Audio Restoration software/techniques

I'm in the midst of doing the same thing, and I'm in the same boat as you. Even worse, I'm on a mac and the other guy involved is on a PC, so I've been trying to find something cross-platform (or at least something that pretends to be), but most of the stuff I find is PC only. Jerks.

Also, my worry about handing it off to someone else to have it done is that I'm of the mind that less is better when it comes to archival recordings, and I'm afraid that someone less intimately involved/more accustomed to modern production is going to go overboard.

The DiamondCut/DCart programs came specifically out of a need to restore old archived recordings. I used it for a few years and it had and has a few things going for it that the standard restoration suites don't seem to put much priority in. Unfortunately for you, these programs are for the PC.

I use Waves X-Noise. Which works great. Friends say that the new Sony Oxford trumped it, but that Waves' new Z-Noise re-trumps all, and I'm angling . Some people in studios use Cedar or Sonic Solutions if they've got access, but at home they often just use the plugs, it's expedient.

X-Noise is great though -- the declicking is beautiful, and the de-hissing / de-noising is astounding. you learn very quickly not to overdo it, because it's very easy to almost completely remove _all_ of the tape hiss or noise floor from a recording, with no audible loss to the signal of the music, and it sounds fantastic when auditioning 30 seconds at a time. but then, playing back a full album that's been de-noised you realize you've sucked the life out of it, if it was recorded with hiss it could usually stand some hiss, it acts as a bonding agent for the sounds. but it will let you tame out-of-control cassette noise or board hums or high end whines out of archival things and render them suitable for release, it's kind of amazing. Plus they're fun, whatever you can find cheaper, Z-Noise or the Oxfords, I'd go for (and they're both cross-platform I believe, though sometimes they charge seperately)

mod edit on third sentence: I'm angling to get copies of Z-Noise

as noted several times on ILM, overzealous de-noising is another one of the crimes of some recent remastering jobs. they remove too much of the hiss on records where the hiss is an integral part of the sound, the Faust IV remaster sounds a little dull, for instance

Yeah, that's exactly the sort of thing that worries me.

Yeah, see this is where the inability for mods to edit posts gets a little irritating. Sry MP.

I don't mind a bit of hiss or a bit of noise...it's the crackle that screams VINYL TRANSFER that kills me. I'll definitely use the disclaimer where needed "source tape wasn't available transfer from vinyl etc etc".

The Waves stuff is very expensive compared to Wave Arts but there are cracks of it to give it more of a try...I had the demo but it ran out already. I think this may only be an occasional issue as for a few upcoming projects it looks like I'll be able to work from unplayed vinyl, which may need one or 2 pops removed by hand but I can't imagine needing to do much else. I just have one project right now with 2 or 3 songs transferred from noisy vinyl belonging to the artist, though my copies were as bad or worse. Maybe it was the pressing to begin with.

i think the waves stuff is pretty shite but usable at a pinch. scoff if you will but light use of the noise redux in cool edit pro has worked the best out of all the noise reduction software i have used (which is basically everything other than cedar)

Any suggestions re:tape hiss vs. vinyl pop (that being my operative problem?)

tape hiss requires different tools then vinyl pop. Most of these suites/plug-ins have some sort of broadband noise reduction software, which usually involves selecting a moment of "silence" where it can hear the noise before the music starts, it "learns" the noise, then looks for it in the music, basically. What it does is find the similar noise fingerprint and use all these filters to just bring down the specific frequency selected, and only do it when there isn't enough music to cover it up. If used subtely, it can be pretty effective. Waves Z-Noise is supposed to be good at this, WaveArts Master Noise, Digidesign DINR etc do this. I also read in the Wave Arts manual that it makes sense to set it really subtle and run it a few times making different passes. Haven't really tried that yet.

The click and pop parts of the plug-ins basically look for moments where things suddenly get louder, then sample the moment before and after and replace the pop, or apply a quick filter just to that moment. There's a really good shareware tool for de-clicking but I can't remember the name, will supply link tonight.

if all you're doing is declicking, I think shareware will do the trick, it's the denoising algorhythms they usually charge you for

I wouldn't scoff at almost any aspect of cool edit pro, it's one of the most solid and usable programs in the history of anything

faust iv is one of my favorite albums ever, and is SO due for an actual remaster, as opposed to being merely mastered for cd.

Cool Edit Pro is the one that Adobe bought and is still PC only right? Once Adobe moves it to mac maybe I'll be able to master it quick, it'll use the same key commands as Photoshop, right?

No doubt, ̛̛̱̱̊̊̊̊̊̊̊apple-c and apple-v will retain their "Adobe" meanings.

I just want the space bar to do something similar, to grab and move what's being viewed and to zoom in and out.

just fyi, I downloaded the demo of Izotope's new restoration suite and while it was wonky as a plugin, as a standalone doing not-live processing, it's results sounded way better to me then the Wave Arts or Waves plug-ins I tested. It's getting great reviews.

i was rly unimpressed with rx, but i think my expectations were very high based on their (IMO almost certainly dodgied-up) demos

i should probably try it again, but i think i'll probably just go with audition 3 instead (because i am hella interested in trying out this audio lasso stuff)

are you doing redux of tape hiss or vinyl noise?