Does anyone know any tricks for cleaning up music recorded onto a PC from a cassette tape? I have some music I recorded onto my PC from a cassette tape and was able to reduce much of the hiss (using Audacity) and applied an equalizer (using GoldWave), and overall I like the results. However, there are a couple things I'd still like to improve - Specifically, there's one track where the right channel drops out for a moment and comes back. There's also an occasional popping sound here and there. I'm not sure of the best way to clean up those spots.

For the track where the right channel drops out for a moment and comes back, I've tried doing a channel mix (using GoldWave), but that changes the quality of the sound a bit - It doesn't sound as full as before. As far as removing the popping sounds, I'm not sure of the best way to do that either.

Nightfox

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Nightfox to All on Wed Nov 11 2015 09:22 pm

Does anyone know any tricks for cleaning up music recorded onto a PC from a cassette tape? I have some music I recorded onto my PC from a cassette tape and was able to reduce much of the hiss (using Audacity) and applied an equalizer (using GoldWave), and overall I like the results. However, there are a couple things I'd still like to improve - Specifically, there's one track where the right channel drops out for a moment and comes back.
There's also an occasional popping sound here and there. I'm not sure of the best way to clean up those spots.

For the track where the right channel drops out for a moment and comes back, I've tried doing a channel mix (using GoldWave), but that changes the quality of the sound a bit - It doesn't sound as full as before. As far as removing the popping sounds, I'm not sure of the best way to do that either.

If there aren't too many pops, you can actually select the click in Audacity and use the "Repair" effect in Audacity. I think it's mainly intended for digital distortion, but I've used it to repair analog clicks and pops successfully too. The trick is you have to really zoom way in one the wave form and choose just the pop/clip portion to repair. If you select too wide of a portion of the audio (more 128 samples), the effect won't do anything but display an error to you.

With regard to drop-outs, you could probably use the opposite channel audio to possible fill in the missing "level" in the affect channel, but it'll still probably sound a little odd (especially with headphones).

Pro-Audio might be the better message area to talk about this subject, but it does interest me.

digital man

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Digital Man to Nightfox on Wed Nov 11 2015 23:03:09

If there aren't too many pops, you can actually select the click in Audacity and use the "Repair" effect in Audacity. I think it's mainly intended for digital distortion, but I've used it to repair analog clicks and pops successfully too. The trick is you have to really zoom way in one the wave form and choose just the pop/clip portion to repair. If you select too wide of a portion of the audio (more 128 samples), the effect won't do anything but display an error to you.

With regard to drop-outs, you could probably use the opposite channel audio to possible fill in the missing "level" in the affect channel, but it'll still probably sound a little odd (especially with headphones).

Thanks for the reply and tips. I'll give Audacity's "Repair" effect a try. I'll have to tinker with ways to fill in the drop-outs.

Pro-Audio might be the better message area to talk about this subject, but it does interest me.

Ah, I suppose that makes sense. I was looking through the sub-boards to decide where to post this, and my eyes must have missed pro-audio. I was thinking there was a music-related sub-board on dove-net but didn't remember which one it was.

Nightfox

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Nightfox to All on Wed Nov 11 2015 09:22 pm

cassette tape? I have some music I recorded onto my PC from a cassette
tape and was able to reduce much of the hiss (using Audacity) and applied
an equalizer (using GoldWave), and overall I like the results. However, there are a couple things I'd still like to improve - Specifically, there's one track where the right channel drops out for a moment and comes back. There's also an occasional popping sound here and there. I'm not sure of the best way to clean up those spots.

For the track where the right channel drops out for a moment and comes
back, I've tried doing a channel mix (using GoldWave), but that changes the quality of the sound a bit - It doesn't sound as full as before. As far as removing the popping sounds, I'm not sure of the best way to do that

you will not be able to work miracles and you will lose quality and/or distort the sound.
pops are easy to take out. you manually select and delete them.

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Digital Man to Nightfox on Wed Nov 11 2015 23:03:09

If there aren't too many pops, you can actually select the click in Audacity and use the "Repair" effect in Audacity. I think it's mainly intended for digital distortion, but I've used it to repair analog clicks and pops successfully too.

