How to make a mix tape Like others, this guide shows how to cling stubbornly to a pre-80's world of cassette tapes, while reaping the benefits of the digital age. Skip the truckload of expensive MP3 players for your car, for your house, or for portable earphone play. Bypass unreliable CD burners, hiccuping CD players, and disintegrating burned CD-Rs and CD-RWs. (And definitely avoid using an in-computer tape drive like the PlusDeck, which, I found out, ahem, sucks.) There's a better way: use your computer to make a mix tape. (See a list of what's on my mix tapes here.)

Tapes may hold data longer than burnable CDs. Tape players, whether as tape decks (recommended: Yamaha K-903), car radio/tape players (recommended: Kenwood KRC-235), boom boxes (recommended: Sony CFS-B11), or portable earphone players (recommended: Sony WM-FX290 player with Sony MDR-W08L earphones), are cheaper and more reliable than ever before.

With a few things you probably already have,

an Internet connection,

a computer with a sound card,

a stereo with a tape deck,

some blank high-bias tapes (normal-bias tapes, paradoxically, sound too high and have no bass)

and a few additional things that should cost less than $20,

a Y-cable,

a Y-cable extender (only if your stereo is further away)

and the free, open-source Audacity software application,

you're ready to make a mix tape.

So, gather some audio files...

record streaming audio by recording in Audacity

Listen in at Last.fm, NPR, or YouTube. Set Audacity to record Wave in stereo. Record. Or, just download tunes from Amazon.   detailed instructions for recording streaming audio

from old tapes, CDs, radio, even TV...

record audio from your home TV, VCR, DVD, or stereo by running a Y cable from your home equipment to your computer's sound card

Run the Y-cable from the audio output of your TV, VCR, DVD player, tape deck, or stereo receiver (on my stereo receiver, from the Video 1 audio output) to your computer sound card's line input. Set Audacity's input to Line-In. Record.   detailed instructions for recording audio from your home TV, VCR, DVD, or stereo

mix the files...

mixing use Audacity to make a single mix file

Decide what files you want to mix. Read about the all-important mix tape decision-making process on Foundtrack, The Art of the Mix, Says-It, Wikipedia's mix tape article, and, yes, How To Make A Mix Tape for Chuck Klosterman. Cut and paste your audio files into an Audacity file, saving your work often. Convert formats Audacity won't open to MP3 with audioconverter software like Xilisoft Audio Converter. Use Audacity's Amplify on to raise—or lower— volume to keep it relatively uniform between different selections.   detailed instructions on mixing

output it to a tape, not a CD...

output a mix tape from your computer by running a Y cable from computer's sound card Speaker output to stereo's CD audio input "Wait, that's your project? A mix tape? No, a mix tape is not a project. It's something you do between bong hits." - Will & Grace

Open the Audacity mix file you've made. Run the Y-cable from your computer's sound card's Speaker output (it's light green) to your stereo receiver's CD Audio inputs. Make sure your computer's volumes (under control panel and under Audacity) are about 90%, and your computer power is set to "always on." Select "CD" on stereo receiver, set tape decks recording input volume to right level, not too loud, not too soft. Record. Unless you want to slowly clog up your hard drive, consider saving the tape, not the computer file.   detailed instructions on output a mixtape from your computer

...and salvage tapes, even after they begin sounding muffled.

possibly salvage old tapes by copying (dubbing)

If you have a dual cassette tape deck, you can dub a copy of the old tape.   detail on dubbing

Hope this guide helps. (An Amazon "So You'd Like To..." version of this guide is here.)