USB Cassette Deck

Tape2pc Software

About audacity

One of the free tools included with Ion's USB Cassette Deck is a free audio editing program called Audacity. While the software is an open source freeware program, it's a great inclusion here and worth looking into what it can do if you're looking to convert your old tapes to digital format.

Audacity has been around for some time now and one of the reasons it's been so popular, as well as the fact it's free, is that it's compatible with just about every kind of computer out there. It will run on Windows, Mac and also Linux. Although the software is included with Tape2PC, it's definitely worth going to the website and downloading the latest version once your USB cassette deck arrives.

The software can perform a number of really handy tricks such as editing recordings and improving the quality of the sound. Unlike a lot of software, it's also easy enough for new users to use. Audacity has also been designed to work with audio from a range of inputs, including cassettes.

Here's a screenshot of Audacity in action:

How can this tool help convert your tapes to MP3 & CD?

The editing side of things is going to be of use to anyone converting tapes to their PC. The reason being is that you can chop bits out, remove unwanted sections, and even mix different recordings together. While this would have been a lot trickier to do in the 80s, with cassettes, it's easy with this tool.

The other thing that you'll probably way to use this program for is to clean up your old recordings. Back in the day, we were prepared to put up with a lot from our music. There was even dolby noise reduction buttons on any tape decks worth their salt. (Although I could never work out if they made it sound better or worse!)

But the point is that Audacity has a great range of tools that will help clean up your cassette recordings. You can remove static, hiss, hum and all those other annoying background noises so that the music will sound a lot better. You'll actually be surprised at the quality of your recordings.

To sum up, Audacity is a great tool that is a really good companion to the USB Cassette Deck. Make sure you get the latest version and play around with some of the editing and correctional tools.