From Che Sent Thu, Feb 26th 1998, 10:51
On Mon, 23 Feb 1998 xxxxxxxx@xxx.xxxxxxx.xxx wrote: > > > hi, i have a question about possible methods of reducing/eliminating the > hiss which appears when vinyl-audio is recorded onto a hard drive for the > purpose of digital storage/conversion... > > i am primarily using soundedit 16 and was wondering if anyone knows where i > can get the plug-ins which have such a "remove hiss" feature. i tried using > the equalizer to minimize high range audio and that didn't quite work. > I bought a copy of Raygun from Arboretum. It's a Premier Plugin (works in DeckII, Logic Audio, Premier, others), though it comes with a standalone version that won't let you process regions. It has hiss removal, pop removal, and rumble/50Hz/60Hz removal, minimal controls, all for $99. I believe it's the "Easy Teenage New York Disco Version" (Zappa fans will understand this) of their Ionizer plugin. In practice, it's ok, but leaves me wanting more powerful (ie more expensive) tools. Its pop remover doesn't catch enough pops. Its noise remover is too apt to remove music - for instance, I couldn't use it on the Gescom track, Sciew Spoc, I think, that has the breathy vocal pads because it removed the breathiness. And the rumble remover tends to remove bass. To use it I copy the original stereo tracks, process the copies, invert them, and mix those with the originals & listen - what you're left with is _just_ the part that was removed. Going between the mix, the original, and the processed version, I can get a feel for what's missing, and whether or not the music suffers for it. Then I go through & clean up the worst pops by hand. Manually scrubbing for pops is very time consuming and mind-numbing, so I've learned to live with some poppiness. What I'd really like is a tool to remove pops that happen in square-wave peaks - they generate overflow errors in the DACs which cause all manner of nastiness in the sample. It seems like such a simple thing to spot mathematically that I'm tempted to write one myself... Not to start another flamewar, but after repeated close, close listenings to vinyl records, I now think they sound even worse than I've said in the past. Maybe Autechre thinks their music is "incomplete without surface noise", but I for one don't appreciate it. Che