I suppose that fits with my BBS name. Hopefully my BBS will rarely be in need of repair though. ;)

The trick is you have to really zoom way in one
the wave form and choose just the pop/clip portion to repair. If you select too wide of a portion of the audio (more 128 samples), the effect won't do anything but display an error to you.

I gave that a try, and I think it worked fairly well. It didn't totally remove the pops & clicks, but it did significantly lessen them so they aren't nearly as annoying as before. I wonder why it only lets you repair up to 128 samples though.. I ended up selecting several sections in a row of 128(ish) samples to repair - It seems like it should be able to let you make a wider selection if you want.

Nightfox

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Nightfox to All on Wed Nov 11 2015 21:22:00

Does anyone know any tricks for cleaning up music recorded onto a PC from a cassette tape? I have some music I recorded onto my PC from a cassette tape

I fix pops manually. Find the pop location and zoom in. You should find a dicontinuity in the wave that causes the pop, you just need to move the dots on the wave a bit to make it go away. Just make it more sine-curve like.

For the lost stereo track, cannot help there, the only thing to do would be to copy the other track, say left, on top of the right, muted track.

These days, I'm going to the other direction. I copy music from PC to cassettes and listen to them using my Aiwa (a walkman like). And of course buy old cassettes from thrift stores.
---[ Gumbro ]---

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Gumbro to Nightfox on Sat Nov 21 2015 17:40:00

Does anyone know any tricks for cleaning up music recorded onto a PC
from a cassette tape? I have some music I recorded onto my PC from a
cassette tape

I fix pops manually. Find the pop location and zoom in. You should find a dicontinuity in the wave that causes the pop, you just need to move the dots on the wave a bit to make it go away. Just make it more sine-curve like.

Interesting, I hadn't thought about that. I'm not sure if the audio editors I typically use (GoldWave and Audacity) allow that, but they probably do.

For the lost stereo track, cannot help there, the only thing to do would be to copy the other track, say left, on top of the right, muted track.

I ended up doing that, and I suppose the result came out okay. It sounds somewhat different in that part, but less annoying than having one of the channels go out temporarily.

These days, I'm going to the other direction. I copy music from PC to cassettes and listen to them using my Aiwa (a walkman like). And of course buy old cassettes from thrift stores.

It has been many years since I had a cassette walkman. I don't even have any type of cassette player anymore.. I had recorded this cassette to my PC several years ago when I borrowed someone else's cassette stereo.

Nightfox

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Nightfox to Gumbro on Sat Nov 21 2015 05:22 pm

These days, I'm going to the other direction. I copy music from PC
to cassettes and listen to them using my Aiwa (a walkman like). And
of course buy old cassettes from thrift stores.

I had a convertible in college with a theft-proof 8-track tape player. Had a great time picking up oldies on 8-Track at the thrift stores!

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Sat Nov 21 2015 21:52:28

These days, I'm going to the other direction. I copy music from PC
to cassettes and listen to them using my Aiwa (a walkman like). And
of course buy old cassettes from thrift stores.

I had a convertible in college with a theft-proof 8-track tape player. Had a great time picking up oldies on 8-Track at the thrift stores!

Gumbro was the one who wrote that paragraph, so I'm wondering why you wrote your reply to me? Better to direct your reply to the person you're quoting..

Nightfox

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Sat Nov 21 2015 09:52 pm

I had a convertible in college with a theft-proof 8-track tape player. Had a great time picking up oldies on 8-Track at the thrift stores!

So it was theft-proof just by its nature of being an 8-track? :-)

digital man

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Re: Cassette audio cleanup
By: Nightfox to Gumbro on Sat Nov 21 2015 17:22:00

Interesting, I hadn't thought about that. I'm not sure if the audio editors typically use (GoldWave and Audacity) allow that, but they probably do.

Audacity allows for that. I learned this when making loops, that is, snippets of sounds that repeat seamlessly. Once you get the hang of it, you can construct all kinds of sounds from the scratch, or modify existing ones.

---[ Gumbro ]---

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