anybody else use computers for audio restoration work?

Post Reply New Topic

i was wondering if anybody else here used their computer for working with audio in restoration tasks [fixing audio problems with a soundfile]? just curious. i would dearly love to correspond with others who do this, and swap tips and tricks and otherwise engage in shoptalk

i have never restored anything, created lots, not excactly comparable.

i do however sometimes find the need when i have to record memos in a noisy enviroment, usually i simply run it through an equalizer to filter out exccesive bass and treble, reserving the midrange for human voices.

Things I've restored using Pristine Sounds, Sound Forge, Waves X-click, X-hum, etc.:
1. The complete recordings of Robert Johnson. The purists will call this sacrilegious, but I removed the clicks & pops and the 78rpm vinyl rumble & hum. I added a slight bit of reverb also and widened the stereo field a little. Why? It's said that Robert Johnson recorded facing a corner because he didn't want people to see how and what he played (you know, to strengthen the mystique). he fact is, he played that way so he could here himself better. He was attempting to create an echo, albeit a short one, to widen . amplify & deepen his sound, kinda like playing in a tiled bathroom.

2. I've added depth and width to the complete string quartets of Beethoven by the Vegh Quartet. The recording is from 1965. It was dry and the musicians sound like they were sitting on your lap playing.

3. Brahms complete symphonies (Bruno Walter with the Columbia SO). It's from 1955. It was already in stereo, but the sounds were thin, especially the higher instruments like violins, flutes & piccolos.

4. Son House's recording of John the Revelator, the one from the early 60's. It was devoid of reverb and very dry. I "fixed" it by placing Son House on stage in a church and you, the listener, about 20, 25 feet away.

5. Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah. Excellent song, just need a little depth. My recording was from vinyl so I had to remove the clicks, pops, rattle & hum.

6. Just for fun, I "unrestored" a blues recording I did. I wrote and recorded about 6 acoustic blues tracks then scratched them up, and added clicks, pops, rattle & hum. I "created" a bluesman, too. Blind Robbie McNabb. (If all this isn't aspie stuff, I don't know what it!.

Yep, Soundforge is an excellent audio editor.

I created Blind Robbie McNabb. He "recorded" those songs. This is kinda like Spinal Tap, a "manufactured" band that performs original songs.

Yep, all the time. I'm currently making a 3cd set of 60's music for my own listening, consisting of rarer stuff that is pretty obscure. Lot's of it needed a bit of restoration here and there, but most just needed to be properly EQ'd to sound natural and not ear bleeding or dull.

I also transfer vinyl LP's using my Technics SL-D33 direct drive turntable. Big pops and clicks (only on older vinyl) are manually removed, and quiter ones are done automatically. I always make sure the vinyl itself is clean before the transfer and is always cleaned with my anti-static fibre/velvet brush prior to transfer.

Would be happy to link to some of my transfers, as most of 'em are long out of print Kiwi LP's which will never appear on cd.

I have in the past but not currently at this moment. I was using Steinberg WaveLab with a bunch of VST Plugins to restore audio from bootleg recordings and other source material.

One othe the things that I noticed though, is that you can only do so much to bad audio sources, and usually limit it to EQ , Compression and sometimes gating. NR usually leaves it's own footprint on the audio which I find usually degrades the audio even further.

i am presently having loads of fun with Roland's R-Mix- VERY useful for making realistically stereo [with approximate instrumental placements in most cases] files ot of mono files. it takes some work but it's definitely doable. also it has some useful denoising apps such as dehiss, dehum, de-wind and de-airconditioner noise that really gets rid of air conditioner noise! the last two also work well with phonographic rumble.

i used every arrow in my quiver to restore a very noisy and tinny recording of benny goodman at an allstar 1938 jazz concert at carnegie hall, which was inexcusably released with ALL the surface noise not only intact but accentuated via aural excitation, as well as with EQ which emphasized the telephonic coloration of the aluminum transcription disc masters. fixing that was a LOT of work, but i made a copy for one of the WPers here who was curious.