Convert Cassette to CD Frequently Asked Questions

Many of you will have questions about our transfer service and that's only natural. Take a look below and see if your question or questions are there.  Feel free to contact us about our transfer service if you have any questions or concerns that aren't covered on this page.

Other Formats:
What about videos? 78s? Reels tapes? For Videos, click Here ?

Logistics:
How do I pay for my order
Packaging and Shipping
Safety Issues
Restoration Problems and Issues
Privacy Policy / Copyright Issues
I have some other Questions
Can I pay by check?
How long does this take?
What about other countries? APOs?
Can I make/sell copies of my new CDs/MP3s?
This cassette is irreplaceable! I can't risk mailing it!

Privacy/Guarantees/Copyright:
Is this legal?
Do you listen to my tape?
Do you keep a copy of my audio?

CDs:
A strange title comes up when I put the CD into my computer. Huh?

MP3:
How do I load my MP3s into iTunes?

Cassettes:
I'm not sure how long my tape is...
I only want the second song from side A and...
What if my cassette is broken or breaks on you?
How is it split up into tracks?
Do you offer cassette transcription to Word or PDF?

Other Formats

What about videos? 78s? Reel to Reel tapes?
Check our Other Services page.

Logistics

Can I pay by check?
Yes. Just make a check out to "Audio-Restorations" for the final amount (including return shipping), and pack it with your cassettes or records.

How long does this take?
Most of the start-to-finish turnaround time consists of the you-to-us and us-back-to-you shipping steps. We do our best to get your product out in a timely manner. Much depends on our current work load. Typically it's just a few days.

What about other countries? APOs?
APOs (US military bases) are fine.

As for foreign countries, we can only handle Canada.

You can ship things to us from anywhere, so that's no problem. The only trick is to use a friend or family member in the USA as the ship-to address, and then nicely ask them to bounce it to you. A bit of a hassle, but it works.

Can I make/sell copies of my new CDs/MP3s?
If it's copyrighted material, unless you own it, the answer is no. Fair Use lets you make a digital backup of an analog recording for yourself, but not distribute or sell more copies.  

This cassette is irreplaceable! I can't risk mailing it!
It's natural to not want to hand over your tapes or records to strangers. The good news, is that we've never had a customer loose their materials in transit. Once it reaches us, it's not going anywhere except back to you.

We suggest you use Fedex or UPS. Go to a nearby Fedex-Kinko's or UPS Store, pile up your tapes on the counter, give them our mailing address and they'll take care of it.

If you're using US Mail, then tag each and every item with a return-address sticker. That way, if your box breaks open en route, they'll still be able to return them to you.

 Privacy/Guarantees/Copyright

Is this legal?
Yes. Fair Use lets you make a digital backup of an analog recording that you already own.

Do you listen to my tape?
As a rule, no. We do hear little snippets of sound while placing track points and cleaning the sound up, but no one will ever sit down and listen to the whole recording.

Do you keep a copy of my audio?
Yes, for 30 days. It lets us make copies if you need more later. More importantly, it also lets us reconstruct your order if something happens in the mail.

What if my cassette is damaged?
We' will fix your tape at no cost if it breaks while we are transferring it. If it's broken right now, we can repair it. See Cassette Tape Repair.

Final CD issues

A strange title comes up when I put the CD into my computer. Huh?
Most computer audio programs (like iTunes and Windows Media Player, mainly) look up a CDs track titles on CDDB, an Internet database of CD info.

So when one puts in a store-bought Beatles CD and the computer says "She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah," that track title was not read from the CD itself, but was rather looked up in that CDDB database.

This CDDB track info is indexed by the lengths of a CDs tracks. This means that if a CD we make for you has the same number of tracks, and with the exact same lengths, as that Beatles CD, then you'll see "She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah" when you play it too, whether it's the Rolling Stones or Books on Tape.

This only happens with about one of every thousand CDs we make, and it's not like the CD sounds wrong. It just means that when importing into iTunes, say, you'll have to "override" the defaults and type in the track titles yourself.

 Final MP3 issues

How do I load my MP3s into iTunes?
Each MP3 disc comes with the following instructions:
1) Start the iTunes program.
2) iTunes -> Preferences...
3) "Advanced" tab.
4) Check the box "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library."
5) Drag MP3 files (or the whole disc) directly into your iTunes playlist.

Questions about my Cassettes

I'm not sure how long my taps are...
If you don't know, then just pick the shortest time. We will make adjustments here..

I only want the second song from side A and...
Sorry, that's not how our service works. We do the whole tape, all or nothing, and only trim off the silences at the start and end of each side. Similarly, we are unable to combine multiple tapes onto a single CD.

What if my cassette is broken ?
We can fix it! See cassette repairs

A "break" is any mechanical reason why your tape won't play all the way through. The fix is always the same: taking the reels out, splicing together any breaks in the tape and installing the reels into a new plastic tape case. The most common "breaks" are:

1: The "pressure pad," that tiny rectangle of felt or Styrofoam near the bottom face that pushes down on the tape against the deck's play head, often falls off. The tape will sometimes play, but the sound will be so muffled that you won't want it.

