Trust our award-winning quality to save your precious memories. ScanCafe converts your reel-to-reel audio tapes to digital, transferred in-house in the USA and delivered by download, Kinoke app, or USB drive.
3500+ Reviews20+ YearsDigitized in the USA
Reel-to-reel tapes are more fragile than they look, and they can deteriorate. Digitizing your reel to reel tapes sooner rather than later is the best way to preserve them. Here's what you get when you convert reel to reel to digital with us.
Each reel is captured from start to finish on a deck and saved as a .wav file, captured in mono unless otherwise noted. Reels with a signal each get their own file.
Every reel is converted in-house at our Indianapolis lab, never outsourced. From the moment your box arrives, each item is weighed to the gram, and 60 high definition cameras monitor the property. Your original tapes always go back to you.
Reel-to-reel tapes can break or become brittle from long periods of disuse or from overuse. If one of yours is damaged, our skilled technicians use professional equipment to attempt a repair, at no extra cost.
We've designed the whole process
to be as pain-free as possible.
Pack your reel-to-reel tapes in a sturdy box and send them to us.
Our technicians digitize each reel at our Indianapolis lab on a professional deck, handling it with care to capture the original as faithfully as possible.
Get your WAV files by download, or on a USB drive chosen at checkout. Your original tapes come back too.
Your tapes hold irreplaceable memories, so we protect them at every step, in transit and inside our lab. Here's how we keep them safe:
Barcoded and logged upon arrival
Weighed before & after processing
Fully digitized in our US facility — never outsourced
Monitored under 24/7 surveillance cameras
Originals always returned safelyWe stand behind our handling process with a guarantee: if any item is lost or damaged at our facility, we'll compensate you $1,000.
Choose the digitizing option that works best for your collection.
À la carte pricing
Flat-rate pricing
Have other photos, film reels, or videotapes you'd like to preserve? Explore our other digitizing services to find the right solution for your old media.
Reel-to-reel tapes were the standard for home and professional audio recording for decades, and plenty of families still have reels of music, interviews, speeches and home recordings. The tape can deteriorate with age, and the decks that play it are getting harder to find and maintain, so it's best to convert reel to reel to digital sooner rather than later.
ScanCafe does the work in-house in the USA, never outsourced, with superb quality, a safe handling guarantee and industry-beating prices.
Reel length depends on the size of the reel. As a rough guide, a 3" reel holds about 150 feet of tape, a 5" reel about 600 feet, and a 7" reel about 1,200 feet. If your tape was recorded on both sides, the length is effectively doubled.
That depends on the speed the tape was originally recorded at. Common original speeds are 3 3/4 IPS and 1 7/8 IPS, and we digitize at 7 1/2 IPS, so your recordings can run from a few minutes to over an hour.
Each reel is run through the machine twice, so both sides are checked for signal. The speed is corrected in post-processing, dead space is removed and quiet sections are amplified. Each reel with a signal gets its own WAV file. Captures are mono unless otherwise noted, and we don't offer track separation. Problems from the original recording or the condition of the tape, such as background noise, stretched tape or flaking, are often beyond the scope of editing.
Use a box, not an envelope. Choose a sturdy, double-walled box, like the kind used for shipping books, and avoid flimsy department store garment boxes and padded envelopes. Make sure your box is filled, even if you need to pad it, with bubble wrap, foam peanuts or crumpled newspaper so your tapes can't slide around.
We keep compressed copies of your digitized audio for a period of time after your order ships, so we can re-copy it if there's a problem in transit. If you'd like duplicate copies, request them when you place your order.
Friendly, first-class service. My most recent project involving the scanning of a few hundred photos, many over 75 years old, was fantastic. The finished qualit...
When I started this process I was skeptical. How can I just pack up all my precious pictures and send them off somewhere? As it turned out this was the best thi...
I sent about 130 pictures in to be put on a USB stick, and very pleased with the result. Digital images look great, and I shared with my family. Very happy with...
ScanCafe was a great place to have my photo negatives turned into digital images. The images came out great and the negatives came back to me in perfect conditi...
I just finished downloading the digital files from a dozen old 16MM family films that I submitted. All of them were shot in the mid to late 1950's and were sure...
Scancafe delivered high quality 35 mm slide scan as promised. Customer service was effecient. Important memories were rescued :)
Helpful staff, careful treatment of our slides, great care with keeping slides in order, and packaging them for posting. Highly recommend
I have trusted ScanCafe (nee GoPhoto) with many, many treasured photographs over the years. They are always returned exactly the way I sent them and I am absolu...
Great service and quality wrt digitizing some of my APS film.
