Audio Before and After

This area contains samples of audio before and after processing with Diamond Cut Tools. It will show you some of what can be done with the Diamond Cut programs.. This will contain both user submitted samples and Diamond Cut generated samples. If you have a sample that you would like included here, please Email us.

 

Before

 

After

The Mega-Tick Vinyl LP; Before and After

Here is a sample submitted to us by Donald J Bohn.

Yamaha PX-2 Linear Track Turntable
Ortofon Super OM-20 Moving Magnet Cartridge
PSAudio Phono Link Preamplifier
Hoontech DSP24 Value Sound Card
Diamond Cut DC-6

DC-6 Tools used: File Split / Recombine
Expert Impulse Filter
EZ Impulse Filter
Sample used: Stereo LP - Up, Up And Away - 5th Dimension - Go Where You Wanna Go

This file has had over 1 million clicks fixed.

Before

 

After

Brigadoon -- This sample was submitted by Craig Maier of Diamond Cut Productions.

This recording was made in 1967 of my High Schools Class play, Brigadoon. I was responsible for the light and sound aspects of the project The sound responsibilities included the PA system and also the Recording of the play. The sound system consisted of two mics hanging from risers above the stage and two mics located above the orchestra pit. They all fed into a Mixer which drove a Pre-Amp and then a Power Amplifier for the sound reinforcement system. Another set of outputs fed my Magnecord 1028 1/2 track, 15 ips tape deck. All of the audio equipment was electron tube based including the tape recorder - - - tubes were still the state of the art in audio at that time. All of the tube based equipment except for the Magnecord tape deck was designed and constructed by myself in the two years prior to this particular event. (The speaker system used JBL drivers, but was DIY)

The problem observed here as heard in the "before" was probably the result of a bad shielded cable between one of the mixer outputs and one of the tape deck inputs. It appears that I noticed the problem (one VU meter was probably not dancing correctly) and I started by adjusting one of the channel gain controls on the tape deck. Ultimately, it appears that I started moving cables around until a signal became steady into the tape deck, but as you can see and hear, it took a while to find the problem and fix it at that time.

This "after" example shows how the Diamond Cut Editing capabilities can fix this type of problem.

Wherever there was a drop-out of the signal on the offending channel, I carefully marked them with the Diamond Cut Markers (the "M" key) (zooming in to be sure that they were exactly in the correct place). I highlighted each section and clicked on the good track (R or L on the toolbar). Then I copied that to the clipboard and pasted it to the opposite track without moving the markers. I noticed that there were still some large transients on both tracks which I interpolated out with the "I" key. Sometimes, very tiny transients occurred where I pasted into the bad track which I interpolated out with the "I" key after highlighting the problem.

Then, I was left with wildly varying gain settings on each channel and in some cases, both channels. The goal was to "feather" the gain compensations in so that they would be the inverse of the way in which the tape deck controls had been moved in real time, I used the "curve" setting of the Gain Control feature. By adjusting the curvature using the spline inflection points, I was able to reverse the gain vs. time problems that I had injected onto the recording back in '67.

To smooth out the changes in stereo image (albeit not perfectly), I applied a slight amount of reverb to the sections of the file that had been copied from one channel to the other, with some overlap past the edit marker boundaries.

Lastly, I gain normalized the system to -2 or -3 dB.

Abba Daba Honeymoon
(754 kB)
Here is a user submitted sample from Doug MacMillan. It is one file that has been crossfaded between the unprocessed noisy audio and audio that has been processed with the continuous noise filter. The song is Abba Dabba Honeymoon performed by Collins and Harlan , on  a Victor record 17620-A

Here is a quote from Doug:
I've been using DC-Art for more than a year now. I've been very impressed with both the ease of use and the results I'm getting. I especially like the ability to fine tune the settings on practically every filter or effect and then save my custom settings for future use. I recommend DC-Art to anyone interested in a powerful audio restoration tool.
- Doug MacMillan

bessie.mp3 (1.1MB) Here is another sample from Doug MacMillan.   The song is "Baby Won't You Please Come Home Blues" by Bessie Smith with Clarence Williams on the piano.  It was released in 1923

The beginning is the raw file, processed for impulse noise, converted to mono and then processed to remove the RIAA curve using the preset on the paragraphic equalizer.  The second part has been filtered with the decrackler setting in the median filter.  Also, a low pass filter has been applied, as well as a little accentuation around 250 hz using the graphic equalizer.  This file fades in around the end of the first piano phrase.  The third part is the first part with the continuous noise filter applied.  It starts to fade in around the end of the first sung line and is very apparent.  The sample for the continuous noise filter was taken from the run in area of the record.  I also adjusted the threshold fairly aggressively.

   
Bach Cantata

This is a sample from Robin Hinkley of North Carolina

This project was a 10-LP 7-hour set of Bach complete cantatas that a friend asked me to restore and put on CD.  My first concern was eliminating what I call "cereal sounds" (snap, crackle and pop).  In the Multi-Filter I used the EZ filter twice in succession using the Impulse Filter (Aggressive) preset, followed by the High Pass filter set at 60hz, 18db/Octave to eliminate rumble.  After running the Multi-Filter I ran Continuous Noise using a sample from the run-in track and not altering the default curve.  When finished I clapped on the headphones and went after residual impulses using interpolate.  This is not the kind of music I'd sit down and listen to so the biggest challenge I faced during this project was staying awake.  The attached sample has a 21-second excerpt beginning just after the needle drop followed immediately by the same 21 seconds after restoration.