"Glenn Richards" wrote in message
. uk...
Don Pearce wrote:

I ask a serious question, expecting some sensible responses, and
instead all I get are sarcastic comments.
No, you were trolling.

No, I was asking a serious question.

As reducing the noise floor (by whatever means) improves dynamics.
And this I have tested, I've recently been involved in cleaning up
some recordings made about 25 years ago on analogue equipment. This
process involves re-EQ followed by digital noise reduction, and the
results before and after applying the noise reduction are nothing
short of dramatic.
Cleaning up recordings most certainly does *not* involve eq. That would
be changing recordings.

By "cleaning up" I was referring specifically to applying digital noise
reduction. The re-EQ was mentioned simply for completeness, as the
recordings were a bit bass-shy and lacking in sparkle. So a touch of
smiley EQ solves that, followed by noise reduction.

Professionals call this "cosmetic enhancement" :-))
For one's own use, make any changes that take your fancy.
For a commercial release, I regard the smiley brigade with deep
distrust. When the big day comes and we all standing in line in the
big mastering room in the sky, they will have much to answer for:-)


It's rather vital that you EQ before NR though, otherwise the re-EQ boosts
bits that the NR has cut, leading to some interesting pumping effects...

That's correct. One needs to do a dummy run though to see if the
pre-EQ is the best possible after you have heard the NR.

I do quite a lot of "shellac recovery" Once the surface noise has been
removed, people often get the impression that the HF has been
peeled off also. In actual fact there was probably very little HF
above 6-8kHz there to start with.

So in these instances I do the NR first. Any subsequent gentle
EQ slightly raises the noise floor, but with vintage material is
of little consequence. The secret is to do as little as possible
In this instance less is often more :-)

regards to all
Iain