Need Apps to capture sound from cassete tapes to PC and convert to MP3

[Firewire60]

I need to capture to PC the speech and music from a lot of personal sound cassette tapes.

Can anyone suggest free apps that will capture the sound from cassette tapes (Probably as WAV files) with good tape noise reduction and suggest free apps that will convert the WAV to MP3.

Several years ago I used an old version 3.2 of Total Recorder that would capture the WAV files but it seems to be incompatible with Windows XP and seems to give an install error. I used an old Version 2.80 of Winamp with an MP3 plug in to convert the Wav files to Mp3. Not sure if it will work with Windows XP. I still have these old apps.

Thanks all

[olyteddy]

Well Totalrecorder is up to version 6.1. I've had it since the 3.?? version and don't recall paying to upgrade at any time. Perhaps they'll upgrade for you, too. Meanwhile, Audacity ought to do what you want, including filtering and levelling and noise reduction and even MP3 encoding, all for free!

[Firewire60]

Be nice to have an app that would capture the sound and convert to MP3 all in one go.

Big Ted will Audacity do that? and is it free?

[olyteddy]

Capture. Clean-up. Encode. All in one.

[lruneh]

Try googleing X-OOM Music Cleaner. This should capture clean and convert to MP3.
It will capture any analouge audio, so you can even capture your old LPs

[GTRBudda]

Mp3DirectCut records strait to mp3. CDEX is pretty good too. Both good for free.

[Firewire60]

Thanks for the many helpful tips.

Just curious why any free app also does encoding to MP3.

I thought encoding to MP3 was copyrighted. I remember reading something about LAME whatever that is.

Thanks all

[olyteddy]

LAME = Lame Ain't (an) Mp3 Encoder...

[tinker]

Encoding is not copyrighted, but encoder is. However, like everything else, there is lots of them free around (not original code).

[Firewire60]

Big Ted

All OK.

I can now record to MP3 using Total Recorder and monitor what I am recording on the PC speakers.

Thanks all