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Physical Media Is Dead, Long Live Physical Media (hackaday.com)

submitted 2 days ago by mesamunefire to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

1st thing i would do would be call the radio station--they might have a digital copy already, since it's a performance. or they might have the equipment you'd need to get it digitized. just don't leave the tape with them, unless you make a copy.

failing that, the public library might also have tape to digital conversion gear, depending on how big/well funded the library is.

last resort would be a recording studio, which might cost lots of money per hour, and it'll have to be converted in real time--play the tape from start to finish, while the computer 'records' it. if the studio don't have a top of the line gourmet tape deck, then they can take just take the output of your own player and plug it into protools, just ask for the highest resolution/bitrate in a lossless format

edit: i forgot another option, if you're in the states. you might try your state archives, just google the name of your state along with "archive", it should be a .gov address. they might actually be interested in the recording for their own digital collection, and would definitely have the necessary gear to get it digitized. the tricky part is they would need the permission of the radio station and/or whoever owns the copyright to post it publicly

[–] grue 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

1st thing i would do would be call the radio station–they might have a digital copy already

It hasn't existed since 2003 (there's still a station on that frequency, but it's changed ownership and programming a couple of times). Maybe they still have the old master copies anyway? Or I suppose I could try to track down the DJs who produced it...

The library and state archives ideas are good suggestions; I'll look into them.

last resort would be a recording studio, which might cost lots of money per hour, and it’ll have to be converted in real time–play the tape from start to finish, while the computer ‘records’ it. if the studio don’t have a top of the line gourmet tape deck, then they can take just take the output of your own player and plug it into protools

I mean, if using my own player might be considered "good enough," couldn't I just hook my Walkman's headphone output to the line in or mic input on my computer and do it myself? In addition to the audio built into the motherboard, I also have a relatively-cheap USB audio interface, which I guess isn't as good as it could be (it's 48KHz, not 192KHz) but would still be better than nothing.

The main thing is I'm not sure how I need to set the volume on the Walkman (it also apparently has a feature called "AVLS" that might or might not be relevant) or if I need an amplifier or something. I also don't know if I need to do anything special with ALSA/JACK/PulseAudio and know basically nothing about how to use Ardour or XMMS (I'm aware they exist and are the right type of software, but that's about it).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

if using my own player might be considered “good enough,” couldn’t I just hook my Walkman’s headphone output to the line in or mic input on my computer and do it myself?

absolutely, i was responding to your question

any advice on what I should do to get the best quality transfer that I can?

other users have mentioned you can get a converter online, but the "you get what you pay for" maxim applies to electronics maybe more than anything else. the difference in quality between "consumer" and "professional" audio gear is getting narrower, but it's still there-- everything just depends on how much you want to spend

not sure how I need to set the volume on the Walkman

if the walkman has a "line out" port, you'd use that to plug into your "line in" on your recording device. you can use the headphone jack, but that signal is already amplified, so you'll have to adjust the output volume to where the input meter is the highest it can be without ever clipping (going 'red'). older consumer gear will have more noise (hiss) than anything professional. especially an amplified signal, as in a headphone jack. and that's where the money for pro stuff goes--lower noise floor. more information

edit: on a whim i did some looking and found this lol

you could just buy that, dump the recording down to a SD card, and then return the device the next day. done.
i had no idea they made such things, but i haven't really kept up with the music/audio industry since i left