A transfer of precious cargo from cassette tape!

[SoundUniverse]

I'm looking for some advice here. I've got some songs my grandpa recorded of my mother (who passed away of breast cancer all too early at 58) I'd like to transfer from cassette to CD. It's old tape and has the white noise hiss and is muffled here and there. Are there tools I can use to clean this up?

I use an Alesis HD24XR for recording and have ff-ISA428, TG-2, Portico 5012, Drawmer 1969 pres one of which I'll use as line amps to the recorder. Then I'll transfer the tracks to ProTools LE to do my editing.

Are there possible plugs I can use with Protools?

Thank you in advance for your help

[Tantrum The Cat]

Originally Posted by SoundUniverse

I'm looking for some advice here. I've got some songs my grandpa recorded of my mother (who passed away of breast cancer all too early at 58) I'd like to transfer from cassette to CD. It's old tape and has the white noise hiss and is muffled here and there. Are there tools I can use to clean this up?

I use an Alesis HD24XR for recording and have ff-ISA428, TG-2, Portico 5012, Drawmer 1969 pres one of which I'll use as line amps to the recorder. Then I'll transfer the tracks to ProTools LE to do my editing.

Are there possible plugs I can use with Protools?

Thank you in advance for your help

Give the Waves Restoration Bundle a spin - there's a fully functional demo on their web page that should work for a week or so. I've found it really useful for removing surface noise from old transferred vinyl, so it should work on cassette material too...

[rockrev]

I had to do a very similar thing just last month. What I found was that the noise reduction software I was using (Sony) caused some nasty phasing (I guess because of the extreme filtering). What worked the best for me was a simple LPF with Waves Ren. EQ. The high cut proved best (since the meat of what was actually recorded - poorly at that - resided in the mids). I also added a tiny touch of reverb just to give it a more friendly room sound. I was very subtle. The mateial was mono - and basically it remains centered - but the room touch was just the stereo fill it needed.

rockrev

[SoundUniverse]

Thanks guys!
I thought about the Waves restore plugs. I just don't know how effective they are.
I own the RENNMAX plugs so I could give the REN EQ a spin, but I think it may need more help than that I don't know

[treymonfauntre]

for some reason i've never felt compelled to reduce noise or hiss or pops or anything like that. i'd much rather have an exact duplicate instead of something i'll subconsciously know i got my hands on and edited.

[zemlin]

I like the NR tools in Adobe Audition. The key word is REDUCTION - tame the noise, don't try to eliminate it. It is possible to make good reductions while keeping the artifacts at a very low level.

[SoundUniverse]

There's real truth in the noise, but I really just want to hear my mom's voice.

[midnightsun]

You shouldn't keep play the tape trying things. You should get your hands on the best converters and the best cassette player you can and then do the best analog to digital, unprocessed transfer you can -- then do a bunch of backups. From there you can experiment and screw around with software that will "clean it up." You shouldn't try any type of "cleanup" in the transfer process because that will require experimentation and having to run the tape player numerous times.

Sorry about your mother. She is in good hands. It was insightful of your grandfather to make the recording. Good luck.

[rufus13]

http://www.richardhess.com/tape/index.htm

The mechanical and analog part is the most significant stage. Cassettes need every kind of help possible.

[RusRant]

Waves restoration works great for just this kind of thing. I've used it to remove hiss and noise from older tape recordings with great results. Worth a try if you can use the free demo.

[FFTT]

I've been transferring old audio cassette music to my G5 all weekend.

I save one copy " as is " and do all my experimentation on copies.

I find myself leaving them alone most of the time and maybe altering the EQ on playback here and there in iTunes.

If you're running OSX, you can also use the standard plugins that come with
the iLife/GarageBand programs or any other pugins in your system library.

I'm using Sound Studio as my primary copy/transfer application.

It's great being able to edit out most of the bothersome noise simply by
deleting the dead space before and after the songs.

One thing to keep in mind,
for old tapes that have been around a while it's best to clean your tape deck's transport
and heads often.

I found some of the songs starting to sound pretty awful and cleaned the heads
and rollers and the quality improved considerably.

[KingDaddyO]

Originally Posted by midnightsun

You shouldn't keep play the tape trying things. You should get your hands on the best converters and the best cassette player you can and then do the best analog to digital, unprocessed transfer you can -- then do a bunch of backups. From there you can experiment and screw around with software that will "clean it up." You shouldn't try any type of "cleanup" in the transfer process because that will require experimentation and having to run the tape player numerous times.

Sorry about your mother. She is in good hands. It was insightful of your grandfather to make the recording. Good luck.

I'm sorry about your Mom. But seriously consider this advice, it really is the best approach. There is a very good analogy in the computer world. For example, if you were to ask a computer expert to 'recover your documents or irreplaceable data files' on a hard drive that had crashed, an experienced professional would first make an exact duplicate of the hard drive. Then they would work only from the duplicate drive to recover your data. They would never use the original source media for anything other than making a safety copy. This is how it is done in computer forensics as well.

Good Luck.

[max cooper]

Originally Posted by treymonfauntre

for some reason i've never felt compelled to reduce noise or hiss or pops or anything like that. i'd much rather have an exact duplicate instead of something i'll subconsciously know i got my hands on and edited.

Agreed. Totally. it's part of the document.

If the snapshots I had of my grandmother weren't on color-shifted Fotomat paper, they wouldn't be the same.

[SoundUniverse]

Originally Posted by KingDaddyO

I'm sorry about your Mom. But seriously consider this advice, it really is the best approach. There is a very good analogy in the computer world. For example, if you were to ask a computer expert to 'recover your documents or irreplaceable data files' on a hard drive that had crashed, an experienced professional would first make an exact duplicate of the hard drive. Then they would work only from the duplicate drive to recover your data. They would never use the original source media for anything other than making a safety copy. This is how it is done in computer forensics as well.

Good Luck.

Thank you guys! All of you!
You have helped me see through to what is the most important and that is to get the best A to D I can , then make backup copies of the whole. I can try different things from there.
It will be two years 1.30.07 and I finally listened to the tapes.....
I really need to get this done, but..........
I tell you what, listening to your mother sing after she's gone..... woah

[KingDaddyO]

Brother SU...

There will be a day in the not too distant future... when I will know exactly how you feel. *sigh*

C'est la vie... it is the order of things, without down there is no up.

Savor the memories. Be well. Enjoy life. I'm sure somewhere, somehow... our loved ones watch over us after they have moved on.