Ha Ha Ha, 70s professional 8 track recording [Archive]

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DominicPerry

10-18-2006, 10:49 AM

Well, even if it was better to go to Abbey Road and use a 24 track Studer than use a modern digital studio, there were rungs lower down. I've been asked by a friend to transfer a tape (admittedly a cassette) to CD for him. Three of the tracks were recorded in a 'professional' 8 track studio in the late 70s. They had to use an old reel of tape cos they couldn't afford a new one. Beyond that I have no idea how it ended up so bad.

Does anyone have any advice about what to do with the end product? I only have a stereo mix of course, from the cassette, so I was just going to use my Sonoris EQ and the Levelizer and then hope it all goes away.:) Any other clues about removing hiss, stopping it sound like it's been put through a barrel of mud?

Dominic

Microstudio

10-18-2006, 11:25 AM

Its hard to polish a turd....;)

Good luck.

Naturally Digital

10-18-2006, 01:05 PM

TotalSonic

10-18-2006, 01:30 PM

As far as hiss:
There's a number of broadband noise reduction softwares out there. The only problem with using them on music sources is that they tend to mute the high end and collapse the image along with leaving other artifacts like burbling if you have them set for too low of a threshold - so finding the balance between the cure and causing another problem is always critical when applying them.

Another good way of dealing with hiss is using a Low Pass Filter as usually on tapes like this there's very little in the way of actual recorded sound in the ultrahighs anyway. Depending on the slope set you'll probably find a crossover freq somewhere in the 12kHz-18kHz range will cut hiss without really diminishing the high end that badly. Generally I do a high shelf or peak filter boost in the upper mids to compensate for this when applying an LPF. As far as digital LPF's - hard to go wrong with the one in the Sonoris LPEQ and it gives you a number of slope options too.

As far as NR softwares to investigate:
Virtos Audio's Noise Wizard is amazingly good bang for buck stuff and works great in SAW - http://www.virtos-audio.com
I believe they're still running a half price special so this is highly recommended.

It's pricy but the Waves Z-noise plug has a time limited demo that might be long enough to get your work done and it can offer better results than the Virtos plugs on some material. As far the X-noise Restoration Bundle - I honestly don't think it's any better than the Virtos Stuff.

Sony's NR2.0 suite is also decent and relatively inexpensive - but while I feel it's click remover is way better than the Virtos one - it's broadband NR is kind of just as good and sometime not as good - but for more cost.

Diamond Cut offers a variety of standalone products that can often work better than the plugins - the expensive Live6Forensics package works great and has a save disabled demo that might give you enough time to play and record back the file as it is being processed - http://www.diamondcut.com/

Got to say for dealing with muddy tapes like this the original stereo SPL SX2 Vitalizer analog hardware can often work some magic - and I still haven't been able to find anything truly equivalent to this box in the digital realm. You can sometimes find them on ebay for as low $200. Just be aware that they later put out a number of "dumbed down" versions that don't sound as good as the original - although the pricier current Tube Vitalizer sounds very good also - in fact it stills occupies some rack space in Bob Ludwig's set up.

As far as dealing with a barrel of mud with just the Sonoris EQ's - first I'd start with trying some low mid cuts - most likely with a wide Q (unless it's just a resonant freq your dealing with)- and the LPEQ's high shelf boost in HQ mode can often work very well.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

CurtZHP

10-18-2006, 02:06 PM

I can recommend the Diamond Cut stuff. I've used it for years to clean up noisy cassettes from a church I do radio stuff for. As far as a bad mix, I agree with microstudio. It's hard to polish a turd. You'll get it shiny, but it'll still smell like.......

DominicPerry

10-18-2006, 02:07 PM

Thanks for the advice guys - David, I've sent a PM.

I'm not expecting to do this frequently, so I'll pass on buying anything, but I'll have a try with some demo stuff, just out of interest. In reality, it's not important - he hasn't heard his own music for over 20 years, but it would be nice to tidy things up a little before handing it back.

Thanks again.

Dominic

BillyK

10-18-2006, 03:58 PM

Analog.... It's the future!

Tim Miskimon

10-20-2006, 09:35 PM

Just a thought - One thing you might try is to adjust the heads on the playback deck - it might get rid of some of the mud and make the cassette playback cleaner. It's worth a try !

