Transferring Audio Recordings to Digital Recording For Family History

I haven't posted about working on my mothers family history for about a year. I think it was this month last year when I stopped working on transferring reel to reel, cassette tapes, records or any types of video over to digital. Here is a link to my post about that.

It was a busy time with Princess Five graduating and end of the year things. She got busy and then I was hoping I could get some help from family members and just push through all the stuff I hadn't been able to get to but as sometimes happens in families, the dynamics got in the way. 

It seems like there are these type of dynamics in every family. I was hoping I could get at least a few of my seven siblings to spend a few days pushing through the recordings. I shared in some posts about how long it takes to transfer reel-to-reel audio off as there are up to 6 tracks on each reel and some reels are 2 hours long on slow play so that one reel can take up to 12 hours. 

Thank heavens most of the reels were smaller reels but I got so burned out working on the tapes that I gave up. I loaded up the tapes in the pictures here with the reel-to-reels and sent them to one of my sisters that said she would rather store them. I am of the thinking, get through it, finish it and get rid of it. I can't seem to get the rest to agree and so my sister just keeps storing lots of useless stuff for years now. I am storing tons of stuff but I think it has historical value and would like to be done with it and digitize it all and share it with everyone.

I am still so overwhelmed with all the stuff that I literally haven't worked on it for the past year. The documents are stacked in Princess Fours room while she is in Japan. I can't seem to get focused back into working on it! 

I really wanted to get all of it out of her room but the thought of pulling it all out and finishing the sorting and then hauling it all to the university library to scan it for days just gets me super overwhelmed. I really want to get finished with this but as you can see by the pictures, even just the audio tapes alone are crazy. I have to share that the stuff in the pictures is what ws left AFTER we sorted many times. There were more than double the amount of cassette tapes to begin with and we sorted and distributed some to extended family years back. Here is a link to one of those posts.

These pictures show what was left AFTER we did those sorts and recordings years ago. I really want to get back to finishing these but I don't know that I will get back to it being sick and then Princess One's baby is due in a few weeks. I am not sure I want to pull it all out before then as it will then be a mess while I go to help her.

I do think if I worked super long hours for a month, I could get it finished to the point where I could have it ready to scan all the pictures and documents at least and then once I get them scanned, I can distribute the rest of the originals to my siblings and get it all out of my house.  

After the documentation stuff is done, I can then focus on the VHS, and other recordings. I haven't ever used the "capturing device" yet but I have over 100 VHS tapes of my girls and about 50 other recordings of my mom and my siblings that need to be done. It seems like things are never done. I still haven't finished my transferring of my sd cards and organizing my back up drives. I have slowly been continuing that and have seen some good progress so I can't be frustrated with that as I am getting it done.  

I made a video of how to record tapes, reels, and records over to digital using the free software "audacity" that is SUPER EASY. 

I had never used the software before, yet I found it really easy to figure out. The main thing I will share is that if you need to record two things together from two different tapes or there is a long pause or jumbled stuff in the middle, hit "pause" on the program rather than stop as once it is stopped, it is some work to splice two recordings together, it is much easier to hit pause. Even if there is a click mid recording, it is really easy to delete that click or bring up the sound erasing that one portion than it is to splice. 

If I ever wasn't sure on something, it was really easy to find a tutorial on "how to" on youtube. I just shared the basics of the program on the video. The two biggest things I learned was to not record anything in the red zone. Keep it to the top end of the green zone which I show in the picture and video, if you recording volume is high, the playback will be muffled. Make sure you do one or two test runs on each recording as if you don't, you may end up spending lots of time that is wasted if the recording isn't great.

The second thing is make sure that the audio you record is saved to the back up drive and then deleted as if you get more than a few recordings open in the program, it will slow the program down and then it skips or freezes the program. 

Also, if you are wanting to work on a file, it has to be highlighted in blue. If you want to record a new recording, you need to remember to click off the current file or you can get two files playing at the same time, then it gets confusing so I had to keep reminding myself to click off the non current files. 

There is so much the program can do and the more you use it, the easier it becomes but it is really easy to use. 

I didn't see any downside to using this free software. It was wonderful. The only problem I had was when the recording I was trying to record was recorded on high, it came out fuzzy so using a player with an equalizer is important if the recording is already recorded on high or is fuzzy to begin with. Not all cassette players have an equalizer to equalize the recordings that were recorded on high. 

It is wonderful that my mother recorded so much but I will be super happy when I am done. 

Have a Blessed Day!