Hi, I need help with the best way to record from a real-to-real tape to my laptop to burn CD’s. I am able to move the tracts from the tape over in to the Media software, but not the right way or the best way. The reel-to-reel tape that I am trying to put on CD’s is a long continuous tape with many songs I would like to create individual tracks that I can burn certain songs onto the CD and then make a new CD etc with other songs. I would like to be able to have the option to put multiple songs or just one at a time. When I stop the Roxio player it adds a new trac but it saves it in my recordings and when I play one of the songs it seem they are all under that one song so each trac is not recording as a separate song. Then when I went to burn (it finish it) it kept saying to save it or put it on a CD which I was trying to do, but I just kept opening the CD player and spitting out the CD. I would rather burn it to a CD than have it on my hard drive but it would not burn. It kept saying insert a blank CD, which it was and would eject it. Do you understand the goal that I am trying to achieve and can you tell me the best way to accomplish this? Thank you..

You may have done this already but it’s not exactly clear so I’ll write it anyway. To record from a tape to your laptop, put the tape you want to record from into a tape player that has a headphone jack. Plug in a male-male 3.5mm stereo speaker extension cable into the headphone jack of the tape player. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see this link.
Wire or Other Wire

Plug the other end of the cable into your computer’s microphone jack.
Now run the LP and Tape Assistant that comes with EMC 8.
Click the “Advanced Options” button.
Under “General”, you can select a location for the temporary audio files if you would like. It is not necessary though, the default location is fine.
Under File Format you can pick a format to store these temporary files. If you want the best quality, select .wav, otherwise select .mp3. Select Stereo 44.100 Hz and 16 bits per sample for optimal quality. If you selected .mp3 as the file format, you can adjust the quality settings at the bottom. I wouldn’t recommend putting the quality any lower than 192kbps.
Under Track Detection… well… I recommend doing this manually and therefore would suggest turning off all the checkboxes in this window and then pressing OK, however if you wish to automate this process then check the box beside “Enable track detection” and “Silence may contain noise”. Then press OK.

Now under “Capture From:” select your soundcard/chip that you are using/that the tape player is plugged into. Most people will only have one option to choose so this shouldn’t be a problem.
Under “Input:” select “Microphone”. You can do a quick test to make sure everything is working before beginning the recording. Just start playing the tape and see if the blue bars beside “L” and “R” move around. If they do, then you selected the correct Sound card/chip and Input port. Adjust the “Recording Level” so that the blue bars never go beyond the dark grey part. Don’t worry about the sound being too quiet during the recording because later when you burn it, the program will fix that. Once you’re ready, rewind the tape to the beginning. Now press the “Record” button in the Assistant and then press the play button on your tape player. If you selected the automatic track detection then sit back and let the program do the work, otherwise, listen for the first song to end. When it does, press the “Stop” button. Now quickly press the “Record” button again to get ready for the next track. Continue the process until the tape is over/needs to be flipped or whatever. When all the tracks have been recorded, press the “Next >” button.

If you need to cut out any silence or botched recordings then this is the step to do it. In this window, you can select portions of the recording and delete them. You can also edit track markers here. Also, since you’re recording from a tape, I would suggest clicking the “Clean” button and playing around with the settings that are in there. See if it improves the sound quality or not. If it does, then make your changes and press ok, otherwise press cancel. You can also press the “Equalizer” button and move around the sliders to attempt to get better audio fidelity. Once you are happy, press “Next >”.

This is the final step. Click the “Maximize Track Volumes” checkbox to activate this feature. Then click “Burn Audio CD”.
Select your CD Burner, insert a blank CD into it and then press OK. It should take care of the rest.

Is this what you did before?

Liqvid - the recommended way to import audio is to use the Line In socket and controls - NEVER the microphone (it's far too 'gainy')

Hi, thanks so much for the info. Yes, I had performed these steps. When I hooked them up I went from the 2 outputs RCA plugs in the rear of the reel-to-reel the hooked it in to the microphone jack on the laptop...What is the difference from the way you said to do it and the way I did it. Also, what is gi7omy's way of doing this in his message to you? I do not understand what he means.

I tried it both ways stopping it and pressing start after each song and the auto detect. These are live tapes that were performed in clubs, there is a lot of talking going on, clapping etc., and then the next song begins so I am not sure that the auto track detection will work in this circumstance. There are about 20 hours of recording so I am puzzled how these will burn onto the CD's. How does this work when you have 20 hours of recordings? Can you record this much and burn it to multiple CD's? I am worried that if it works the way I am hoping it prompts you to put another CD in, but how do you know that it did not put just part of one song on the end of one CD and now the other part of the song is going to be on the new CD? I cannot wrap my head around how this is going to work. Can you explain this? Am I way off base here?

So every time you start and stop that begins a new track? Do you have to have a full CD before it will burn because when I was testing it to see how it would play on a CD it would say either save or burn to a CD. I put a CD in but it would not burn...the CD Burner would just open every time. Like it had burned but the monitor would say 0%... Is this because I did not have the Maximize Tack Volumes checked?

I do not think I understand the way the tracks are laid down. After each song, I wanted to add the name the album and then name each song individually. Once I named the first song it was as if that was the album name now and would not let me name any other tracks. I obviously was doing this wrong. When and how is the best way to do this step?

Let’s say I do get them on to CDs, I am worried first that it will get to the end and only have half the song on the CD...before I have to insert another CD to continue. Is there any way to edit this part? Do you have any suggestions for this?

Then once I have the songs on CDs, can I now put them onto another computers hard drive and use Easy CD Creator 8 or the computers enhancers to adjust, modify or do any thing I need to do to them before burning them on to a new CD or convert to MP3 format to upload to a website?

I hope this is clearer and easier to understand than my last post...Thanks again for your help

On the back of the computer there should be three jack sockets - one for audio out, one for microphone and one for line in.

When you are capturing, the recommended method is to use line in and NOT mic. There is a pre-amplifier to boost the gain on a mic that can cause severe distortion on an audio feed from a tape deck. To put it simply, the level will be far too high