What is the best order to process audio
 

Hi


Is there a recommended order to process a digital audio signal using
Audacity or similar so that optimum results are obtained? Eg, is it
better to remove hiss, clicks, etc before Normalizing? I have a
number of old cassettes I need to copy to CDs and I want to get the
best results possible.

thanks

Chaz Cotton

What is the best order to process audio
 

Chaz Cotton wrote:

Is there a recommended order to process a digital audio signal using
Audacity or similar so that optimum results are obtained? Eg, is it
better to remove hiss, clicks, etc before Normalizing? I have a
number of old cassettes I need to copy to CDs and I want to get the
best results possible.

Spend 90% of your time getting the azimuth on the tape playback right
and getting the Dolby levels so the damn thing pumps as little as possible.

Any digital processing is gravy. I would not trust the noise removal on
Audacity, but your goal is to deal with that before it ever goes into the
computer.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

What is the best order to process audio
 

On 17/07/2012 16:35, Chaz Cotton wrote:
Hi


Is there a recommended order to process a digital audio signal using
Audacity or similar so that optimum results are obtained? Eg, is it
better to remove hiss, clicks, etc before Normalizing? I have a
number of old cassettes I need to copy to CDs and I want to get the
best results possible.

I'd say remove clicks, then noise, and use multiple passes to partially
remove them each time until you're happy with the sound rather than one
heavy handed pass. Then normalise.

Just be aware that no matter how you do it, you will lose some of the
musicality of the performance, which you may find more annoying than the
noise.

A quick and dirty method to clean up cassettes and tapes is to use a
free Winamp plugin called Tape Restorer Live!, currently at version
1.20. It has settings to allow for incorrectly adjusted Dolby B & C,
presets for removal of 19KHz pilot tone and hum from recordings and even
lets you time align the channels on tapes where the head gaps aren't in
the right place. Use the WAV writer output plugin to record the output
to HD.

http://www.winamp.com/plugin/tape-restore-live/154246

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

What is the best order to process audio
 

"Chaz Cotton" wrote in message
...
Is there a recommended order to process a digital audio signal using
Audacity or similar so that optimum results are obtained? Eg, is it
better to remove hiss, clicks, etc before Normalizing? I have a
number of old cassettes I need to copy to CDs and I want to get the
best results possible.

The order is pretty well unimportant when copying cassette to CD even if you
used a Nakamichi Dragon for both the record and playback source. And if you
are using anything less, then you have FAR more problems to worry about, and
the digital processing order is NOT one of them these days.

Trevor.

What is the best order to process audio
 

On Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:06:24 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:

On 17/07/2012 16:35, Chaz Cotton wrote:
Hi


Is there a recommended order to process a digital audio signal using
Audacity or similar so that optimum results are obtained? Eg, is it
better to remove hiss, clicks, etc before Normalizing? I have a
number of old cassettes I need to copy to CDs and I want to get the
best results possible.

I'd say remove clicks, then noise, and use multiple passes to partially
remove them each time until you're happy with the sound rather than one
heavy handed pass. Then normalise.

Just be aware that no matter how you do it, you will lose some of the
musicality of the performance, which you may find more annoying than the
noise.

A quick and dirty method to clean up cassettes and tapes is to use a
free Winamp plugin called Tape Restorer Live!, currently at version
1.20. It has settings to allow for incorrectly adjusted Dolby B & C,
presets for removal of 19KHz pilot tone and hum from recordings and even
lets you time align the channels on tapes where the head gaps aren't in
the right place. Use the WAV writer output plugin to record the output
to HD.

http://www.winamp.com/plugin/tape-restore-live/154246


Thanks for this.

What is the best order to process audio
 

"Chaz Cotton" wrote in message
...
Hi


Is there a recommended order to process a digital audio signal using
Audacity or similar so that optimum results are obtained? Eg, is it
better to remove hiss, clicks, etc before Normalizing? I have a
number of old cassettes I need to copy to CDs and I want to get the
best results possible.

You shouldn't have clicks for a commercial cassette. Maybe if it was copied
from an LP.

You should do your final normalization (to set the level on CD) after you've
removed any clicks or applied any EQ, since these steps can alter the peak
levels in the recording.

FWIW, the order I normally do is:
* Capture (analog to digital), being fairly conservative about peak levels.
Saved as 24 bit or 32 bit files.
* Normalize to -3 dbfs for convenience when I'm working in the wave editor
* Apply whatever restorative (de-noise) or additive (EQ to taste) processing
* Normalize & hard limit (if needed) to the final levels I want for CD. I
hard limit sparingly, just enough to bring up the average level if there's a
few peaks that stand out.
* Convert to 16 bit for burning to CD

I'm usually putting a mix of songs on my CD's for listening, so I will do
some adjustments to the volume and EQ to roughly match the other songs in
the set.

Hope this helps,
Sean

What is the best order to process audio
 

In article ,
Sean Conolly wrote:
* Normalize & hard limit (if needed) to the final levels I want for CD.
I hard limit sparingly, just enough to bring up the average level if
there's a few peaks that stand out.

Why on earth would you want to do that?

--
*Most people have more than the average number of legs*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

What is the best order to process audio
 

Sean Conolly wrote:

* Normalize & hard limit (if needed) to the final levels I want for CD. I
hard limit sparingly, just enough to bring up the average level if there's a
few peaks that stand out.
* Convert to 16 bit for burning to CD

Why in the world would you hard limit when moving from a medium with
maybe 50 or 60 dB of dynamic range to one of 96 dB of dynamic range?

Significant peaks probably didn't survive recording to cassette in the
first place.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/walkinaymusic
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri

What is the best order to process audio
 

In article , Sean Conolly
wrote:
"Chaz Cotton" wrote in message
...


* Normalize & hard limit (if needed) to the final levels I
want for CD. I hard limit sparingly, just enough to bring up the
average level if there's a few peaks that stand out.

* Convert to 16 bit for burning to CD

Like others, I'd suggest *avoiding* normalizing or limiting to anything
close to 0dBFS. if you normalise to within a dB or so of 0dBFS you'd need
to check any CD player you use can then handle intersample excursions
produced by the DAC/reconstruction filter that rise above 0dBFS.

And for the same reason I'd certainly be cautious about downsampling to 16
bit *after* normalizing to near 0dBFS. Again, that might lead to problems.

Unless you are *really* pushed for covering ultra-wide range material I'd
not 'normalise' to a level where any peak sample went above about -2 to
-3dBFS.

I appreciate that would not suit some in the 'biz' though, because of their
obsession with LOUDNESS and the assumption that the listener is incapable
of adjusting the volume.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

What is the best order to process audio
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
Like others, I'd suggest *avoiding* normalizing or limiting to anything
close to 0dBFS. if you normalise to within a dB or so of 0dBFS you'd need
to check any CD player you use can then handle intersample excursions
produced by the DAC/reconstruction filter that rise above 0dBFS.

Is that *really* an existing problem ur an urban myth? The Red Book
specifies 16 bit data. Why would they do that if a player would not be able
to reconstruct full 16 bit data to an analog signal? to me this would really
be a severe design flaw in a CD player! If I were the designer of a DAC and
I would expect that an interpolation between two samples would rise above
the maximum dynamic range, I'd add the necessary bits to take care of that
or scale the input of that process down. In my DSP work I always checked the
input range and output range of calculations to see if it would fit in the
'width' of calculations and scale accordingly. This is standard design
practice.

Meindert