The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I am getting better at cleaning up audio files (I think). I am using Brian Davies suite, Click Repair and Noise Reduction programs.

Here is a sample before-after with Duke Ellington on Brunswick m8204, recorded at the Master Recording Studios.

Unfortunately, I only have a cheap pair of computer speakers and might be missing something...

Whaddya think??

Another for comparison.

They sound good. It is kind of hard to find the magic formula of what to do with what software. I have been cleaning up sound for a bit more than 2 years and I think I just recently got better at it.

Myself I use Audacity to capture the music and apply a Low Pass filter followed by several Equalization changes. The equalization is the part that took me the longest to figure out. Then I save the file as a WAV file and run it through Click Repair. Then I reload the file into Audacity and use its Noise Reduction feature. I was using Brian Davies' Noise Reduction too, but I think Audacity's Noise Reduction works better and does not remove quite as much from the quality of the sound. But, Davies Click Repair is far better than what I could ever get out of Audacity.

I think everyone ends up doing their own thing. It took me longer than I liked to get "better" at doing this. And, some records require special handling so there is not just one way to do everything all the time.

When it comes to digital audio cleaning sometimes you hear excruciating things, sometimes you hear acceptable things. In this loose-loose scenario, you really did a good job as there are not too many digital artifacts or other weird effects that make you wish you had the clicks and pops back.

However, I have yet to listen to a cleaned file that I prefer to the original file with clicks and pops and all, especially when the record was well kept as in this case. It's always more vivid and more transparent.

Actually, as I am accustomed to clicks and pops since my childhood and this is how this type of music has always been listened to, I don't really understand these operations that abrade music to some degree and give nothing in return.

My own personal view is that with 78's there tends to be so much surface noise that is inherent in the material used to press them that to remove it completely is just not possible without removing the life from the music and leaving a ton of artifacts behind. I caveat this with reference to the use of main stream noise reduction products and exclude things like cedar which is in a whole different ball park. Even where you have a modern vinyl pressing from an original 78 stamper there is still surface noise from the graphitation process which enabled them to electroplate the original cut wax in the first place. So surface noise is deeply embedded in the sound and very difficult to effectively separate out.

When transferring 78's (especially those where it is not a laminated pressing) my aim is to try to push the surface noise into the background so that the music can be clearly heard and no more. It is still there but just less prominent - it is a difficult line to tread and down to personal preference but I know that one of these reasons I transfer 78's to the digital realm is that I got sick and tired to listening to commercial modern releases where either the recording has been noise reduced to death or they use echo to hide it. Both of which I hate. To me noise reduction software to remove hiss is to audio what editing a photo manually using a pair of scissors is to the visual format. Both create a hard artificial line against something which should be left fuzzy - if you understand what I mean.

Below is a link to an example sound file to show you what I mean with the end result of how I transfer old disks. Noise free they are not but to me a little bit of surface noise is ok.


https://app.box.com/s/39ggs7tvmbuisy0ppt8hf1eee39ssxqc

Marco Gilardetti wrote:
Actually, as I am accustomed to clicks and pops since my childhood and this is how this type of music has always been listened to,

I disagree. When new, many of these records sounded a lot better than they do now. Most clicks and pops are caused by scratches, and crackling and sizzling is caused by graininess, which is caused by prolonged exposure to high humidity. All those grainy Victors or crackly HMV's had pretty quiet surfaces when they were brand new.

Also, these defects are much more emphasized when the records are played back on modern equipment as compared to acoustic gramophones.

So, as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with a little noise reduction, as long as you don't exaggerate it. If you use to much the music gets that underwatery sound, or it starts to sound slightly metallic.

With regards to the posted audio files, I think the raw files sound better, more natural. The restored files have a sort of metallic edge to them. I'm a big fan of Brian Davies' software, though. What I always do when using click repair is ticking the "noise" box. That way I can hear what is filtered out. As long it's just noise, it's fine, but as soon as I hear snippets of music bleeding into the noise, I know I have to lower the settings. I try to filter as little as possible. On E+ records I do maybe Declick: 20 and Decrackle: 30. Whenever a record has a lot of high frequency hiss, first thing I do is to try a bigger stylus. If there's still too much hiss, I use DeNoise, but with noise reduction limited do 4dB.

Personally, I prefer the recordings to sound close to being played on an acoustic machine, so I don't use any equalization etc. I only use light click removal if scratches or hairline cracks etc are present. On clean records I don't use any electronic cleanup. But I also only record for my own listening pleasure to listen to while driving, so I don't have to worry about other opinions.

Andreas

I just post them straight "into the can". I think that people looking to get into the hobby need to know what these things really sound like. Now- the real reason: I am lazy.

alang wrote:Personally, I prefer the recordings to sound close to being played on an acoustic machine, so I don't use any equalization etc. I only use light click removal if scratches or hairline cracks etc are present. On clean records I don't use any electronic cleanup. But I also only record for my own listening pleasure to listen to while driving, so I don't have to worry about other opinions.

Andreas

When playing 78's on modern electric equipment, you are always using equalization, whether you want it or not. There's the RIAA curve, as provided by your modern phono-preamp, and there's the sonic characteristics of your cartridge and stylus.

bart1927 wrote:

alang wrote:Personally, I prefer the recordings to sound close to being played on an acoustic machine, so I don't use any equalization etc. I only use light click removal if scratches or hairline cracks etc are present. On clean records I don't use any electronic cleanup. But I also only record for my own listening pleasure to listen to while driving, so I don't have to worry about other opinions.

Andreas

When playing 78's on modern electric equipment, you are always using equalization, whether you want it or not. There's the RIAA curve, as provided by your modern phono-preamp, and there's the sonic characteristics of your cartridge and stylus.

Agree- acoustical reproduction is as close to "reference" as you'll ever get on these early records.