DominicPerry

10-21-2006, 05:41 AM

Pedro Itriago

10-21-2006, 07:47 AM

he also pointed out the the head azimuth might be wrong. I'm not sure if I can adjust it, but it's fine for other tapes. I guess it's still worth fiddling with/breaking.:)

Dominic

Sure it does. Your head may be aligned for the tapes you have, but the azimut of the deck that recorded that tape may have not been aligned, so you have to fiddle a bit until you find the right aligment for that tape

Mark Stebbeds

10-21-2006, 08:01 AM

Thanks all. Doug (lownoise) had a listen a did a few tweaks - he also pointed out the the head azimuth might be wrong. I'm not sure if I can adjust it, but it's fine for other tapes. I guess it's still worth fiddling with/breaking.:)

Dominic

If it's adjustable, there should be a screw that is visible right by the head stack. When you turn it, make a mental note of how much, and which direction, so you can get back. (1/4 turn clockwise, etc.) You will need a tiny screwdriver.

Adjust it by ear while playing the tape. If it's adjustable, it will make a huge difference.

Mark

Bob L

10-21-2006, 09:26 AM

Azimuth alignment can best be done by mixing the left-right output to mono.... then its extremely easy to hear the highs phase-shift right into perfect alignment by ear... adjust till the highs peak and no longer create a phasing sound.

Bob L

Tim Miskimon

10-21-2006, 12:37 PM

Thanks all. Doug (lownoise) had a listen a did a few tweaks - he also pointed out the the head azimuth might be wrong. I'm not sure if I can adjust it, but it's fine for other tapes. I guess it's still worth fiddling with/breaking.:)

Dominic

Unfortunately the deck that the tape was recorded on might have been out of alignment - very easy with a cassette tape since the tape is so small. If you don't want to screw with your deck you might try playing the tape back on another deck or pick up a used working deck for cheap that you can make adjustments on.
You might find that proper adjustment to the playback heads does a much better job on fixing the tone than any EQ will. Good luck!

studio-c

10-21-2006, 09:14 PM

Or if you happen to have an azimuth test tape...

I am SUCH a packrat, I still have all my cassette, 1/4" and 1/2" MRL test tapes. I don't even know if the reels still work or if they're gooped.

Scott

Bob L

10-21-2006, 09:56 PM

DominicPerry

10-22-2006, 05:51 AM

Thanks all. Monday is screwdriver day...........

I'll let you know how I get on.

Dominic

Microstudio

10-22-2006, 06:51 AM

Thanks all. Monday is screwdriver day...........

I'll let you know how I get on.

Dominic

I don't think you should be drinking while you are working on this...;)

UpTilDawn

10-22-2006, 08:52 AM

I don't think you should be drinking while you are working on this...;)

There is orange juice in it, after all.....

Pedro Itriago

10-22-2006, 10:06 AM

There is orange juice in it, after all.....

As long as your drink is 50.5% OJ, then you're ok :D

Mark Stebbeds

10-22-2006, 11:27 AM

A test tape wouldn't help in this situation... he would have to adjust the head azimuth to the tape as it was recorded... mono it... peak the highs... and you will have matched the azimuth of the original recording deck.

Absolutely.

The problem will be getting the head back to correct azimuth after the adjustment, if that is important considering the future of cassette.

I recommend making a mental note of the adjustment so you can get back roughly by reversing your moves, if using an alignment tape is overkill. At slow tape speed and track width, minor tweaks make a big difference.

Been there.

Mark

http://www.electronix.com/catalog/default.php/cPath/1_291

Pedro Itriago

10-22-2006, 11:49 AM

Oh, onw more thing you could do. After you've re-aligned azimuth, if the deck has speed control you could increase the deck's speed. That's way you will bump the high frequency uotput a bit. Then, you can slow it down in SAW

Bob L

10-22-2006, 03:50 PM

Mark Stebbeds

10-22-2006, 04:32 PM

Before you make the adjustment... record a fresh tape on the deck as it is now... then align for the other tape... extract what you need... then re-align to the tape you just made before the adjustment... That should get the deck back where you started.

Good idea. Unless it's out of alignment before you start. :) Which is very likely.

But then again...when will we never need cassette again...I doubt if it will ever become "vintage".:)

Mark

Bob L

10-22-2006, 06:07 PM

At least it will be back to the way it was before adjusting.

Bob L

studio-c

10-22-2006, 09:51 PM

A test tape wouldn't help in this situation... he would have to adjust the head azimuth to the tape as it was recorded... mono it... peak the highs... and you will have matched the azimuth of the original recording deck.

