Cassette deck for laptop - tape to computer

is there any special or is there a normal with a usb stick

[zeus]

Im looking for a Cassette deck where I can take all my old tapes and save them on my laptop, is there any cassette deck with a USB stick or somthing.

zeus

[bakedjake]

You shouldn't need anything special. You hook the cassette deck up to an amplifier, and then hook the amplifier up to the line in on the computer.

Use a cable that combines the male L/R RCA audio plugs on the amp to a male 1/8" stereo mini that hooks into the computer. Radio Shack carries them:

[radioshack.com...]

You don't need a Monster cable (they're the cadillac brand of audio cable - it's the first one I found), but that's the type of cable you need. I think the Radio Shack house brand is like $4.

[tbear]

Hi zeus,
I use audiograbber to record, from cassettes and discs, then audacity to clean them up afterwards. Works like a charm and both free!
As mentioned above, feed into the line in sockets (I go from amplifier line out).
You can eliminate the majority of the hiss of cassettes with minimal (audible) loss to sound quality.
Once in your computer you might then wish to transfer to cd (not sure about copyright rules) for convenience.

[aspdaddy]

tbear - does the s/ware you mentioned get it on to CD or is this just to capture a WAV/MP3 format?

Do you know of anyway to burn cassettes on the fly to a CD?

[tbear]

I would guess that burning 'on the fjy' would be a problem, because your cassette has one big recording with silent parts, you could possibly burn 1 track, being the whole cassette.
I grab the tracks from the cassette individually, trim the beginning and end of each track and kill the noise, label the tracks and create a cd from my hard drive. I also grab vinyl records (got some gems from the 50s and 60s).
Audiograbber has the facility to sense the silent spaces between tracks, but I prefer to sit and control things 'real time' 'cos it ain't that good (bit like computer translations, LOL).
Oh, and they are Open Source programmes, I believe, not shareware.
Must confess, when I'm recording my own stuff (I'm a guitarist) I take the tracks into 'Logic audio' for editing and mixing, but that's another story.......