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This post has been edited by vaughner: 27 June 2012 - 09:47 AM

I have a related question: I've been gradually converting a bunch of cassette tape recordings over to digital by using a patch cord from my stereo's headphone jack and running it into the line-in jack on my MacBook Pro. But the MacBook Air and the new Retina MacBook Pro have no line-in jack. Presumably I have to record through a USB interface, and instead of going from the headphone jack on my amplifier I'd probably use the "tape out" RCA jacks and use RCA cables to go to the USB interface. I'm just not sure if this is the best approach and whether someone could recommend a USB interface for this.

When you connect the iMic, instead of going into the Sound System Preference to select your Sound input/output sources, just Option-click on the sound icon in the Menu Bar and select it there.

bradhurley, on 27 June 2012 - 09:44 AM, said:

If you want to use this for pro, or semi-pro projects, I'd strongly recommend going the external USB / Firewire / Thunderbolt interface route as these usually have much better analogue-digital converters than those found inside the MacBook Air / Pro / Retina. RCA outputs should be fine, but experiment with taking the feed from the amplifier and directly from the tape deck (if the latter is a separate unit) as the less circuitry you send the analogue signal through, the cleaner it should be.

Then again, cassettes have a pretty high noise threshold and are prone to increased wow and flutter over time due to damage to the tape itself. Unlike vinyl, you can't always see the wear and tear easily on a magnetic tape, but you can certainly hear it.

If it's an option, check if the track already exists online. A lot of back-catalogue material, including very obscure albums, has been remastered over the past decade, so you might be surprised at the improvement in quality available. Yes, it can mean buying it again, but once you have it in digital form, it's never going to suffer from dropout, or get scratched, stretched, worn or otherwise damaged as long as you keep backups.

You can find a lot of inexpensive ($5) adapters on Ebay and such. Just look for 'USB to Audio Headset Headphone Mic Converter Adapter'

What's wrong with using a 4-pin (male) to 2x 3-pin (female) connector?
Like this one:

http://www.amazon.co...Q/ref=pd_cp_e_2

bradhurley, on 27 June 2012 - 09:44 AM, said:

I have found the quality of the iMic Input interface to be superior to the Macbook Line In for this task. (Same true for the iMic headphone out quality.)

First I would try using the Tape Out to the Input on the iMic and then, if you think it can be improved on you might get better S/N ratio using the headphone out to the iMic Input and gradually increasing the output till the sound seems optimal - though I am no expert on this stuff - just my experience.

Then you need capturing software. The makers of iMic have a free Final Yinyl for Mac that seems to work well.

The iMic is one accessory I use frequently though there may be a better interface that I am unaware of that may be designed for your specific requirement.

stimarco, on 27 June 2012 - 10:12 AM, said:

Thanks -- in fact these are all home or field recordings (many of them made by me), nothing that was ever released on any label.

I actually just realized that I probably have the solution in-hand already: I have a Korg MR-1000 digital recorder that I use for pro-level field recording, and I could just run the cassette deck outputs to that, record to the MR-1000's hard disk, and transfer the files via USB to my Mac. It would save me a step if I could record directly to the Mac, but I might as well use what I already have.

PJL500, on 27 June 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

Thanks! I've been using Amadeus Pro for the past 6-7 years or so and am very happy with it.

bradhurley, on 27 June 2012 - 10:40 AM, said:

That seems a very good solution. The MR-1000 does not have pass-through? (I remember using an old Mini-DV camera with pass through to convert analog to digital.)

Blue Microphones has a few great USB options. Yes they're not headset mics but they're amazing. I use the Blue Yeti Pro and it is plug & play on my new MBpro Retina. I do a radio show weekly and the audio quality is amazing. I suppose it depends on your needs but I'd suggest looking into them. www.bluemic.com

Cheers

PJL500, on 27 June 2012 - 11:17 AM, said:

It seemed like a good solution, but in fact no dice: I forgot that the only inputs to the MR-1000 are XLR and 1/4". The RCA jacks are output only. So there's no way to get the sound in there from my tape deck.

Any recommendations for a good external DAW that would be up for this job (going from cassette deck to computer)?

bradhurley, on 27 June 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

Actually I see that RCA-to-1/4" cables are available so I'll just get a couple of those. That should do the trick, I'm all set!