software to remove pops from 45's

[JohnnyK]

I have a number of 45's that I purchased in the 60's that I would like to transfer to CD. Does anybody have a suggestion for software that will remove the pops, clicks, etc.?

[Sckott]

Your mouse is the best way without ruining the basic sound. If you use any packaged NR, it will KILL the sound. DART was one of the 1st ones, and O Boy did it suck.

Cool Edit has blanket tick removal, but still.... best to kill big ticks with tiny mouse edits in Cool Edit manually. Like picking seeds out of a strawberry, sometimes, but for some 45's it's not that bad.

Although, you can try blanket methods. But again, the software doesn't know what's music and what's noise all the time.

[Vivaldinization]

I find that Cool Edit is surprisingly good at it, though, provided you have the right setting. Now, we're talking about click reduction, not noise reduction...click reduction is, for whatever reason, much easier to do, and much harder to detect (i.e. it doesn't really screw with the sound).

Now, that said, for all but the longest/noisiest songs I tend to do what Sckott described, i.e. find the worst clicks and only run the click reduction on those areas (sometimes Cool Edit's "fill single click" doesn't work). This works splendidly. But for a click-ier 45, it might be fine to figure out a good preset and run it on the entire thing.

-D

[lennonology]

I agree that all of the pre-packaged click removal programs tend to do more harm than good. So for the rare occasions when I have to have a click-free track, I will manually draw out the clicks using Sound Forge (they are currently up 5.0). The "lite" edition Sound Forge XP will allow you to do this as well. It's an incredibly painstaking process, but the results are well worthwhile.

[jkerr]

I use ClickFix plug-in for Cool Edit. Its very fast and it has a preview option which is great. If you preview with "Keep Only Clicks" you can hear whether anything else is being removed. I've used it for about 6 lps so far with great results with just the presets.

Try the download:

ClickFix (http://www.jdklein.com/clickfix/index.htm)

The eval has a 5 minute max usage per session.

[Craig]

I use a shareware program called Wave Repair that was written just to remove pops and clicks. As others have pointed out, it can take quite a bit of time to remove the pops manually but it is worth it. I remember the first time I listened to a declicked song that had a scratch on it that I had been living with for about twenty-five years. It was magic.

Wave Repair web page (http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/wavrep.htm)

-Craig

[SonicZone]

Originally posted by Sckott
. . . If you use any packaged NR, it will KILL the sound. DART was one of the 1st ones, and O Boy did it suck.
True -- and I've never been that impressed with the NR in GoldWave, either.

[Grant]

I use Cool Edit Pro along with Sound Forge Noise Reduction 2.0 DX plugin. They are an unbeatable combination!:cool:

Too bad Waves' NR is too damn expensive!:mad: It works great for crackles.

[Grant]

Originally posted by Sckott


Cool Edit has blanket tick removal, but still.... best to kill big ticks with tiny mouse edits in Cool Edit manually. Like picking seeds out of a strawberry, sometimes, but for some 45's it's not that bad.

Although, you can try blanket methods. But again, the software doesn't know what's music and what's noise all the time.
I disagree! I use CE's declicker and if confugured carefully, there ahould be NO dicernable sonic degredation! I will be glad to give you my favorite setting. But you must use the
"Find All Levels" button after entering the settings.

I always manually de-click after blanket processing because i'm anal about getting things clean.
BTW, do all your processing in 32-bit-float to avoid sonic degredation.

[jkerr]

Originally posted by Grant

BTW, do all your processing in 32-bit-float to avoid sonic degredation.

Grant,

What dither settings do you use in Cool Edit to convert back to 16 bit? When I've tried converting from 32 to 16 I get more degradation than if I did everything in 16 bit (record/edit/de-click). And sampling rate? Do you start with a higher sampling rate and then down convert too?

thanks

[Dan]

A friend has Sound Forge and I find that his noise reduction works GREAT! I tried the demo of "Raygun" for the MAC. The rumble and 50/60Hz hum remover works very well. The noise reduction however creates a flanging effect.

Toast is supoosed to come with a program called "Sprin Doctor". Anybody try that?

[Grant]

Jkerr,

Since my final destination will be CD, I simply use 44.1 as the sampling rate. I feel that downsampling from a higher sampling rate in most software programs degrade the sound. I have not been able to try 88.2, but it should work better than, say, 48k or 96k because 88.2 divides evenly into 44.1.

These days, my favorite setting for dithering/noise shaping down to 16 bit is:

Dither Depth: 1
p.d.f.: Triangular (I find it has the best tradeoffs)
Type: C2

I find that C2 retains the crisp, clean transients. This curve tends to shift more dither noise downward so the bass may sound a wee bit lighter. You'll have do your own experimentation to find the best settings for you and your music.

Processing in 16-bit will leave your music sounding dull and thin-sounding. Doing it in 32-bit or 24-bit will help retain that warmth.

We're talking about restoring old 45's folks, so we're not looking for the holy grail. I just want to stay as close to the original sound as possible while getting a clean sound. And, yes, I do clean up surface noise.

The more I work with SF's noise reduction, the more I find I can clean noise without artifacts at the expense of sound alteration. Preserving the original sound quality using NR is where Cool Edit Shines, though.

[Grant]

Originally posted by Dan


Toast is supoosed to come with a program called "Sprin Doctor". Anybody try that?

Oh God NO!!!:eek: It uses a simplified version of Raygun. It couldn't properly clean anything to save your life! And, it only works in 16-bit.

In fact, I don't bother with most shareware programs out there because they don't process in 32-bit. SF does now, as does DCArt32. But, none of these programs like Goldwave, Sound Laundry, Wave repair, what have you, will. One, Raygun, I believe, will convert it to 16-bit for you, but i'd rather control that myself.

I'm speaking for the Windows format, not the MAC.

[jkerr]

Thanks Grant!

In the past whenever I tried using 32 bit I also used a higher sampling rate. So down converting both is probably the problem I experienced then.