Audio Restoration

Posted by on Oct 12, 2011 in Audio | One Comment

Recently I completed an audio restoration project on an old 33rpm vinyl recording. Oddly enough it had the same footprint as a 78 but was in fact recorded at 33rpm. This disc dated back to the 1950’s and was recorded in mono directly to vinyl, all in one take. Needless to say in was in poor condition and required some careful considerations in removing noise without introducing a slew of additional artifacts. Here are some samples:

iZotope Vinyl – before
[haiku url=”http://www.robertdivito.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/izotope_before.mp3″ Title=”izotope_before” graphical=”true”]

iZotope Vinyl – after
[haiku url=”http://www.robertdivito.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/izotope_after.mp3″ graphical=”true”]

These examples use a DAW plugin from iZotope called Vinyl. I actually think the plugin is used to add noise as an effect but some of the parameters are very useful for removing mechanical wear as well. The next examples show the more common click and pop artifacts you hear when restoring vinyl recordings. Here I used a plugin from Waves called X-Click with great results.

Waves X-Click – before
[haiku url=”http://www.robertdivito.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/wave_xclick_before.mp3″ graphical=”true”]

Waves X-Click – after
[haiku url=”http://www.robertdivito.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/wave_xclick_after.mp3″ graphical=”true”]

I highly recommend these plugins for their effectiveness while remaining transparent.

1 Comment

  1. Kent Clemmons
    March 8, 2012

    Interesting results with Vinyl. I would not have thought to use it for restoration. I will have to give it a try. Did you or have you trying the various products by Soundsoap? I find them pretty good at this type of work. They of course don’t hold up to Cedar but hey, for a fraction of the cost they do a good job.