Review on 🎵 Cassette to MP3 Converter: BlumWay Portable Recorder Player for Converting Audio Music Tape to Digital Format with Earphone - No Computer Required by Scott Channell

DO THIS IF YOU WANT A GREAT SOUNDING RECORDING! These 2 minutes of reading will save you HOURS of TIME. I want someone to write this before I start this project. I bought this based on the positive reviews and because it is made by Jensen and they are supposed to be an audio company. Anyway, I have about 30 tapes from the 1990's of interviews, my kids talking to friends and playing guitar. I used a $50 boombox with the worst mic in the world (built into the boombox) for some recordings, so I didn't have the best gear at the time and didn't know I'd be messing around with it 30 years later. I'm a computer graphic artist, musician and semi-professional photographer. So I use a lot of computers and software. I bought this recorder and wasn't happy with what I wanted to do with my cassettes. It was difficult to use and failed to record to USB after 2 tapes. so sent back. Don't waste your time if you value your cassettes. The Jensen costs about $8 more and is solidly built and will last. So buy it as it is easy to use and you can see the band moving. Big buttons. And it just works the way it's supposed to. Even your grandmother can use it. This is the best alternative for this project. I spent HOURS trying to find the best option and even considered buying a $200 cassette deck off ebay, but I didn't want the expense and hassle of setting up a large unit, which I wouldn't do. reuse after the tapes have been recorded. I've used Jensen with a Windows-compatible VTOP USB2.0 analog audio capture device (priced at $19). Works much better than the headphone jack. This connects to my windows laptop and makes things easy. You can use the headphone jack, but it picks up a lot of random noise. The voice recorder uses 4 C batteries and has a mains plug. So here's the IMPORTANT part. If you are using an AC plug (wall outlet), you will hear a very loud hum/buzz or electrical noise when trying to listen/record through your computer. So loud it will ruin your records. I've tried several plugs and computers around my house and they all had hum (that's a grounding issue of the voice recorder itself, and it picks up the electrical noise that ends up in your recording). This won't happen if you're using batteries and the recording sounds good. I have a lot of cartridges and didn't want to go through the hassle of buying Type-C batteries or a rechargeable battery pack ($25 more). The solution and the answer is that this problem is noise isolation. "Smof Ground Loop Noise Isolator for Car Audio/Home Stereo (Completely Eliminates Humming Noise) with 3.5mm Audio Cable, Black Ground Loop Noise Isolator for Car Audio/Home Stereo" The recording is as good as the cassette! If you don't use one of these, you will be disappointed and regret that you're trying to record all those tapes with bad sound quality. the hum is so loud that you can't listen to the recording. Any silencer will do, and $30 is no better than $10 because they all do the same thing. So for about $50 I have a nice system to digitize my tapes. NO, it's twice as much as a cheap Chinese USB recorder, but I know that the time spent recording will not be wasted and the recordings will be as good as a cassette. And in the end SAVE TIME. I use Adobe Audacity to record since I have a subscription for my work, but almost any program will work. A good FREE software is the audio software Audacity (audacityteam.org). It's pretty simple and easy to use. When I loaded the tape into the Jensen to record, I set a timer in the software for the length of the tape, typically 46 minutes for my 90 minute tapes, so the recording automatically stops when the tape ends. So I just put the tape in and hit the record button and the recording stops when the timer ends (I put the tape in and go to bed). This saves you hours of notes that you have to edit later. there is no timer and you have to turn off the record button or sit next to Jensen to stop it (again a timing issue if you have a lot of tapes). Audicity also has a timer mode and a quick Google search will tell you how to set it up. ** Also save your recordings as WAV files for the original and make a copy of the MP3 file for sharing. ** Also do a 1 minute test. Records before you start recording the entire tape so you can get the volume right on the Jensen as it acts as a gain for the recording. If you don't do this, the recording may be too low or too high, both of which sound bad. ** Also save your recordings as wav files for the original and make a copy of the file as an mp3 for sharing. ** Also, do a 1 minute test recording before you start recording the entire tape so you can get the Jensen volume level right. since it serves as amplification for the recording. Otherwise the recording may be too low or too high and both will sound bad*** So if you care about your tapes, get it right the first time and spend a few bucks. ** Also save your recordings as wav files for the original and make a copy of the file as an mp3 for sharing. ** Also, do a 1 minute test recording before you start recording the entire tape so you can get the Jensen volume level right. since it serves as amplification for the recording. If you don't do this, the recording may be too low or too high, both of which sound bad. ** Also save your recordings as wav files for the original and make a copy of the file as an mp3 for sharing. ** Also, do a 1 minute test recording before you start recording the entire tape so you can get the Jensen volume level right. since it serves as amplification for the recording. If you don't do this, the recording may be too low or too high, both of which sound bad. ** Also save your recordings as wav files for the original and make a copy of the file as an mp3 for sharing. ** Also, do a 1 minute test recording before you start recording the entire tape so you can get the Jensen volume level right. since it serves as amplification for the recording. If you don't do this, the recording may be too low or too high, both of which sound bad. since it serves as amplification for the recording. If you don't, the recording may be too low or too high, both of which sound bad. since it serves as amplification for the recording. If you don't do this, the recording may be too low or too high, both of which sound bad.