I have a cassette player in my car so I want to record music from my laptop; to the recorder... on first try it has way too much white noise... I would think there would be a way to connect the two together for better recording quality

Turn down the volume, maybe. There will be a lot of white noise. That's normal. Especially if you recorded it yourself. I do all the time. There is always white noise. But it helps if you try different locations and volumes.

My last answer was not correct. I apologize. You need a double ended cord and a recorder with plug in for a mic. After that you need to turn down the volume. On my laptop it about to thirty with player at 1/3 volume or lower depending on the song. Sorry for the last answer. I hadn't tried and I missed the last line of your question.