RE: 78 transfers

[Shirli Sieb <sieb...>]

There is software available that will do the major work of eliminating most
of the pops and clicks, but it's not perfect. It still requires the engineer
to go back and clean up the resulting product, which will still contain
clicks, pops and other artifacts.

Too aggressive a cleanup is not recommended, nor done, because a too
aggressive cleanup will certainly change the timbre and quality of the
original music.

The current technique is to do a preliminary run through and catalog the
more egregious noises, and then eliminate them. The more subtle and less
harsh noises are then eliminated individually, on-by-one. Obviously this is
a long process and normally only suitable for material where the clean-up is
mandatory (commercial re-release) or for museum-quality restoration.  The
software is somewhat expensive for home use, and then the studio time, and
cost of an experienced engineer would be a real killer.

If you have lot's of time on your hands, you can do this at home, with
commonly available software, such as is available with a sound card. This
software typically allows you to visually see the wavefronts and waveforms
of the offending noise, identify it, grab it and remove it. The result is a
wave file, which must then be converted to a format of your choice.

Doing this to a 3 minute recording is time-consuming, but the results are
worth it.  I've cleaned up old radio commercials this way, (at home). Took a
few hours, but the results was a clean, noise free product.

If hiss only is a problem, then there are devices that use "Dynamic Noise
Reduction", and will very successfully eliminate any hiss or other
high-frequency noises from the recording. Radio Shack used to market a box
called a "Video Sound Processor", which contained a DNR function. It works
well, and a bit too aggressive for any music containing any sibilance's,
such as cymbal crashes or snare drums. In this case, it definitely affects
the timbre, with a honky, tinny result. This device is mostly suitable for
lo-fidelity recordings, or speech.  It also incorporates an interesting and
mildly useful stereo synthesizer, which generates a stereo image from the
original mono source. Used to sell for about $59., and may still be found at
garage sales.  I find mine is indispensable for getting rid of hiss on old
tape recordings.

A similar device is the ORBAN 275A stereo synthesizer with noise reduction.
The noise reduction on the Orban works better than the Radio Shack units,
and this unit also has a similar stereo synthesizer function.  I believe
this product is under $500.

I hope all this helps.

Ed (not Shirli) Sieb


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