[slinkelist] New Guy

[Sinan Karasu]

As I said Hammerfall is an overkill for you. TurtleBeach (
http://www.voyetra.com )
is on of the more respected sound cards (Montegro II ?) or something like that.
Another options is SoundBlaster Live! Platinum. SoundBlaster used to suck big,
but I understand that newer Platinum is acceptable. I had a SoundBlaster Live!
with digital I/O , gave it to my mother in law...

Recommended solution is:

Turntable ---[Receiver]---SPDIF I/O -----[Digital Sound Card]

1)Then the s/w you should run is a de-clicking s/w for the records.
De-clicking is theoretically sound, since it uses the mechanically
generated fast attack time to detect scratches.

2)After that you can (if you want to) run a de-hissing s/w.
However de-hissing is not theoretically sound, since it tends to
remove the "asynchronous" noise from the music , which could
( and does) remove some hi frequeincies also. One option is to
limit it to 6db or even less.

Now having said all this, I will go against my rules and recommend that you get
a
SoundBlaster Live! Platinum , ( but make sure that it comes with Cubasis s/w)
I understand that it contains a de-clicker. However do look at Montegro
from Voyetra and at RME DIGI96 .....

Again, now I have my own built-in hiss reduction , known as loss
of hearing due to advanced age. So thake what I say with a
grain of salt....

Some other sources....

http://www.mtu.com/basics/noiseremove.htm
http://www.sonicspot.com/noisereduction/noisereduction.html

Also look at the following h/w and/or s/w
Samplitude 2496
diamondcut32
http://www.sekd.com

Also read the following
----Another Post from another group-------------------------------
My name is Glenn Moses. I'm a professional audio engineer, and from years of
listening, my ears are trained and tuned.

When I first heard about digital noise removal software, I thought it was what I
was waiting for to clean up my old cassettes and vinyl, so I could print
them to CD and preserve them. I was overjoyed at the prospect of restoring my
favorite music to its former glory or beyond.

I routinely get my grubby hands on this kind of software. I try all of it, and
play with it extensively. What I have found is the following.

Broadband noise reduction is always damaging when you apply it to an entire mix,
especially when there is a crowd or cymbals on the recording.
Thus, hiss-removal just sucks for all kinds of mastering, especially live source
material. It doesn't do much damage if it's applied 6dB or less, but then
again, losing 6dB is not worth using the NR software.

In the studio, hiss removal is, however, REALLY handy for rmoving hiss from
individual, un-mixed solo instrumental tracks, particulary guitar and bass
tracks, as preparation for mixing multitracked records. Used properly, this
software definitely helps to clean up studio recordings.

Click removal software is incredible. I had a 1978 Genesis single with an
extremely rare pair of B-sides on it. The record was unlistenable due to the
noise. After de-clicking the record through the Steinberg De-Clicker plug-in in
Cubase VST/24, the record became as close to new as I could ever
hope for. Simply incredible.

From what I have read, it's best to de-click recordings that need it before you
de-hiss them, in order to take a cleaner sample of the hiss for de-hissing
software to learn from. This is important, because, on live material like Dead
and Phish, the crowd can be interpreted as noise by noise-removal
software. This is an oversimplification of how the software works; Hiss-removal
is really not that intelligent an algorithm. But, essentially, the crowd
and percussion confuse the noise-removal filters, and so, they get damaged.
Sucks, don't it?

I can't wait until this stuff gets smarter. I'm sick and tired of getting .mp3
files and even CD's of rare, classic source that has been butchered and
garbled by ignorant people that honestly think that they did a good job
"cleaning up" the music! It genuinely hurts me, and it's usually a waste of my
time to obtain that source.

If you have the patience and a LOT of time, I'm told that many moderate passes
of the hiss removal process are much cleaner and more effective than
fewer, more drastic passes. If you really want to kill the hiss, try knocking it
down 3dB at a time, and listening to the preview before you process the
file if your software allows. This is supposed to work, but it's time consuming
as all hell. Above all, ***use your ears!!!*** They will not lie to you. So
far, they've worked great for you. I'm glad you had the sense to throw out this
issue to the community. Feel free to send this letter to anyone out there
that you feel needs it. This is an issue dear to me, and the ignorance and
deafness out there astounds me. I would love to be a part of the cure. I'd love
to see hiss-removal get the same bad rap as Dolby noise-reduction has among
analog traders (Dolby is excellent when used properly, but no one uses
it properly, and it becomes dangerous. Bleh.)

Summary:

De-clicking = good
De-Hissing = bad

My conclusion for the time-being is to simply knock all of my source down to CD
right now, as-is, before the masters decay any further over time. I'll
process them later when the right tools arrive. My records are my babies, I'm
sure you love yours, as well. If you want to dabble in cleaning yours up,
just make sure that you keep a copy of the original, hissy, crackly source handy
on disc as well, so that when the time comes that the right software is
here, you can re-attack the problem properly.

Please, feel free to bother me with any technical questions you may have. If I
don't have the answer, I can point you in the right direction.

You can find numerous resources through the web-sites and archives of Mix and
Electronic Musician magazines. These are the major how-to trade
publications of audio engineers world-wide. Bookmark these sites:

http://www.emusician.com

http://www.mixonline.com

I hope I've been of some assistance.

Peace, love, and music,

Glenn

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I agree with you 100%. There seems to be a maturation process amongst those that
collect digital recordings. After discovering how to capture and
process music, people's attention seems to turn toward correcting and improving
the quality of items in their collection. I know I went through a stage
like that, and I've seen others go through it as well.

I have been successful removing pops, "correcting" recordings by splicing from
multiple "identical" sources and removing whines and whatnot with
notch filters. In the majority of cases, removing hiss ruins the music.

I have had some success, though. 5.15.70 has Pigpen singing "She's Mine". I
boosted the volume, then ran 25% noise reduction 4 times, and it sounds
pretty nice. On 7.2.71, I ramped the 1st minute of "Sing Me Back Home" because
it started very softly, then ran 3 rounds of NR at 25%. This one
sounds pretty good as well.

On the other hand, I have several shows with that warbly sound that says "NR
used here". I have tried running NR on a copy of 4.26.69 (Electric
Theater) that I digitized from a 2nd gen cassette, but the results were awful.
Personally, I feel that people should avoid using NR on traded material,
unless the NR is clearly noted.

"When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty"

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Sinan

--------------
"Pesola, Kenneth D COL DDESB" wrote:

> Thanks for the response.
>
> Unfortunately, much of the Hammerful technical jargon is alien to me.  In
> your opinion, what's the best hardware and software to automatically remove
> the scratches and "pops" associated with recording from records, and
> likewise, is there anything out there which recognizes the blank "quiet"
> space between record tracks, and transfer this info to the CD you are
> recording as separate song titles?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
>         Ken