Noisy Tracks

[bayswater]

A long time ago I people gave me tracks recorded on cassettes. I recall a simple app, maybe from iZotope (?) that could listed to a sample of the tape noise, then do a reasonable job of removing that from the track.

Everything I get now is digital and noise has not been much of a problem. But recently I got a few hours of recordings someone did on his phone. A lot of it was rumble that was easy to reduce with a high pass filter.

But I was wondering what simple approaches might be around now for simple noise reduction. Preferably something without a long learning curve because I don't do this a lot, and pristine tracks are rarely required. What would be good to get for these situations?

[Phil O]

Do you by any chance have iZotope RX? It's what I use and the denoise filters have the listen feature that you describe.

[Tritonemusic]

Audacity (free app) has that feature, but I don't remember ever trying it, so I can't comment on how good it is.

[mikehalloran]

RX Elements is adequate for many hiss and hum issues. If you’re repairing cassette audio, you want RX Standard or Advanced. I have turned home cassette demos into CD releases that made the artists very happy.

IZotope RX Advanced has been my go-to for many years. Over time, many of the Advanced features have made it to Standard. Nowadays, Standard is good enough for most music production while Advanced is more for film and dialog. Some Advanced features now only work with Adobe Audition, ProTools and Logic which I find a bit annoying.

The reason I stay with Advanced is that the individual tools can be called up as plug-ins and are more tweakable than the Standard versions that are all hosted within Standard. Some tools are only available in the stand-alone app. One can access its audio repair tools by utilizing the "RX Connect" feature within Digital Performer to repair the audio in the stand-alone app.

There are others but I never found them as good. Sound Soap was ok but inexpensive. Unfortunately, it’s no longer available outside of an AutoTune Unlimited subscription.

[HCMarkus]

I use RX, but there are lots of tools that won't run you as many $$$... if you have Final Cut, I think it has something built-in. Waves has various plugins that can work wonders. Clarity is amazing for voices with shite in the background.

[stubbsonic]

Audacity has the noise reduction that takes a sample of the noise as a step. It works pretty well if you don't already have the expensive option.

[mikehalloran]

Do you by any chance have iZotope RX? It's what I use and the denoise filters have the listen feature that you describe.

A long time ago I people gave me tracks recorded on cassettes. I recall a simple app, maybe from iZotope (?) that could listed to a sample of the tape noise, then do a reasonable job of removing that from the track.

RX 11 Elements might be good enough but it cannot Learn.
https://www.izotope.com/en/shop/rx-elements/
For that, you need RX 11 or RX 11 Advanced



Here is a demo. This is my favorite recording of Mozart's concert aria, Per Questa Bella Mano for bass (Walter Berry) and doublebass (Ludwig Streicher) from 1960. A friend had a copy of this on vinyl and made a cassette for me. I used this as my guide when I learned it. At the time of my stroke, I could both play and sing it. 16 years later, the voice isn't so great and my left arm is crippled.

I'm using the De-click followed by Spectral De-noise plug-ins from RX 11 Advanced. RX 11 will let you do the same thing but it comes up as one plug-in and you select the tools and in which order. For even more control, you can use the stand-alone — Quality/Best for example, is stand-alone app only, not available in the plug-in.




I made this video using Wondershare by Filmora.
https://filmora.wondershare.net/

The free version lets you screen scrape with PC/Mac audio and save your recordings without an expiration. The paid versions add all sorts of bells, whistles and AI—since I have Premiere, Elements, FCPx and iMovie, I'm good but none of them record video with System Audio. Not making an Aggregate Device that includes Audio Hijack, Blackhole or anything else is pretty nice.

First, I show the output from DP to Wondershare Screen recorder. A few runs of the intro let me demo Bypass, then each of the noise filters plus both before I give the full 7+ minutes. I was going to circle and highlight a few things like Learn and Quality in De-noise but my cursor doesn't show in the video. Note that De-click keeps a running count of the number of clicks that are being suppressed.

[mikehalloran]

The worst kept secret is that iZotope does not verify upgrade eligibility when purchased through resellers. This does not appear to have changed after being acquired by Native Instruments.

The following all include RX 11

$119 https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... tion-suite

$179 https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... ny-license

Best bang for the buck RX 11
$199 https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... -suite-6.5

Worst deal:
$239 https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... r-software

The following include RX 11 Advanced

$239 https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... tion-suite

Best bang for the buck: RX 11 Advanced
$359 https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... tion-suite

Worst deal:
$719 https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... r-software