Recording from Cassette Tape

[aMUSEd]

I have some old classical recordings I just can't seem to locate as CD's and that are discontinued so I need to transfer them to CD myself. I've recorded them to Wav but now I need to process them to remove some background hiss and occasional crackles but I don't want to damage the sensitivity and detail of the recordings in any way? I'm thinking of something I can feed a sample of the background hiss (say by playing it one of the bits between the songs) and teach it to pick out just that - then subtract it from the whole wav. Is this possible?

[jupiter8]

No.

[ocp]

These might help: http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php?mode=re ... =1&rpp=100

Not ideal but...

[Spe3D]

You will be able to get rind of some elements - though its best to leave noise in really.

try this out

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1169.html

You will need to spend time learing it and each element of music is different, so you will need to set it up for each. - ok if you are just playing back sound - if you are going to manipulate the sound, leave the noise in it.

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[aMUSEd]

I just want as clean a recording as possible before I burn it - but obviously these are subtle and detailed pieces so I don't want to destroy anything either. Maybe something that just tones the noise down a bit.

[jackson]

No.

Uh, actually yes, you can do that. I remember doing it in Cooledit (I think) years ago. It's not the best and you'll lose high end detail. There are loads of plugins that will do a better job. The best unsurprisingly tend to be VERY expensive. Audio cleanup is a science, some of the highend boxes such as Cedar are used for forensic work and can fetch upwards of $10k . Maybe a little too extreme, but if you really care about the recordings, you might want to get a quote from a studio that specialises in this kind of thing, if it's just a few tapes, I doubt it would cost a fortune.

[JumpingJackFlash]

I've had satisfactory results using the noise removal process in Audacity, which is free.
Just set the amount of noise reduction fairly low; some noise will remain, but this is not usually a big problem. You may like to excite/enhance the result to taste, depending on the recording.[/url][/quote]

[jupiter8]

but I don't want to damage the sensitivity and detail of the recordings in any way?

The answer is no.

[jackson]

but I don't want to damage the sensitivity and detail of the recordings in any way?

The answer is no.

I think it's a given that any noise reduction will damage the audio, but how about being productive and suggesting ways to minimise the damage while reducing noise instead of being a useless prat?

[shamann]

He's right though, prat or no.

If Amused doesn't want to lose the fidelity of the performance, noise reduction/FFT filtering is not a good way to go. We could give a list of ways to get some decent results which will still lose part of the music, but what's the point if not losing the music is a vital part of the query.

[ouroboros]

I know you've already recorded them, but it might be worth trying again, making sure to clean the recording heads, also demagnetizing them if you have not. Also, clean the rolles with alcohol, as they tend to hold the tape to the head better afterrwards. Sorry if you did this!

FWIW, I would burn an unaffected set of wav's to disk before noisekilling it: programs may be better in the future

[aMUSEd]

I know you've already recorded them, but it might be worth trying again, making sure to clean the recording heads, also demagnetizing them if you have not. Also, clean the rolles with alcohol, as they tend to hold the tape to the head better afterrwards. Sorry if you did this!

FWIW, I would burn an unaffected set of wav's to disk before noisekilling it: programs may be better in the future

Yeah I did all those things - its just an old recording (but a fantastic one). Its right that I don't want to damage the high end fidelity but then in the quieter parts the noise tends to overwhelm all that fidelity anyway so I suppose some sort of tradeoff may have to be acceptable. But I have made an untouched copy too.

I must say it really pisses me off that such fantastic music just gets chucked in the bin by record companies just because it may not be as profitable as teeny garbage and trendy classical babes and babettes.

[deaf dunderkwac]

from cassette??
Probably has Dolby B processing on the recordings. (pumped and compressed HF information) this stuff *never* tracked properly!
If you want to -recover- the sound do what ouroboros suggested and try to use whatever Dolby DE-coding was used (there were 2 flavors, just to confuse you)

[Sascha Franck]

Ah well! Been there, done that.
Back then I used Sonic Foundry's NR plugin, when I had access to it (never bought it myself).
But (!!!): These days it seems you can do such things for free! Audacity has a "noise reduction" which is based on "fingerprints" - seems to be exactly what the SF thingy did.
What you need to do is have it analyze a portion of some "hiss only" material. Never tried with Audacity, but I'd bet that after that process, you could adjust the amount of reduction you need.
In case you're losing too much high frequency information, you *may* get some of it back using a plain EQ or some sort of enhancer/exciter.
And that's the good thing about a plugin based solution (Audacity is doing it destructively, from what it seems): You could just chain, say, an NR plugin, an EQ and an exciter before commiting any actual edits. At least that's what I did back then.

However, I'd say check out Audacity.

[aMUSEd]

I have Audacity - thats what I did the recording with. I'll give that a try - thanks all