Build a Tape to CD machine

[biringobiringanya]

Hi!

I'm new to the Raspberry PI but I've got an idea for using this cheap computer to help my grandfather, who is still recording his thoughts in an old recorder. He has a lot of cassette tape, but recently he has discovered the CD world and now he wants to convert each cassette to a CD. I know this work can be done simply with a computer, but at his 80s he can't use any computer.

I would now if is it possible to control a cassette tape form the Raspberry Pi board for activate the servos, digitalize the audio, process it with python and burn it to a CD. Any idea here?

May I need a microcontroller too (like Arduino)... some other electronics?

This is a big project for a begginer, and maybe I'm not asking the correct answers.

Thanks in advance!

[Burngate]

I'd be breaking this down into several pieces:
Control of the tape player.
Audio into the Pi.
Detection of track start/finish.
Control of the CD recorder.
User front panel.

The first is likely to be either easy, or impossible - either switches which the Pi can control using transistors or opto-isolators, or mechanical parts the Pi can't move without solenoids or similar.

Audio input can be achieved in a number of ways.

Detecting the start and finish of tracks may be best left to the user.

Controlling the CD recorder is possible, but may possibly be left till after the tracks have been grabbed and edited, so that it's a separate operation.

User front panel - here's where you imagination should run wild.
Buttons with LEDs? Mouse over icons? Keyboard? HDMI screen? LCD?
You know your grandfather: what would he be happiest using? Given a strange new gizmo, how would he expect it to work?
If he would expect an on-off switch, then make sure there is one, where he would look first.
Then what would he want? Would he then pick a tape, put it in the player and expect it to start, or would he think he had to start the tape himself? Either is possible.

And so on.

[DougieLawson]

Can you do it for less than £20?

If not then purpose built hardware becomes much more attractive.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/FUTURISTIX-CASS ... B003OSVQFS

[biringobiringanya]

Hey! Thanks Burngate and DougieLawson, both responses are very useful!

@DougieLawson: I've seen this gadgets, but I think they still need a computer and some technical knowledge. I'd recognize that I would like to build this, just for play...

@Burngate: I'd open some old walkman to know how to connect it to the Raspberry Pi first. I'll upload some photos here.

If we can afford the electrical and computer parts, I plan to put all together into a wood box with a power cable (with a power switch), a big red button (to start all the process) and a small LCD monitor to show the work in progress. A front door for the cassette tapes and the cd drive accessible from the top, as a toaster.

[Phill Rymer]

Can you do it for less than £20?

If not then purpose built hardware becomes much more attractive.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/FUTURISTIX-CASS ... B003OSVQFS

may be easier to hook this up through xbmc on raspberry pi looks like its do able xbmc can run optical disc drives external hdd etc

[biringobiringanya]

Hi Phil, and thanks for your advice. I was thinking to use Raspian but I'd look at xbmc too before the final decision.

[biringobiringanya]

Hi everyone again!

During last week I've found two pieces of old hardware which I'd like to use in this project. These pieces are a Pioneer XR-P330 and a Sony ST-V50L, and I'd like to use one of the cassette tapes and the LCD screen. I have some questions:

• * Can someone advice me about which pieces I need to use in order to connect the raspberry pi to the tape? Can it be done directly? The tape has two cables: controller and audio.
  * Can I connect both pieces - cassette tape and the LCD screen - to the raspberry pi at the same time?

Here are both manuals:

http://mypdfmanuals.com/user-manual/PIO ... 234641.pdf
http://freeservicemanuals.info/en/servi ... icemanual/

I know these are only two parts of the projects. I'm working with python libraries to make a program to process the audio and I gonna share the results here.

Thanks in advance!