Post Your Needledrops, Pt. 2

My little secret is do to NR only on the S channel, going heavy on the bass, with very little or no NR on the mids and highs. Since most (but not all!) pop/dance/rock records since the 70s are near-mono below ~100Hz, and surface noise on LPs gets louder the lower you go thanks to the RIAA curve, this lets me get away with much more aggressive low-frequency NR than would be possible otherwise, without that horrid sucked-out sound or slurred bass.

 

The problem with using low settings <10 in ClickRepair is that they may get the "tops" of clicks, but they'll often leave a low-frequency thump that's much harder to get rid of. As of version 3.x of ClickRepair, there are two features that made a big difference in its effectiveness. First, Reverse processing helps eliminate most of the false positives earlier versions had (Pitch Preservation helps with some specific cases too). Then the 2X and 3X processing works on the thumps I mentioned above. I basically leave Pitch Protection, Reverse, and 3X on all the time and use CR up to 30-35 with almost never and audible degradation, except in one or two very rare cases (the synth intro to Van Halen's "Jump" is one glaring exception). Basically, my usual starting-point CR settings are:

New pressing or used audiophile in mint condition - 15
Typical mint pressing of regular release (especially 80's LPs) - 20
Average pressings - 25
Noisy pressings - 30

It's been my experience that when listening to the noise output in CR 3.x, the rhythmic sound of transients in the music starts to show up above 35-40. I'll go up there if it's a really trashed record I'm trying to salvage becase in such a case, the slightly softened highs are much less annoying than the clicks, pops, and assorted other rude noises!

Good advice. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about normalization out there with people thinking it will compress audio (it won't) or that it will make everything loud enough (it won't if the file has a large dynamic range between the peaks and the average level. As long as it's done in 32-bit floating and as you say on a whole side, then it's not messing with the original levels or dynamics at all.

 

Typically, in Click Repair I use the "wavelet x2" with "reverse" on. Unless an LP is in really bad shape, I find I can get rid almost all clicks and pops with the setting under 10. What Click Repair sometimes misses is bigger clicks, but those tend to be easy to spot on the waveform. In Soundbooth (which should be similar to Audition) there is a tool called "auto heal" which is a very good interpolation algorithm, very similar to the "auto heal" function in Photoshop. Hope that helps.

 

Yes, I also vary the level of NR I use by frequency. In Audition, I have a default curve I start with that fades down to no NR above 1000Hz. I do Beta testing for IzoTope's RX Advanced and their Denoiser (both plugin and standalone) now has the ability to edit the curve, plus a "whitening" slider that alters the curve in sort of an angualr way. I've found it to be very powerful.

However, using the Stereooerets plugin I mentioned above, I was surprised at how folding a track down to mono below 100Hz really does effect the sound (depending on the track of course). Sometimes it shuts down the low-frequency ambience a lot more than I was expecting. Unfortunately, there's often a lot of vinyl/surface noise down there too as you pointed out, so sometimes there's no choice. When I do have to apply NR as well, I will use some EQ matching to try and restore the bass "oomph" as I've found that NR really does weaken the bass if a person isn't careful.

 

Yes Audition 3.x has an Auto-Heal brush. It's basically a front end for the Click Remover plugin's "Fix Single Click" button and it works quite well although it can be slow.

I haven't used Soundbooth, but it's basically a program Adobe developed to target video/movie editors who want some basic audio editing and didn't want to mess with the complexity in Audition. In fact, there are some Audition fans who seem to fear Adobe will abandon them to concentrate entirely on Soundbooth. I certainly hope that's not the case, buit time will tell.

 

i love how clear the handclaps on "Getting Better" came out

that was a good listen, thanks...

 

This is a good point. I find this "thump" is usually only left behind by bigger pops. I usually take any of those out manually first in Soundbooth. Even on low settings, CR does a great job of removing those smaller crackles and pops. If you get a chance, listen to the clip I posted...it's from a fairly noisy LP from 1958, even with the CR setting around 6 it turned out beautifully. But it mostly had small clicks and pops, almost no big ones. Actually, you barely notice the noise when listening through speakers, but they become very evident and annoying when listening on headphones.

I find it's good to listen to the noise output on CR a bit, anything that sounds like "static" is probably transient peaks you want left alone. Different kinds of music seem to be able to tolerate higher settings better than others. For noisy pressings, I also go as high or sometimes even higher than 30.

 

I doubt it. The only thing really going for Soundbooth is that it's available for Mac (Intel only), whereas Audition is not. Everyone thought Adobe would kill Audition/Cool Edit Pro when they bought it from Syntrillium, but they've continued on with development, and added some very nice features.

If the full Audition was ported to Mac, I could easily give up my Windows box. Audition and EAC are the only things it gets used for (although I do use them a lot). Unfortunately, Soundbooth is just too stripped-down for my needs. It's like comparing Garageband to Logic Studio.

I've seen the ads for the Izotope plug-in and it looks nice, but it's *very* expensive, and I don't know if it can be adapted to the way I work. I don't use auto-declicking at all: I set the display to spectral view, zoom in until about half a second is on screen at a time, highlight the clicks, hit a shortcut key to remove, make sure they're gone and they haven't taken valid music material with them, then use another shortcut key to advance one page... repeat hundreds of times for each project.

 

Okay here is a clip of Voodoo Child (Slight Return) from a really nice sounding pressing of the Polydor Electric Ladyland. I drew out a few clicks, but no other processing was used. My equipment goes like this:

Technics SL1200 with AT150MLx cart to an EMu 1820 interface to Cubase recorded at 24/96. Click removal (drawing them out) done in Wavelab and dithered to 16/44.1 in Wavelab:

https://download.yousendit.com/Y1RyMWZHcWZ6NEt4dnc9PQ

Frank R.

