First off thank you for taking the time to see if you can help me out.
Im hoping you might have an old cassette player sitting around you might be able to donate to the podcast or sell me for a reasonable price, but I'm going to be a bit of a picky whiner about what :)
Here is what Im doing and need:
I have hundreds of speakers recorded on cassette that folks have sent me, and I am trying to convert them from analog to digital so that AA knowledge isn't lost and it can be added to the podcast.
Currently I have a player with a line out that I'm plugging into into a USB 2.0 Digital Audio Capture Card, this works great since I'm running linux mint and not a windows or mac. Its a cheap set up, it simply works and after some work in audacity I have a usable mp3.
So... onto my problem, the player I am using has a line out 3.5mm (the capture card does not have a pre-amp). But the only way I can get a recording into audacity is to have the volume at 100% on the player and the player runs the output put to BOTH the line out and the speaker with no way to turn down the volume without it affecting the line out.
You may be seeing the issue, I cant really work with a cassette playing at 100% volume.
So Im hoping you might have something laying around that would work and forgive me but I'm going to get a little specific.
I need a cassette player that is battery powered and small (this is what I'm using now) its basic but it works for fine for my needs. Mostly because I don't need to plug it in and easy to move around and get out of the way, its not high quality but it is adequate except for the volume issue. So something like this (or smaller) that works on batteries and has a line-out that is NOT tied to the volume control (but does have a speaker) is what I'm hoping you have laying around.
I know I could switch out the capture card for one with a pre-amp (so I could use the earphone plug) but that usually requires plugging in the pre-amp, putting me right back where I was, I need small and unplugged. I need to start it and move it aside with the volume low enough that I hear it stop to be flipped and when I'm done, its off the desk and out of the way. The capture card does have rca input so if you have one with rca out, that would work fine.
I dont want to sound ungrateful but if you do have something that is big or has to be plugged in, Im not interested at all, I have really limited space (and outlets). If you do have something but you aren't sure if the line-out is tied to the volume control please email me the make and model number I dont mind doing the research to figure that out.
So, if you have something that would work sitting in a box somewhere please drop me an email :) Thank You!