2: Sometimes, over the years, the layers of tape in the reels get stuck to each other. This is usually fixed in the "exercising" step, where we fast-forward and rewind it before playing. If that doesn't do the trick, though, then the decks won't have enough power to pull the tape through and quit.

3: A small amount of adhesive connects either end of the brown magnetic tape to the plastic leader strips that are hooked to the sprockets. Sometimes that adhesive fails, and the magnetic tape and leader become detached.

How is it split up into tracks?
See Song Indexing.

Do you offer cassette transcription to Word or PDF?
We don't do cassette transcription, but our friends at Casting Words do! They do a great job and their prices and turnaround are very competitive.

How is it split up into tracks?
We use a special computer program to find the track points by hand.

I only want the second song from side A and...
Nope nope, we do the whole thing, all or nothing.

Do you do hiss/pop/noise filtering?
You bet! It works really well.

Between the record cleaning and our super-fancy digital click and pop reduction algorithm, your records will be sounding better in your CD player or computer than they did on the turntable.

How do I pay for my order?

What payment methods can I use?

We accept Credit Cards (Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover), Money Orders and Checks and even Pay Pal.

If sending a Money Order, your package will ship upon receipt of the money order. Checks must clear before we ship product.

When is my credit card actually charged?

Your credit card is only charged after we complete work, right before we ship your order. Once the project is
complete, we will send you a final invoice with instructions on making payment.

Packaging and Shipping

Can you help me with packing my recordings?

Cassettes are pretty sturdy and handle shipping very easily. se a padded envelope for one or two or a box for a whole bunch of tapes. DO NOT send a single tape in a letter envelope. It most likely break out of the envelope and end up on the floor of a mail truck some where, lost forever.

Safety Issues

Are my recordings safe?

They will be very safe.  Your recordings will be handled with extreme care at our studio.  

If you are in any way uncomfortable about shipping, then we suggest you get a professional to pack your recordings. 

How do you store my recordings?

Every day we handle many rare and hard to find recordings. Your recordings will be returned to their original shipping container once duplicated and then stored in our secure storage area until your project is finished.

Will transferring and/or restoring damage my original recordings?

Our process does not alter the original recording in any way.  Normally, we only play your recording one time and it would only be played again if there was a problem with the initial transfer to digital.

Will my original tapes be erased?

No. They will be returned to you upon completion of your project.

Will I get my original recordings back?

Absolutely!

Restoration Issues

Can all types of problems be fixed?

No.  Listed below are some of the limitations.  We want our customers to be informed.  Please familiarize yourself with these limitations and write or call us if you have any questions.  The quality of our work is 100% guaranteed, but this guarantee does not apply to defects that are impossible to fix, such as those described below:

Distortion:   There are many types of distortion and possible causes: over modulation at recording, defective microphones or recording equipment, faulty stamping or quality control when the record was pressed, playing the record with a worn needle or with improper tracking force.  A distortion becomes part of the sound.  The computer and filtering software can not detect what is distorted and what is not. Therefore, if your source recording is distorted, the restored copy will also be distorted only the sound will be "cleaner".

Trade-offs:  Intense computer processing of very degraded signals may result in music that sounds somewhat muted.  It is a much more enjoyable experience to listen to a clean sounding recording, but somewhat muted, as opposed to a recording with severe hiss, crackles and pops.  2)  There are cases when a recording sounds clean for the most part, and needs a less drastic approach in restoration in order to preserve the "liveliness" of the original recording.   In this case it is more desirable to apply less severe processing, which may leave some occasional imperfections more audible.  We would like our customers to be aware of these trade-offs.

No pause between tracks: Please note that there must be few seconds of actual pause (silence) between the songs in order for us to be able to accurately assign tracks.  If the original material does not contain a few seconds of silence between the songs, and timings are not provided we will try to guess where the tracks should begin, but may not exactly match the tracks of the original.   This happens frequently with "live recording" albums, medleys, opera and sometimes with compilation tapes.  If our "guessing" is not acceptable, please do not submit recordings without a few seconds of silence between songs.

Inferior quality home or commercial recording: Some customers prefer to record their vinyl or shellac records onto a cassette, and send us the cassette for processing.   Please be aware that if the cassette is recorded with inferior equipment (noisy turntable or cassette recorder) the resulting CD will also be of inferior quality.   It is impossible to make a perfect CD out of a technically inferior recording.   This also applies to inferior commercial recordings (recordings with metallic, tiny sound, recordings with bad sibilants, recordings badly mixed).  We can not create frequencies that have never been recorded and can not re-mix a recording since we do not have the multi-track master. 

Can you remove every noise?

No. There are many types of noise. We primarily remove tape hiss and or hum.

Privacy Policy / Copyright Issues

PRIVACY POLICY

Transfer-2CD.com values its customers and respects privacy. All customer information is considered confidential. We do not release information to third parties. We do not place "cookies" or hidden files on our client's computers. And we do not use email or mailing addresses for solicitation purposes. Our audio restoration services are intended for individuals who have purchased audio recordings (vinyl records or tapes) and wish to transfer them to compact disc (CD).

COPYRIGHT

Copyright laws allow individuals who have purchased audio recorded music in one format to transfer it to a different format as long as it is for personal use and is not re-sold.