this could well be the cherry of bunch.
- MACKIE PROFX6 V3 - Desktop Mixer, uses more space on your desk than the Focusrite and Behringer above, probably slightly lower quality DAC's than the Focusrite, however can double as an analogue mixer for fixing levels of VHS tapes and generally gives you a greater degree of control over input / output levels. This would be the pick if you want the all rounder with proper manual hardware controls. Of course, this is a sort of entry level mixer - there are higher quality mixers should you wish to spend more. If you are going to also digitise VHS tapes / other analog video sources, then I do strongly suggest getting something like this that has both balanced and unbalanced audio in / out, in addition to a digital connection to your computer to keep your options open. You may find for example that your TBC takes balanced audio inputs (such as the BrightEye 75), a situation where the Focusrite doesn't perform so well being it doesn't have balanced outputs.
Tip: There is usually no advantage to choosing a firewire or thunderbolt based capture device over a USB based capture device (from an audio quality perspective). Further, these devices are typically harder to sell later when you're finished given most Windows based users don't have thunderbolt, firewire requires special add on cards or adapters and as at December 2024, Thunderbolt under linux is still pretty much unusable. Otherwise, there is nothing at all wrong with non-USB style adapters, or PCIe adapters, they'll all record audio just fine.
Computer - Luckily for you, almost any old computer will do for this work. Even old computers with old mechanical hard drives and CRT screens were capable of recording more than 2 channels of audio in real time. That said, you obviously want something at least a bit modern so that you can get an up to date operating system and matching audio capture software. If your computer is too old, you will almost certainly find difficulty getting drivers and software to run on it, with some open source software being a notable exception. Windows, Mac or Linux will all handle this task just fine. However, an SSD drive of any sort will make life easier.
Capture Software - Without a doubt, the easiest software to obtain and use to record audio into a computer is audacity. Being open source, there is no purchase price, it can save your audio into anything from low quality MP3 to full studio quality formats in open format containers as per your needs and runs on Windows, Mac or Linux. However, there are a lot of options available to do this, including those that come with the particular capture device you have or you may be used to something else. Generally all audio capture software will work.
Cables - There has been a lot of debate on this over the years and you will know where you sit on the debate. My belief, is that there is some science to not having cheap and thin cables, but any audible difference between an average set and an expensive set will be arguable, and bare in mind that the studios don't spend that kind of money on their audio cables in the first place, which is rather telling. Either way for most people an average set of cables will do the trick, if you disagree you're welcome to pay more. Depending on what you're connecting to, these may be RCA, DIN, XLR or Jack cables, or a mixture of any of the above. In the example below I will list what is used for my particular setup.
The Perfectionist Option
If you just want the best of everything no matter the cost, my recommendation is as follows:
Cassette Player - The Nakamichi Dragon is arguably regarded as the best ever made tape deck. You might also like the Nakamichi CR-7, ZX-9, or 682ZX.
Analog Capture Interface - The Focusrite Clarett+ 2Pre expands upon the Focusrite Scarlett with a premium, higher quality sound tailored to the professional audio engineer in a desktop form factor.
If instead you want the flexibility that only a mixer can bring, the MACKIE ONYX8 is a premium option with USB output.
Computer - Adding to the recommendations to get an SSD above for the best performance I would recommend an NVME type of SSD, in built thunderbolt capability to give you the widest range of compatibility, and presently I could only recommend AMD CPU's due to all the unfortunate underhanded tactics and the risk of degrading / faulty chips that are currently available from Intel. It's a shame to have poor competition for AMD, but presently it is what it is.
Capture Software - This is actually quite hard. Audacity works so well despite it's outdated interface and the industry standard tools like AVID's Pro Tools are overly complicated for this task and have moved to subscription only models. I simply won't recommend a subscription to anyone, therefore we're left with a bit of a mixed bag. Reaver get's an honourable mention at $60 but it is a full blow Digital Audio Workstation and as such is more complicated that we need for our purposes. Sound Forge Audio Studio is probably closer to the mark at $60 for a clean simple interface, but isn't particularly pro. I might nearly recommend the awesome Davinci Resolve if it didn't require the use of its own capture hardware, but again it's completely overkill. If anyone knows of any paid premium audio capture software that is simple and easy to use and not overkill and complicated, please let me know.
Cables - I think this one is obvious, you're going to want something like the QED Performance Audio Cables. Of course you can spend more if you like, like these Espirit Audio Cables at $6000 USD, I'm sure you'll find even more expensive ones if you want to.
