Goldwave and editing digital files from vinyl (pop/click removal) [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

PDA

View Full Version : Goldwave and editing digital files from vinyl (pop/click removal)



nobody
03-25-2004, 10:32 AM
I recently picked up a component CD burner which I've been quite happy with. I've been recording on CD RWs and transfering to CDRs on the computer with Goldwave. For the first time last night, I started playing with the pop/click removal filter. I was wondering if anyone else here has used it, and what you set it at. I tried it twice, once at the setting it was on at start-up, which didn't seem to do much of anything, and at 500, which is the max recommended setting. (the higher the number the lower the setting, if you know what I mean) It got all the pops out, but also added in some distortion in places.

I can do without using it quite happily. I listen to them as is regularly anyway, and it's only an issure on a few of my records. Still, just curious if anyone has any experience with this function, and if they have used it to successfully get rid of pops without messing up the sound in other ways. If not, I'll just do without it on everything but some old 78s I want to transfer and a few really crappy old records.

Hyfi
03-25-2004, 11:30 AM
I have not yet used Goldwave, but I have used Neros Wav editor....zoomed in on the pops....highlight and delete. If they are not huge it is hard to hear the difference. Sorry I can't help your original question, it just cought my eye since I had a conversation not an hour ago about Goldwave.

jack70
03-26-2004, 01:18 PM
This is something I only recently started researching a bit. The reason is most of my early comps were either from CD or MP3 sources. I probably have about a dozen cuts from LPs on my comps so far. For click-pop removal I manually edited them out. This works fine, but it's very time consuming, depending on the amount of 'em.

If you're going to be doing this, or any other serious audio work, you really need a good audio editor. I've played with Goldwave & looked at both my Nero and Creative studio (built in if you have a SoundBlaster sound card).... but those all are only good for simple things IMO. CoolEdit (gobbled up by Adobe recently) and SoundForge (gobbled out by Sony recently), are the 2 best mid-cost programs out there, although there are some others of that depth or better. (Cakewalk, Pro-tools etc etc). I settled on SoundForge myself, but CoolEdit is equally "cool" IMO.

Anyway, I've recently started getting some of my cuts from LPs rather than CDs. The reason is 2-fold. First, (cost): I've got a LOT of albums, and I don't think it prudent to replace every stinkin one with expensive CDs... why not just use the orig LPs if possible. Second (reality): a LOT of my LPs (& 45's) are NOT available on CDs... many may never be. So I'm faced with how to best transfer those to digital best. I don't want to find out 3 years from now, that I spent hundreds of hours of time recording LPs and 45's, and I could have done it a whole level of quality better. So I wanted to find the best way (also cheap and simple).

I won't get into the soundcard issues... the 48K vs 44K issues.... the OS issue, or other technical things... cause I frankly don't have the time. I also don't think many here would be interested. I can be very picky when it comes to certain audio things.... I'm not saying I always get the best from the least (I build most of my hifi gear from scratch), but I try (anal-tetentive).

But the click/crackle issue is something I did a little investigation on. Some software has built in filters (as you mentioned above). Most are, for the most part, worthless. On the exact opposite end, there are professional tools like CEDAR that will make LPs sound better than most digitally mastered souirce material (really amazing stuff). Of course, it costs many thousands of $. But there are other plug-ins and stand-alone programs that are designed to do various "noise reduction" transfer functions.

From hiss, clicks, pops, crackle, etc etc. I've used a few of them (there are well over a hundred, so I can't say I investigated all THAT much... LOL). I finally settled on one that seems to work pretty well. Keep in mind I'm not worried about "pops" so much, which I can manually edit out... more the "crackle" which is a high freq added distortion of the orig sound wave. This takes a fairly sophisticated tool, and it's why I spent close to 50 bucks for it. I've sampled a LOT of programs, and when I find one that works well, simply etc, I pay for it. I did this for Cute FTP (ftp program), forNoteTab (text editor), for PhotoImpact, among others. I've got a ton of Microsoft (bundled) programs... but I NEVER use 'em, cause they suck (except for IE...not ALL the time though). I try to find freeware if I can (I've gotten hundreds of free filters for my graphics program), but I like to support software designers that do superior work. The noise removal tool I got does work, although I'm still experimenting with various settings, (something I did with EAC when I first used that for ripping). Hopefully this will pay itself back many times over, even if I only record a small number of LPs).

I'm not recommeding anything here, because (like we see with music tastes) everyone is different. My favorite ... is your crap. But give me a PM if anyone wants to know the name of the software. Until I find something better, at a reasonable price, it's time to finally get into some of my really rare music.