Transfer Audio Cassettes to CD or Digital
The cassette tape started a cultural boom in the 1970s and 1980s. Our audio technicians see A LOT of “mix tapes” from that era, because who are we kidding, most people have made some form of a mix tape at some point in their life! Our audio cassette to CD transfer service records both sides of your tapes to digital. We can even split the music tracks on your tape, allowing you to skip songs in your iPod or car. If your audio tape has labeling, we can split tracks AND save the titles for each one before we return your audio recordings on a CD. When we convert audio to digital, we also provide downloadable mp3 files via your private, password protected website so you can share individual tracks, or import them into your iTunes library for easy playback.
In its heyday, the audio cassette was incredibly popular before portable CD and mp3 players took over the music business. Mass production started in the mid-1960s (the Beatles had five Top 40 singles out around the time of the Vietnam War) and they were not just for recording mix tapes. The tapes were so small, portable and easy to use in a Walkman that they went head-to-head with vinyl over music sales. If audio cassettes weren’t so easy to steal, the actual sales numbers could have completely dominated vinyl until the CD player came along. In case you didn’t realize, all audio cassette tapes are the same size and shape, but there are a variety of different kinds of audio cassettes based on the way they were made.
There aren’t many places that transfer cassettes to CD anymore. You can, of course, do research on a cassette tape to CD burner. But our audio to digital service does it all! We can transfer cassette tapes to digital and preserve the quality of the recording.
If you have audio captured on REELS, you should visit this page.
Everything you need to know
about Audio Cassettes to CD
Common audio to digital conversion questions
How long is my audio tape?
Most of the time it will say on the tape. If there’s no information on your audio cassette, the average audio cassette can record 30 – 60 minutes on each side.
Can songs from a 90 minute cassette be burned to a Cd?
If the total length does not exceed 80 minutes, we can transfer cassettes to CD without issues. If the tape has 60 minutes of audio on each side we will put each side on its own disc and label your CDs Side A and Side B.
What can I do with my audio after digitizing?
After the audio cassette tape digital conversion, you can do so many things! Here are just a couple things we’ve seen: Use the sound from your tapes in a custom slideshow or incorporate the audio into a video editing project. Create CDs of old tapes to share with family (especially fun if you’ve recorded someone speaking). Import your new mp3 files into your iTunes library and create your own personal playlist. If you create playlists in iTunes, you can use those in Spotify also!
“Whichever one of you got the thrilling job of sitting through my grandfather singing and playing church hymns on the harmonica for what must have been painful hours in order to locate and separate the tracks did a superb job. I am sure it isn’t as fun to listen to when it isn’t your own grandfather, but I hope you had a good laugh anyway! I am so grateful. Now my whole family can enjoy this treasure forever.”
– Carrie G.
Visit one of our Northeast locations:
MassachusettsHEADQUARTERS - Newton
Ashburnham
Back Bay & South End
Braintree
Burlington
Cambridge/Somerville
Dartmouth
Falmouth
Great Barrington
Natick
North Attleborough (MA/RI)
Northborough
Northampton
Worcester
or work with us from the comfort of your own home.
You can also ship directly to us!
- Consultations from the privacy of your own home
- Perfect for large or complex projects with multiple formats
- Our certified consultants travel across the Northeast
- Free, no obligations estimate
- Speak with our certified consultants over the phone about how we transfer cassettes to CD
- Ship to our headquarters in Newton, MA
Standard & custom pricing options
We’ll convert all of your audio cassette tapes to DVD or USB, plus we digitally capture your labeling.
- CD or digital only
- Digital mp3 format
- Files downloadable and uploadable to media players
- Label transcription
- Track labels transcribed
- Tracks numbered and ordered
- Download tracks to media players of your choice
- Digital mp3 format
- Mini/Micro/DAT/8Track: $35.99/tape
- CD transfer: $20.99/CD for first 10, $15.99/CD for 11-40, $10.99/CD for 50+
- Extra DVDs and CDs: $15 Standard, $20 Archival
- Extra USB: ask your consultant
- Add .wav files to your order: $40
- Volume pricing: Ask your consultant
- Vinyl records
- DAT tapes
- Reel to reel audio
- Private website upload free for 6 months
WE ORGANIZE AND DIGITIZE ALL OF YOUR MEMORIES
Get an estimate on your audio cassettes to CD project!
Fill out our form or call to speak to a consultant
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What sort of equipment do you use for audio tape transfer?
Audio tapes are an interesting arena for digitizing because new equipment is still being made, but the best equipment is old. For example, if you are looking to transfer simple voice or other original recordings that were not recorded with much professionalism, new machines from places like Pyle or Ion – not names you know – might suffice. But if you are dealing with music or voice audio where the quality is going to matter, you need the old decks to transfer cassettes to CD. We rely almost 100% on Nakamichi and Sony high end audio players for our digital transfer services. Beyond that, we use high quality pre-amplifiers and cables to connect to our computer environment where we optimize the digital files.
What type of audio files do I get from my cassette transfers?
We initially transfer to a digital .wav file with near-zero compression. At that stage, we do an initial quality check and apply software filters to optimize the audio. The primary benefit is equalizing the noise levels and anti-hiss filters. For 90% of clients, the choice is a smaller .mp3 file for ease of use on a smartphone device, or a CD. At this point in the process, we export the files to the relevant format, split and label tracks if they are music, and then produce the final audio CD, USB or cloud archive.
How do I decide whether to attempt DIY audio transfer? And if I decide to hire an audio transfer service, how do I pick?
DIY is relatively cost effective for audio tapes vs. other digitizing for a few reasons. The audio machines are cost effective as long as you are somewhat flexible on quality and don’t need the content you digitize to be perfect. And because audio files are much smaller than video files, most computers and hard drives can handle the work. So when it comes to audio cassettes, getting them digital at home is legitimately achievable as long as you don’t require perfect sound. When it comes to hiring a digitizing service, if it’s too cheap, we recommend finding someone else. Audio recordings have decayed a lot, and the purpose of using a professional transferring service is to get the most you can out of a challenging audio tape. If you see something really cheap, it means the service is not engaging the files and just doing what you’d do at home anyway. So when it comes to audio tape transfer services, we recommend going with the more sophisticated players so that your investment pays off.