The earliest tape has a wonderful speech from Walter Reuther. I am going to digitize these quickly, get them in the same place, and make multiple copies of the digital files.
The rest of the tapes are music (several are labeled "Dinner Music"). It's funny--there's a lot of the same music in Ken's collection, especially Guy Lombardo, as I found in my other grandfather's tapes. About 50% of the collection is work-related union stuff from meetings, rallies, conferences, etc. I really think I should digitize that stuff. I have done bits and pieces before, but this is everything. My guess is that the Reuther Library might like copies. I will start this tonight.
I will update the speadsheet with actual run times. Here's a quick plan:
- digitize tapes one at a time
- assign letters to each in order to distinguish
- save "master" copies to a single folder
- edit individual tapes in reasonable track intervals
- populate raw files with descriptions and tags in iTunes
- create a DVD with all files
- create a set of audio CDs of all files
- write a small set of liner notes
- digitized in stereo
- mp3 format (128kbps)
- re-mixed to mono (original recordings almost certainly mono)
Below is a slideshow of scanned images of the tapes:
Update: I think a key to getting this done properly is to do it in a short period of time. Here's a plan. I have two working cassette decks. I am going to take one to work and digitize during the day as well. The machine really doesn't require any special attention. The fidelity differences between the decks are, I am sure, minimal. I will use the same device to digitize, so the files will all be in one place and the settings will all be the same.
As I write this, I am digitizing the 120 min tape from 1969 with Reuther (he's been speaking for about 45 minutes down in my basement--talking about Black Lake, workers' families, and now he's talking about the UAW members who worked on the Apollo 11 moon mission. He was a fantastic speaker. The speech has interesting points about leadership development.
So I will set a goal of digitizing about 3 hours of audio during the day in my office. I won't edit or anything--that all gets done at home on the computer. In fact, after tomorrow, I can use the digitizing time to do some of the editing on the files that are already digitized. Then I can shoot for about 90 minutes of digitizing per night as I edit. I should be done digitizing before Friday if I keep that pace. Then I can use Friday and the weekend to do editing and formatting. I can set Friday, December 5 as the date to have a finished product--the whole thing digitized, edited, and organized.
Another update: Because I've worked with long mp3 files before, I have made the decision to make each "master" track the length of one side of a tape. This will make the files easier to work with. It would be much easier to put two tapes in the dual well Yamaha and spit out 3 hour mp3s, but that would be a pain. Also, I'd have to split them before I even started editing.
Now I will have a predictable system. There are 11 tapes, which means 22 "master" files, the longest of which will be 1 hour. I will use the letters to organize. This tape I am doing now (the 1969 Reuther tape) will be tracks A1 and A2, each 1 hour long.
I also had another thought: I can get one of these going while I am getting ready in the morning. First thing, I'll go down and start one. I might be able to get an entire 90 minute cassette done before I leave for work. Do two of them at work, and one more at home during the evening. We'll crank this out!
Why am I writing all this down?
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