 

Izotope's RX isn't just a declicking plugin, it's a standalone restoration program that also comes with DX and VST plugin versions of its main restoration tools (denoiser, dehum, declick, declip, spectral repair, my favorite). I think you'd actually like it a lot as its spectral view is far more powerful and more rapid than Audition's. Yes, it can be expensive. The RX Advanced version sells for $1200, but even the basic version at $399 (list, street is probably lower) features most of the power. It doesn't have the 64-bit SRC and is limited to only one type of MBIT+ dithering, but it's still a stunning program. Plus, RX is very new. Give it time to mature and it will be a powerhouse!

 

Visible clicks and pops like that one are easy to remove (draw out) manually with the Audacity -> Effect -> Repair function, SC. In this example:

Before - Selection - After

 

COOL, I'll try that, thanks!! \m/

 

That seems to have done the trick! I'll live with it for now. I'll do quiet headphones listening to compare but for now, it's great! Thanks for the tip!! \m/

 

Glad it worked! You'll notice that as long as you can isolate the click visually, it works perfectly. Sometimes smaller clicks are barely visible on an already complex waveform though and finding them can become a chore.

 

I zoomed way in and selected the wave and a bit around it; I can hear something there, like a very quick, low-level swish, so maybe I didn't do it right.

 

In RX Standalone you can use Declicker-Manual to do the same job. Surprisingly, few RX users know about its existence. It is basically a waveform interpolator, but a powerful one. I've recently started a small shootout of waveform interpolators here, anyone is welcome to join.

 

In Audacity another way to remove isolated,loud pops/clicks is to zoom way in on the spot where the pop is until the wave is depicted with individual dots, then switch to the draw tool and literally re-draw that short section of the wave to smooth it out. You can click/drag/drop individual dots or click and hold to redraw the line. I've found that pops can be totally eliminated this way and it's a very precise change. This method is a bit time consuming so it's not practical if there are a lot of spots that need fixing, but it's great for isolated problems.

 

Alexey, Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out (the web filter at work blocks some sites, including gearslutz, so I'll have to wait until I get home). To be honest, the declicker is the one part of RX I haven't yet had great success with. Perhaps I just haven't found the right settings, but it either hasn't worked well enough for me or else it leaves pops at each "seam" of a selection. the beta forum seems very quiet right now but once it picks up, I'll hopefully get some guidance from folks who've had more success. All the other tools are absolutely phemonenal. I love the dehum tool. It's the first one I've used that actually seems effective at removing 50 and 60Hz ground loop hum without mangling the remaining audio!

 

Hey Stefan, I tried this last night on that pesky pop - zoomed way in, Shift+O, delete. I played that section on headphones several times and could not notice any defects. Cool tip! Of the three LPs I recorded, that is the only big pop.
Strange that ClickRepair wouldn't fix it - why is that?

This LP is noisy between tracks - and it's not surface noise - I mean, not clicks and pops. Like a constant, low-level whooshing sound. I'm pretty sure it's not my setup, as the others don't have it.

 

I'm glad it worked for you. The trick is only to select the minimum required to effectively remove the sound. If you take out too much, it will affect the timing, even if only in a subtle way. However, I've found that most stubborn clicks can be removed this way without noticeably affecting the timing.

As for Clickrepair not getting it, well there's only so much it can get. As I understand it, CR was designed by a retired mathematician more or less as a hobby. It's quite effective but if a click or pop starts resembling a loud percussive sound, it may think it's part of the music and not touch it.

Well don't forget that vinyl is a physical medium and there's bound to be some noise from the stylus contacting the groove wall, even if there's no sound there. In fact, over the last two evenings I spent some time tweaking my VTA and tracking force after having left it for quite some time and I got some noticeable improvement in clarity, detail and bass but I'm also noticing an increase in bass rumble, especially in the right channel. I suspect this may be related to azimuth (the vertical angle of the stylus with respect to the groove), so this evening I hope to resolve that. This aspect of the vinyl hobby can be frustrating--the tweaking, etc. However, when successful, the results are well worth it!

 

It can't bring back the original music unfortunately, it's only an interpolation between the cut-off points. Should be a lot less intrusive than the click/pop, but if you still hear it on normal playback, as you indicate, you can cut it away completely per Stefan's advice.

 

I assume you do not delete data from only one channel, as that would cause phasing problems with high frequencies. Although I don't see a need for deleting anything to remove a pop, but if I did, I'd delete the exact same amount of data from both channels. This is what I had to do back in around '93 or '94 when I did needledrops, using an Akai hard disk recorder, for recording and editing...

 

No, sorry if I wasn't clear. I might restrict to one channel for the Shift+0 expand the left and right selection boundaries to zero crossings, but then I switch the selection to both channels. There are default hot keys in Audition for this but I've redefined my up and down arrows to toggle the selection from L<->L-R<->R.

As for need, well sure with the right interpolation, etc., deletion might not be necessary, but sometimes it's a quick and effective way of doing it.

 

Finally getting around to catching up on some of the samples here. These sound nice, Graham. Well the third one is in rough shape as you wrote, but it sounds like a mint copy would be great if you could find one.

The Pet Shop boys sample sounds like there's a bit of LF noise underneath it all in the beginning like a tape recorder motor. I have a copy of Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell that really suffers from this on all the quiet spots. Otherwise, it's not bad.

And you're right the Schröder sample sounds very nice indeed!

 

That's a really nice sounding sample. The bass has a tremendous sense of presence. It doesn't need any tweaking at all!