cleaning up an old recording

[grim83]

A little background: My grandfather lived in Nashville in the late 60s-early seventies and was a pretty successful songwriter, he was partners with Gary Stewart and they wrote and recorded quite a bit of material in those days.

He has the old reel to reel master tapes from back then but due to the age and improper storage they aren't in that great of condition. He had a guy put the ones that were still viable onto CD and gave me a copy. Unfourtunately a lot of the recordings are scratchy and crackily and consistent with what you would expect of such recordings in that kind of condition. So I'm trying to find a way to try to clean these old recordings up to make them sound more like they are supposed to so any advice would be very much appreciated. I have audacity but have never tried a project like this.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by grim83

. So I'm trying to find a way to try to clean these old recordings up to make them sound more like they are supposed to so any advice would be very much appreciated. I have audacity but have never tried a project like this.

You likely need some specific cleaning plugins, that probably aren't part of audacity. Izotope RX is ideal for this kind of thing, but it's not real cheap. There are some Waves plugins that denoise, decrackle and so on, but again, not real cheap by the time you add them all up.

[rick-slo]

Here is an interesting read: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr1...ndrew-rose.htm

Perhaps there is some company that will clean up the sound of your old records this for a price - have not found one online though.

[philjs]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

You likely need some specific cleaning plugins, that probably aren't part of audacity. Izotope RX is ideal for this kind of thing, but it's not real cheap. There are some Waves plugins that denoise, decrackle and so on, but again, not real cheap by the time you add them all up.

Izotope RX3 (both the basic and full versions) is currently on sale (30% to 35% off until May 1st).

Basic versions of the Sonnox denoise, declick and debuzz plugins are included in the $100 Elements version of Wavelab but you'll need the full version ($500) for the complete plugins or for spectral editing. There are 30-day trial versions on the Steinberg site.

Phil

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

You likely need some specific cleaning plugins, that probably aren't part of audacity. Izotope RX is ideal for this kind of thing, but it's not real cheap. There are some Waves plugins that denoise, decrackle and so on, but again, not real cheap by the time you add them all up.

2nd. I do not know about any others but do know Izotope is relatively popular at a number of commercial studios.

[Ty Ford]

scratchy and crackely from tape?

Hmm, never herd that from tape.

I have heard it from vinyl transferred to tape.

Can you post a link to a sample?

Regards,

Ty Ford

PS: I have RX3 Advanced here and find it extremely useful but it can also be a big time suck.

PPS: There's a guy about half an hour from me who has invented a new process for dealing with sticky shed. The shed is caused by the inert (ha!) back coating on some tapes dissolving over time. His process removes the gunk forever and the tape sounds fine. I think back coating was originally created to reduce print through, but its problems really caused a mess.

PPPS: there are also facilities that will bake the tape in a specially constructed oven to dry out the stickiness, then transfer the audio to the digital domain. They usually run about $250 a reel, as far as I've seen.

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

scratchy and crackely from tape?

Hmm, never herd that from tape.

I have heard it from vinyl transferred to tape.

Can you post a link to a sample?

Regards,

Ty Ford

PS: I have RX3 Advanced here and find it extremely useful but it can also be a big time suck.

PPS: There's a guy about half an hour from me who has invented a new process for dealing with sticky shed. The shed is caused by the inert (ha!) back coating on some tapes dissolving over time. His process removes the gunk forever and the tape sounds fine. I think back coating was originally created to reduce print through, but its problems really caused a mess.

PPPS: there are also facilities that will bake the tape in a specially constructed oven to dry out the stickiness, then transfer the audio to the digital domain. They usually run about $250 a reel, as far as I've seen.

A lot of what my studio currently does is restore and retrieval work of a variety of obsolete formats, including analog reel-to-reel. I bake tapes all the time at far less than $250 per reel.

The worst thing that can happen to a tape with sticky-shed is if it is played before being thoroughly baked. Irreversible damage is very likely. The process is not permanent. It only gets the tape to behave properly for a limited time.