How to Download Music From 8 Track Tapes to PC Audio Files for Next to Nothing

If you have ever wanted to preserve your favorite old songs from 8-track tapes without paying somebody else to do it or spending a chunk on software, here's how we downloaded 8-tracks to our PC for next to nothing and preserved them for audio eternity.

We started with an old 8-track tape player which had two speaker jacks in back. We read up on the Internet for what to buy to connect the 8-track player to a PC but found no fast and inexpensive options. There were a laundry list of products available with which to do the download, but they were pricey, there was no guarantee they would do the job, and most of them had a "no money back" disclaimer. There was very little detailed information, and none in plain English that lay-people like us could understand. We spent three hours reading everything there was to learn about audio input and output, then studied the jacks on the tape player and PC carefully before heading downtown.

Our Dell PC tower has 3 jacks on back-one each for microphone, speakers, and headphones. The microphone jack is pink colored, which is the one we used to make this connection. After wasting hours in five stores that did not have what we needed at a price we were willing to pay, we ended up at a big-box electronics store (think "great purchase"). There, the 'blue shirt' tried his best to sell us a $60 piece of software that he "thought might" do the job. The sale fell through when tekkie told Hubby that the item could not be returned once it was opened. Why on Earth would we spend sixty bucks for something that was not even sure to meet our needs? We didn't. We went on to the jacks/connectors counter. Using his newly-acquired electronics knowledge (thanks, search engines!), Hubby selected a "Stereo Mini to RCA "Y" Cable" with six-foot cord, from a generic vendor, for just $4.99.

Our cable has a mini-jack on one end which plugged into the pink microphone jack on the PC, and the two male speaker connectors plugged into the speaker output jacks on the 8-track recorder. After making the simple connections, we searched the Internet for a "free sound recorder" program and selected one from a website we trust. In just minutes we were downloading, and while we did not end up with the digital audio quality we've become accustomed to from today's recordings, we were able to preserve our historic jam sessions with acceptable sound quality for under $10, including the cost of CDs.

It took a few hours and a lot of simultaneous PC button-pushing with 8-track starting and stopping, but we got exactly what we wanted, an affordable copy of our old favorites, at a price we were willing to pay. No need to spend big money on nonrefundable software to convert 8-track music to PC data files; instead, we spent $5 on a "Stereo Mini" to RCA "Y" Cable," which can be plugged into the back of any 8-track player speaker jacks and a PC mic jack, for an affordable way to download a little bit of aural history.