Audio Recording On A Mac - Suggestions?

[W1UJR]

Hello all, think we may have talked about this before, but a quick search of the archive did not turn up the query.

I've got a number of cassette tapes given to me by my father to record over to digital media.
They are quite old and not super high quality, mostly my grandfather, now passed away, and his early memories.
I'd like to dub these off for presentation to the family at Christmas, thinking of using an audio CD to hand out.

I use a Mac, figure I can use the audio input port, so the real question is what software to use?
Ideally free or low cost.
I'm also thinking of archiving all the cassette tapes of radio activities of the past as well.
Many of the AM Buffalo Dinners are on cassette tapes as well as the AM Special Event stations of the 1990s.

Appreciate the help, remember Mac only, that's all I have at the house.
Something without a steep learning curve.
Something free or inexpensive.

Thanks!
-Bruce

[Jim, W5JO]

Audacity

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Free to download and easy to use.

[KF1Z]

yup... or more directly...

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/mac

Of course... if you have a lot to do....

It may be benificial to buy a CD recorder (just harware).

These are likely less than $100 now.. and simpler than using the PC... sorry MAC.
With the 'puter /  software route... you'll spend some time getting input level settings correct. And still using a "volume normalizer" (or whatever it's called) to set the levels up for a good MP3 recording.
The hardware recorders generally do that automatically.

[W1UJR]

Yep, think that was the one that Brent W1IA had suggestion some years back.

I really like the price. 

Cool guys, why couldn't I remember that?

[Jim, W5JO]

Yep, think that was the one that Brent W1IA had suggestion some years back.

I really like the price. 

Cool guys, why couldn't I remember that?

Could age play a part?

[W1UJR]

Yep, think that was the one that Brent W1IA had suggestion some years back.

I really like the price. 

Cool guys, why couldn't I remember that?

Could age play a part?

Ah, yea, perhaps.
Worse yet, I'm only 45!

[Jim, W5JO]

Cool guys, why couldn't I remember that?

Could age play a part?
[/quote]


Ah, yea, perhaps.
Worse yet, I'm only 45!
[/quote]

Boy, 45, eyes, then memory, then I forget what came after that.

 

[WB2EMS]

Going back to the audio part for a moment (and yes, we have creeping CRS here too), has anybody got any good solutions to semi-automating porting 33 rpm record albums to digital in a similar fashion? I've done a couple using audacity, but it was a pretty manual process in terms of starting and stopping recordings for each cut, or grabbing a whole side and then parsing it off into smaller individual cuts. I'm looking for software that does a good job of parsing the audio without getting tripped up by the inter cut noise on the disc. I have about 100 albums of music I'd like to listen to again on a more regular basis, and to preserve. I've tried a couple of freeware packages but the ones I acquired didn't work very satisfactorily.

Porting LP's to MP3's seems like a good winter project.