Bob L
True. I'm still CONSTANTLY adjusting azimuth for peoples' home made cassette recordings, but then I need to get the deck back to proper azimuth when I zero out the studio.

At least that USED to be important because we used to use the deck for outgoing stuff. Now we'd pretty much be waiting to dust it off for the next guy's bad azimuth cassette, so it doesn't much matter any more.

Scott

studio-c

10-22-2006, 09:59 PM

But then again...when will we never need cassette again...I doubt if it will ever become "vintage".:)

Mark

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a little part of me thinks it will happen. The part that's been putting off selling my $100,000 worth of cassette duplication equipment on eBay for fifty bucks. No lie... Boy, it would be nice to have that chunk o change back... :)

In another thread I've been ranting about "instantly depreciating hardware" and wanting to put that money in stocks or real estate instead of the blinky box du jour. I'm really really serious about that. Gear lust is worse than cocaine. I'm still trying to get that cassette bin loader out of my nose :D .

If you wanna hang out youve got to take her out; Mix Magazine.
If you wanna get down, down on the ground; Mix Magazine.
She dont lie, she dont lie, she dont lie; Mix Magazine.

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; Mix Magazine.
When your day is done and you wanna run; Mix Magazine.
She dont lie, she dont lie, she dont lie; Mix Magazine.

Okay, now I'm just getting stupid. G'nite all.

Cheers,
Scott

Tim Miskimon

10-24-2006, 09:21 AM

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a little part of me thinks it will happen. The part that's been putting off selling my $100,000 worth of cassette duplication equipment on eBay for fifty bucks. No lie... Boy, it would be nice to have that chunk o change back... :)

In another thread I've been ranting about "instantly depreciating hardware" and wanting to put that money in stocks or real estate instead of the blinky box du jour. I'm really really serious about that. Gear lust is worse than cocaine. I'm still trying to get that cassette bin loader out of my nose :D .

If you wanna hang out youve got to take her out; Mix Magazine.
If you wanna get down, down on the ground; Mix Magazine.
She dont lie, she dont lie, she dont lie; Mix Magazine.

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; Mix Magazine.
When your day is done and you wanna run; Mix Magazine.
She dont lie, she dont lie, she dont lie; Mix Magazine.

Okay, now I'm just getting stupid. G'nite all.

Cheers,
Scott

Great song - just one thing though - I'd change mix Magazine to Tape OP....:D

studio-c

10-27-2006, 03:31 PM

Ooooh, go:D od.
It was late. I knew the rhythm scheme of the lyrics sucked. ..
Thanks

DominicPerry

10-28-2006, 04:12 AM

The tape snapped before I got a chance to adjust the azimuth. Luckily I had a full recording of the first pass. Thanks all.

Dominic

Naturally Digital

11-01-2006, 10:50 AM

Does anyone have any advice about what to do with the end product? I only have a stereo mix of course, from the cassette, so I was just going to use my Sonoris EQ and the Levelizer and then hope it all goes away.:) Any other clues about removing hiss, stopping it sound like it's been put through a barrel of mud?Dom, I finally had some time to give this a listen. Sorry for the delay!

It's actually a really good tune. And not a bad recording either. It just suffers from a few typical problems but nothing you can't fix.

There are others on the forum who are more knowledgable on restoration than I but here's where I'd start:

Start with the premise this exercise is about the song and the performance, not about resurrecting the 'recording'. If that makes any sense.

As Bob suggested, summing the tracks to mono helps. I tried a few things to correct the razor-blade highs but in the end mono-ing the file brings things much closer to where they should be. Basically it's similar to correcting for a missing playback EQ somewhere along the way. I would probably deliver a mono product. You can try adjusting the relative phase of the two tracks either by nudging one against the other, using a sample delay on one of the tracks or using something like the Voxengo Phase Alignment Plugin http://www.voxengo.com/product/pha979/ but if this doesn't improve the bass response and smooth out the highs, I'd just sum to mono and move on to the next step. You can also do a reverse-phase test or use Pieter's MS Encoder plugin to check for L minus R information.

