Contributor: Ted Burns - Date: 14/02/2021

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Whether cassette or record, each of these two formats has become dear to our hearts. We have used audio cassette tapes to capture important moments or copy our favorite hits for listening in the car. However, both formats have different problems. The quality of records is still very good, since they don’t readily deteriorate, but who of us owns a turntable today? In contrast, the quality of an audio cassette is relatively short-lived. Not only is there a fear of shredded tape, but there is a risk of permanently losing the recordings due to the loss of quality over time. The only way to preserve these memories for the future, is to transfer the audio cassettes to CD or USB. We digitally convert audio cassettes, audio tape spools, gramophone recordings and store them on CDs as MP3 files. Read more about our audio to DVD/USB service.

If you have recordings that are important to you, it's worth getting the best from them by using a specialist service such as ours. The alternatives, such as USB tape machines or recordings made directly into CD recorders or sound cards, tend to produce low-quality or distorted sound. Worse still, un-serviced playback machines can handle tape roughly, causing permanent damage and loss of content.
Multimedia Rescue offers a range of delivery formats for our audio transfers. We offer customers free assessment of their tape primarily because it can be difficult to know what treatments are necessary without examining the tape's physical condition. This is also why we are hesitant to advertise generic prices for our service because the condition of each tape will vary depending on its storage and playback history. Often we can figure out the condition of tape by visual assessment.
Once we have the 'raw transfer' there is the option to apply various restoration technologies. We only do this if it is explicitly requested from the customer because, in line with professional archival practices, we believe such actions compromise the authenticity of the transfer. We do, however, understand this level of authenticity is not paramount for all our clients, and in such cases applying audio restoration technologies may be desirable. The audio restoration services we offer include noise reduction, speed correction and volume correction.

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*** LP records or 78 rpm records transfers ***

Australian copyright law prohibits us from copying most commercially available records released since 1954. But we can still transfer your record if it's a custom home recording, a recording of your wedding, or if you're the artist who appears on the record.
Our transfer will include click and crackle reduction, manually tuned to keep the integrity of the audio.

Transferring records yourself
Australian copyright law allows you to make a copy of a recording that you legitimately own, but prohibits having someone else make the copy for you.