Looking for program to clean up old analog music recorded to CD (1 Viewer)

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I bought a Pioneer CD recorder a while back so I could make CDs of some old LP albums and cassettes I have.

I’d like to rip the CDR’s to my computer to clean up the clicks and pops etc. and then burn a fresh disc (I have some music CD-RW’s I’ll use and re-use for my “masters”).

So – what’s a good program I can get for this? Here is my wish list of what I’d like for it to be able to do:

• Work with both WAV files and MP3’s.
• Eliminate (or at least substantially reduce) tape hiss, clicks and pops etc. with minimal impact on sound quality.
• Insert track markers.
• Do fade-outs.
• Auto leveling between various tracks (or will that end up acting as compression?).
• Ability to cut and paste different songs together would be nice, but not a high priority.

Any other features I might need that I’m not thinking about?

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Goldwave (http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/GoldWave/) has all of the features you list. That said, there's no automated process that will eliminate hiss, clicks, and pops without a significant impact in sound quality. A computer can't "hear" the problem, and any algorithms that can handle it are probably locked away in an RIAA vault somewhere.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Thanks for the suggestion, Adam.

Yeah, I was afraid of that Hopefully the program you linked will at least let me do it manually?

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It's a pretty good waveform editor, so the pops you can probably get out manually. The hiss you'll have to play around with and find the best middle ground between hiss and sound quality. (ie. the less hiss you remove, the less perceptable the filter itself is)

 

[Keith Paynter]

I might suggest a couple - Steinberg Wavelab Essentials (for mastering stereo tracks to CD) - similar to its distant parent, Get It On CD, there is click and hiss reduction that you can manually adjust to get rid of most of your problems, but like Adam says, overdoing it can ruin the sonic quality vs. the original. Bigger nasty pops are reduced by zooming on on the pop portion and reducing the volume by, say, 30 db. You'd be amazed how much reduction of these agressive pops allows you to increase your peak level (0 on your meter) on your music program

Another personal favorite (useful to video people too) is Adobe's Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro). One of the coolest plugins it has is a background noise reducer, great for reducing of ambient room noise on home videos, so the same can be applied to audio recordings from LPs and cassettes...you grab a sample of "silent" area, and you can use that sample to reduce the level of that non-musical noise or rumble in your recording. Not a de-clicker, but it is great at noise reduction.

 

[Buzz Foster]

Look for a "noiseprinting" feature, that allows you to sample the noise that is on the record prior to the song starting. I have used products similar to these from the same manufacturer. They work very well.

Other than that, I always tell people that the best noise reduction is done by cleaning your records well before you ever start recording.