{"id":5098,"date":"2024-12-26T12:26:32","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T00:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/?p=5098"},"modified":"2025-07-08T10:14:57","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T22:14:57","slug":"capturing-cassette-tapes-reel-to-reel-audio-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/26\/capturing-cassette-tapes-reel-to-reel-audio-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Capturing Audio Tapes &#8211; Part I &#8211; Overview and Storage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Before reading this article, make sure you familiarise yourself with the audio terms in the <a href=\"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/wp-admin\/post.php?post=5269&amp;action=edit\">glossary of terms<\/a> page. Perhaps keep it open in a new tab so you can refer to it as needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Foreword<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Capturing analog audio has the lucky advantage that it requires a relatively small amount of storage by today&#8217;s standards, even if recorded in a high quality format like 24\/96 or greater. It is one of the simpler outcomes to achieve and is therefore easily rewarding as a first start into digital archiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Storage Requirements &#8211; <\/strong>Let&#8217;s say you used to play in a band and you have some old audio cassettes of band practices lying around. There are three songs at 3.5 minutes each (total 10.5 minutes) on your old cassette tape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Capture Quality options \/ Consumed space<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>HD Audio &#8211;<\/strong> Approximately 345MB at 24bit \/ 96kHz. In today&#8217;s hard drives, this is miniscule. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>CD Quality &#8211;<\/strong> Approximately 105MB &#8211; Use if space is an issue, or the content doesn&#8217;t warrant the extra size, this is still a high quality capture, excellent for voice, though if I were capturing music I would store it in i<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Compressed MP3 &#8211;<\/strong> If you&#8217;re feeling dangerous, capturing to MP3&#8217;s highest quality setting will set you back a total of 24MB for the same thing. There is little point in reducing the bit rate further, when you consider the minimal space this takes up as is.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This is easy to calculate using whatever settings you&#8217;re interested in with an online calculator such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colincrawley.com\/audio-file-size-calculator\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">this one<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Overview of equipment needed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There is more than one way to do this task. As you <a href=\"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/wp-admin\/post.php?post=5161&amp;action=edit\">may have read<\/a>, we will cover off three different methods to suit three types of individuals. For all methods listed, the bare minimum is a player and a computer (assuming the player has a built in USB port). Getting a bit more quality out of the system an analog capture system needs to be added<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>For the <a href=\"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/wp-admin\/post.php?post=5161&amp;action=edit\">Impatient<\/a> &#8211; Cassette Player with USB out \/ SD Card Saving ability, Computer Optional<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For the <a href=\"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/wp-admin\/post.php?post=5161&amp;action=edit\">Libran<\/a> &#8211; Rack Mount Cassette Deck, Digital Audio Interface, Computer Required<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For the <a href=\"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/wp-admin\/post.php?post=5161&amp;action=edit\">Perfectionist<\/a> &#8211; High Quality Second Hand Cassette Deck, High Quality Digital Audio Interface, Computer Required<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/27\/capturing-cassette-tapes-part-ii-buying-guide\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/27\/capturing-cassette-tapes-part-ii-buying-guide\/\">Next: Capturing Audio Tapes &#8211; Part II &#8211; Buying Guide<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before reading this article, make sure you familiarise yourself with the audio terms in the glossary of terms page. Perhaps keep it open in a new tab so you can refer to it as needed. Foreword Capturing analog audio has the lucky advantage that it requires a relatively small amount of storage by today&#8217;s standards, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":32,"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,370,365,368],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-audio","category-capture","category-hardware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digital-archivist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}