Remastering old cassette tapes?

[fake]

I have a head calibration tape and a demagnetiser.

I use it just to realign the heads so that they line up to a factory Azimuth? setting, so it don't matter which type you use for doing that.
Although having said that there are also test tones on it so you can also adjust the bias settings and speed with it but you would also need a "scope" to do it properly.

Like someone suggested earlier, a decent new prerecorded tape will do.

fake

[Landphil]

. . . and found that if they were recorded with dolby I could clean them up better by having this turned off on playback.

I'll second that. I find it's much easier to reduce hiss than to add high end.

I have a head calibration tape and a demagnetiser.

Demagnitizer! I'm having flashbacks!

Those things always made me nervous the way they would vibrate as you approached the heads!

[Landphil]

Here ya go, fake

From my dear, departed Uncle's audio stash.

1940's or 50's?

[meroveus]

Lunatique...my practice is to leave any noise reduction process till the last. The reason for this is because these algorithms rely on a spectral analysis procedure to identify noise elements in the frequency domain, and they will leave behind some artifacts, no matter how inaudible they may seem, based on the frequency content the algorithm has worked on.

Do you have any online references for your rationale of leaving noise reduction last?
Everything I've seen, including advice from Sonic Foundry is that noise reduction is done first. But if restoring a vinyl recording, large pops and clicks are removed just before applying NR.
Boosting frequencies is done after NR.

[Lunatique]

Thanks for the tips!

Ok, here's a tough one:

Lets say you have a track that's a multi-generation copy, with bad hiss/noise, lost high frequency, shrill and unpleasant sound, muddy bottom, and lost of seperation between instruments (you can barely hear the high-hat on the drums, or the strumming of rhythm guitar..etc). HOW would you go about remastering a track like that? (I'm thinking maybe I should post an example and have you guys go at it and see who could come up with the best remaster. You guys up for it?)

[Landphil]

I'm up for it, even though I may fall flat on my face!

.wav file, I presume?

[Lunatique]

Ok, I started another thread where you guys can post the results of your remastering. The test clips and the thread is here:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 892#983892