What is the name of THIS vinyl noise?

[Mark_S]

It is sort of a rumble, I guess but it sounds more like a rattling.

It sounds like the arm, the is amplifying vinyl surface (or maybe the groove?) at the same time it is playing the content of the groove.

it feels like the sound's volume is changing.

I'll try to describe the sound in text. Can you remembert the classic run-out of a record in the movies... that repeating filter sweep sort of sound?
Add some uneven rattling to that, and I that is similar.
It

Or take a pencil or cheap ballpoint pen and make and retrace some wide wide circles on a piece of paper, listen to how that sounds.

Now stop laughing...

Seriously, once I find the name for this sound, I can ask if anyone has had good luck at getting rid of it.

[Craig Maier]

Is it the "whooshies"? Whooshies sound sort of like a periodic flanger inserted in the signal pathway with periodically varying phase response.

[Mark_S]

Thanks for the attempt

I don't think it is whooshies, although, now I have another name for another noise...

I'll try again. It is like a blank record is being played at a very high volume, where yo can hear every warp and wend of the record.

Maybe the original cutter did not raise the volume over the noise floor of the vinyl (I don't know what I am talking about here...)

[Craig Maier]

Send me a 5 second sample of it and maybe you and I can come to an agreement as to what to call it. I am always up for some new noise, as you would probably guess.

dctools@aol.com

[DougMac]

More Info

Is this noise present on all records you play or just one or a couple?

Doug

[Mark_S]

It is on a recording of a record, so it is only on this one, although I have heard this sound before.. I just do not know where.
I have some more information -- it is mostly below 260Hz, the High pass filter at 280-300 with softest (6db/octave) knee makes it pretty bearable, but it does knock out a fair bit of the bass (surprise!)

I think it might require more than 5 seconds, since it is not the only noise there. It is really horrible.

Do you want a sample of the raw recording, or somehat processed? Or Do you want me to try to isolate this particular noise? All of the above?

[Craig Maier]

A sample of the raw recording would be good; I am used to dealing with a lot of noise, so I should be able to identify it as noise pretty easily. Whether or not I can identify its source is another matter. But, hopefully, I can help figure out a way to attenuate it.

[DougMac]

Question

I am used to dealing with a lot of noise...

Are you married? Do you have children?

Doug

[Craig Maier]

Married, but no kids. Still lotsa noise; my wife is Italian!

[Craig Maier]

Mark,

Did you send me a sample of this noise? I did not see it in my email.

Craig

[Mark_S]

Sorry, I didn't.

It should be there now.

I had problems with my provider, so I finally sent it from my work account,

[Craig Maier]

I have listened to the clip that you sent and I have some ideas about it. First off, it sounds like a bootleg recording, many generations removed. The spectrum analyzer and spectrographs tend to confirm that notion. The noise is what I would call in engineering terms 1/F noise, meaning that as one goes lower in frequency the noise per square root Hertz is increasing. That can come from several initial sources:

A bad first stage transistor somewhere in the process or a bad first stage amplifier transistor on a mixing board, tape deck, or preamplifier. You see, one failure that occurs with transistors used in their linear mode is an increase in their noise floor.

Another possibility is that someone had over padded a mic on the mixing board and elevated a post level too much, overamplifying the intrinsic first stage amplification stage 1/F noise.

Or -

The original tape recorder was just of very low quality that was used to master this recording or there are many generations between the master and the final product.

At any rate, I was able to clean it up reasonably with the DC7 CNF operating in Atifact Suppression mode. In regular CNF mode, it turned into a high degree of digital artifacts, which was not too pleasing.

If you do not have access to DC7 yet, try using the Brick Wall filter set for bandpass, length of 1000, low freq of 100, high freq of 5000. There really is not much above 5000 but hiss and not too much below 100 but 1/F noise.

I hope that helps.

[Mark_S]

Yeah, I knew it was a very high generation copy with a lot of frequency loss.

I do have access to DC7; I am part of the testing crew.
I will try what you suggested.

[Craig Maier]

If you listen carefully to the snippet that you sent, you will find a short sector which has nothing but the noise on which to sample. It worked nicely for me.

[Craig Maier]

Mark,

Did those suggestions help with your restoration?