Hello!

I have stupidly recorded hours and hours of interviews and focus groups onto cassettes. When I play them back on anything except the original cassette recorder (Sanyo compact cassette recorder TRC-860C) the speech is really really really fast and high pitched. The transcription machine I have (Sanyo Memo-Scriber TRC-8080) slows down the recording a little but no where near enough. Does anyone know of a transcription machine which can slow down cassettes dramatically? And where I could get hold of one? I've searched all over the place but no solution as yet!

Secondly, I advise people to use digital recorders!!!

Thirdly, check your cassettes after your first recording. Don't get caught out like me!

A

Play around with the speed button, if it’s the same machine I have it has 1.2 and 2.4 respectively. If you change this setting it should work. It happened to me once and I just fidgeted with the speed button until it gave! Try also playing around with the settings vas / rec mode. Good luck

Thanks tsipat.

I have already done the recordings on 2.4 (it has the option of 2.4 or 4.8 and the 4.8 is even faster!). Can playing around with those settings now really help as the recording is already on there and I have to use a different machine with none of those options on it...and the speed option is as slow as it can be.

Hi A116, check out this link: http://wiki.themixingbowl.org/Digitising_cassette_tapes

It's easy to do and free audacity software will allow you to slow down the recoding once you've digitised it, if you need to.

To be honest I don't remember at what speed I had recorded the interviews when I later played around with the speed. I might have recorded in the right speed mode and for some reason the speed button shifted to fast after the actual recording, perhaps that is why it worked after tweaking it. Hope you somehow find a solution to this. Listening at great speed is almost impossible and intolerable to the ear.

Hi Walminskipeasucker and tsipat

I am now using audacity and it seems like it'll be the best solution. Hoorah! (a friend of mine was using it for jeffersonian coding, at least I don't have that to contend with!)

Thanks!!!