Audio Transfer: Convert Audio to Digital on Mac

Recently a friend came to to me with a tape of her husband giving a talk for a volunteer organization he was a member of. Her husband died a couple of years ago and she asked me if there was anyway to get his recorded talk off tape and onto something more permanent. Of course! She sent me home with her husband’s old tape deck and the tape. So began an interesting project.

I have to say, back in the 90’s, when I discovered the fun of music and computers, I transferred all my old tapes to digital format. Soon after that, I transferred all my VHS to DVDs. What a chore. It was still the dark ages for me, being between Macs. Back then I used Roxio for the music and Nero for the video. Since then, so much has changed- I got a Mac, DRM is crazy and software for this kind of thing is rampant. Let me tell you about my very pleasant sound transfer experience today. Please keep in mind, I’m not a sound engineer, so hopefully my experience will be useful for the everyday Mac user.

First, I checked my media hardware. #1- A sound delivery system. I had a tape deck (and record player) with those red and white audio stereo output jacks. #2- A Mac Mini with a Line- In jack. That’s All? Yep, unless I felt like I needed some sort of complex audio booster box. Or if I was doing video, some sort of AV magic box. I know these exist, I don’t know what I would need one for. So I settled for my wire from Radio Shack to connect the two.

Second, I checked my software set up. There are a zillion sound programs out there. I ended up using the Audio Hijack and Fission duo from Rogue Amoeba. Here’s a few others- Sound Studio (Freeverse), Audacity (free open source), Roxio’s Toast, Peak LE, or Wave Pad (NCH Sound). Seriously, check VersionTracker for many others. The things I looked for in the software was- #1 easy to use, #2 file format availability. If you need to clean up the sound or want to make it easier to record from vinyl, different programs bring useful tools to the software. Some will automatically break the tracks up, by silence, some will clean up record and tape noise. DRM has made software file formats difficult. Each program has different format options. I wanted AIFF, to convert into AAC later in iTunes, to burn CDs. My thinking on this is the same as for my graphic design. Keep your original material in the best file format available, then use that as your back up and convert to whatever you need for the final product.

Third, I laid out a bit of time. The tape I was recording was 30 minutes. So I wanted to be around for the playing of the tape into the computer, so I could check out the sound quality as the tape played.

Now here’s the easy part. Plug the tape deck into the Mac. For the Rogue Amoeba software, I downloaded their ‘Line-In’ plug-in, to boost the performance of my Line-In input. Then I played the tape and turned the software recorder on. It’s different in each piece of software. For me, I tell Audio Hijack to ‘hijack’ Line - In sound; it restarts and runs the audio through Hijack and saves it. When the recording is done, I check out my file in Fission. Some of the listed programs will do all this in one. In Fission (or any audio editor) I can clip files up into pieces and save them. In other programs you can clean them up, filter them, even add stuff to them (check out Garage Band for mash-ups). When I’m done editing my file, I save it in AIFF format.

My last step in to import it into iTunes, convert it into an AAC file and then start burning discs. My friend was very gratified to hear her husband’s voice, as were some of his other family members.

I can’t tell you what a pleasure it was to do this on the Mac, though to be fair, when I did it on Windows those many years ago, some of the software was unpolished. Still, for me like most things on a Mac, it felt easy. I think that video transferring would be just as pleasant. Of course, iMovie and iDVD might be used. Or you could check out Roxio’s Toast 8 or Final Cut or iDive. Check out Pulp Motion for fun video mash up. You might need a video capture box to hook up those old VCRs to your Mac. Aside from that, the transfer process looks about the same. Capture, in your program of choice, edit your video and burn to DVD. I’m a little sad that I don’t have any VHS tapes left to try it out on. Maybe I’ll skulk around the flea market and find a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, just for fun!

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