Cassettes

For the digitisation of the cassette tapes, the Mbox Pro capture interface was used, together with Avid Pro Tools 9 software, and, in terms of copying devices, a professional tape deck Tascam CD-A750 model was used, and a Sony TCM-200DV cassette recorder.

The audio files created have the following characteristics: 

• Format: Wave (PCM)
• Channels: 2 (stereo)
• Sampling rate: 96 KHz
• Bit depth: 24 bit 

The cassette tapes were not all originally recorded in the same way nor at the same reproduction speed, nor with the same number of channels. We have found three main types of recordings: 

• Stereo recordings (2 channels) at a speed of 4.76 cm/s (standard)
• Mono recordings (1 channel) at 2.4 cm/s
• Stereo recordings (2 channels) at a speed of 2.4 cm/s

There are also some cassettes recorded at 9.5 cm/s and at 1.2 cm/s.

The cassette tapes recorded in stereo at 4.76 cm/s have been reproduced for digitisation using a professional tape deck, a Tascam CD-A750 model to be precise, while cassette tapes recorded in mono at 2.4 cm/s have been copied for digitisation using a Sony TCM-200DV cassette recorder. 

For the cassette tapes recorded in stereo at 2.4 cm/s, these have been digitised using the Tascam tape deck (in this case, the speed has been adjusted using the Pro Tools software). 

• Stereo (4.76 cm/s): 76 cassettes
• Mono (2.4 cm/s): 318 cassettes
• Stereo (2.4 cm/s): 65 cassettes
• Others: 35 cassettes. 

There are 7 cassettes which are blank or which do not contain any sound information.