I'm not sure the song needs it but if you want to do any noise reduction, you have lots of information at the start of the track. There's a very high annoying hiss that is masked by the program material once the song starts. You could either shelve it down as Steve said (above 10K) or NR. It's a recognizable harmonic series of tones so any decent NR should let you drop it a few db. At the start of the track, apart from the hiss, there's a hum audible just before the tune starts. You could notch that out with eq but again, since you have a clean sample of the noise available you could use a noiseprint type of NR to first sample the offending noise and then digitally remove the 'fingerprint' from the track. I'd use an offline NR tool such as what's available in Audacity or CoolEdit although something like the Virtos Audio plugin would also do a fine job. Process the hiss and the hum separately. Be subtle with it, you are only looking to reduce the noise by a few db, don't go overboard.

EQ the bottom end by first shelving things up below 100-300Hz. Start gradually, 1-3db at first until you feel the low end is properly balanced. You may want to cut the lows below 20-40Hz if the rumble/subsonic stuff becomes a problem but it shouldn't be necessary.

From there, carve the track with your EQ and balance the spectrum just as if you were mastering the track. Balance it until it sound's 'right' (A/B it with some reference recordings) or focus on bringing out the lower mids and 'sweet' tones in the track.

To deal with the phasey 'wow' issue on the high frequencies, I would apply upward (parallel) compression to the highs only. If you plan to go for stereo in your finished product (instead of mono) then I would suggest processing each channel separately. I.e. split the track or else use a compressor that doesn't link the L/R channels (dual mono). Do this either on an output bus (set up a 'parallel' path to your master output) or else duplicate the track and insert your plugins on the duplicate track. Patch the LP EQ and set up a high-pass filter at 2-5kHz. Patch a compressor after the EQ and set the attack as fast as possible (for now). Set the release to around 500ms. Ratio say 3:1 and threshold -20 to -30db. Listen to this and tweak. If the compressor isn't tracking the wow fast enough then decrease the release time. You can also adjust the attack slightly to see if it makes the highs more consistent. This should smooth out the highs enough to make a decent sounding track.

The biggest issue with the track as it sounds currently is the frequency balance is out. There's way too much at 2kHz-5kHz (in stereo), and a lack of bass. It almost needs to be EQ'd with a 3db/oct low-pass filter.

I wouldn't worry too much about making it louder. Just use your levelizer to control any peaks after the EQ and set levels to taste.

Hope this helps. I can't offer much more advice without actually sitting down and attempting to restore the track myself. Between these suggestions and anything Doug suggested, you should have a good starting point.

Have fun! Sounds like it was a pretty cool band.

DominicPerry

11-02-2006, 11:39 AM

Dave,

Thanks very much for your work and help and extensive recommendations. I'll also pass on your compliments to the remaining surviving members of the band - I don't think any of them are actually dead, merely lost. I saw some fantastic press shots they did back then too - co-ordinated waitcoats and the like, all good for a laugh. I'll certainly have a go at the corrections and alterations you list and let you know how it comes out. Many thanks again.

Dominic

Tukarstudio

11-02-2006, 12:08 PM

But then again...when will we never need cassette again...I doubt if it will ever become "vintage".:)

Mark

But don't you just LOVE the compression when recording to cassette? :D I bet it's the next hottest thing. Dumping all our pristine tracks to cassette, then recording back to SAW. :rolleyes:

Ian Alexander

11-02-2006, 06:00 PM

But don't you just LOVE the compression when recording to cassette? :D I bet it's the next hottest thing. Dumping all our pristine tracks to cassette, then recording back to SAW. :rolleyes:
I can't remember why, but recently a client wanted a portion of a program overmodulated and distorted. I dubbed that part to cassette with the levels too hot and then dubbed it back. Just what they wanted. And it stayed perfectly synced, too.;)

Mark Stebbeds

11-03-2006, 07:43 PM

But don't you just LOVE the compression when recording to cassette? :D I bet it's the next hottest thing. Dumping all our pristine tracks to cassette, then recording back to SAW. :rolleyes:

A few years ago there was a guy (maybe Cranesong guy?) at an AES show distributing a CD with cassette tape his on it to use instead of dither. The idea was to import it to a track and mix it in.

Funny stuff.

mark

Bob L

11-03-2006, 08:48 PM

Actually that is some of the best sounding dither I have ever heard.

Bob L

johndale

11-03-2006, 08:55 PM

I think weighing the pros and cons of Dither, is kind of a chicken or egg thing. I don't use it, as I don't master. Do I play with it, yea. Would I be wrong in having the opinion it "dulls" the sound? If I would, maybe I ought to play with it more. POW-R dither reminds me of "Hoppin' Gator" beer. Who in their right mind drinks orange juice flavored beer.
John