Help

[TerryO]

Im a new user to this forum be gentle with me if I ask some dumb questions.
Ive got DC6 and am try to clean up some jazz recordings my friends granddad copied off the radio, is there a way I can upload a small sound byte of the recording and see if some one can help with some ideas as to how or if they can be fixed up. If so how do I up load the sounds
Appreciate any help, thanks.
regards
Terry

[Dan McDonald]

Hi Terry -
There are no dumb questions, or, if there are, I have asked more than my share on here!

Why don't you describe what the tape is like - cassette, open reel, etc. and what the source was (AM, FM), and what it sounds like when you play it. There are lots of presets to deal with something like this.

Each source has its own noise. So, for example, if it is from a record played over FM and recorded on a tape, there will be noise from the original record, noise from the FM transmission, and noise from the tape recorder. The trick with dealing with this is to avoid getting rid of information that will be useful at later stages. If it has clicks in it from the record, you don't want to run the CNF until after you have gotten rid of the clicks, because it will take out information that will be useful for the software to use in the de-clicking process.

The manual has a whole set of steps involved in cleaning these things up also.

[TerryO]

Old radio recordings on tape

Hi Dan
Thanks for your reply.
Its recorded on a TDK D90 cassette tape, dont know if it was off AM or FM (more than likely AM). It sounds really tinny, no bass to speak of, sounds quite 'fuzzy' like there is a hum or a fuzz at the end of the note, like it was recorded to loudly off the radio. When I play it the Peak metre on the RHS (DC6) is at maximum all the time.
If you could suggest what filters to use and in what order I would be very appreciative.

Heres another one of of "those" questions, you mentioned "the Manual" - what manual???
Thanks and hear from you soon

[Craig Maier]

Quoting TerryO-

"When I play it the Peak metre on the RHS (DC6) is at maximum all the time."

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To me, that means that you transferred the tape to digital with the levels set too high or via the wrong input on your soundcard (you need to use the line out of the tape deck to the line input of your soundcard and you must not use the mic input on your soundcard). You need to go back to the original step and re-transfer that tape to digital properly which means that there are no modulation perturbations into the red zone of the Diamond Cut recording VU meters.

After you have a clean transfer of the tape, it will become more apparent what filters are needed because right now you are hearing problems associated with the original recording and problems with the transfer of the tape to the digital domain.

Craig

keywords: Overmodulated Transfer, Overmodulated Soundcard Input, Overmodulation, Severe Distortion

[Dan McDonald]

...like Craig says...

Also, the manual is available through the help menu. Click on "restoring a recording" and it will take you through a lot of material about which filters to use and when to use them, but that would be after you get the best transfer. It sounds like you may have gone out the earphone setting and into a line in of your sound card.

Dan

[quartet87]

Another factor, Terry, is that the audio on the tape itself is grossly overmodulated. You can determine this by watching the meters on your cassette deck...are they constantly maxed out during playback...that is, continually in the red? If so, you'll need to lower your recording level on your pc as Craig suggested. It's very possible the tape was originally recorded at much too high level.

If that's the case, you'll still have overmodulation distortion but at a lower level on your hd. I'd pull the record level down to the point where the audio peaks are at about half-scale on the DC meters. After storing the file, your first step is to play around with the de-clipper before doing any noise reduction.

Of course, this is all dependent on your cassette deck being connected to your pc correctly as Craig pointed out.

Just a thought.