Subject:good VST to eliminate hiss

Posted by: wynton

Date:11/27/2006 7:50:52 PM

I've been using SoundSoap to elminate pops, crackles, etc on my vinyl recordings. But one record still seems to have a fair amount of his and crackle.

Can anyone recommend another VST or effect (within Music Studio 6.) that could help clean this up further?

Subject:RE: good VST to eliminate hiss

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:11/27/2006 8:41:11 PM

SoundSoap is pretty good for the money. If that won't do it, you need something serious like Sony's Noise Reduction 2 but this plug-in is kind of expensive for an ACID Music Studio user (it cost almost as much as ACID Pro!) Try using SoundSoap several times and only remove a little each time. This will give you better removal than trying to do too much in one pass.

~jr

Subject:RE: good VST to eliminate hiss

Reply by: feign

Date:11/27/2006 10:52:15 PM

Be careful about hiss reduction. Because when you remove hiss, you're also removing some of the high-end frequencies of the music itself. Go too far and you'll end up with a flat-sounding recording, sounds like it was recorded inside a cardboard box.

To my mind, the best hiss reduction plugin is the one inside your brain. Once you listen to the recording for a minute or more your brain does a good job of cutting out the hiss from your consciousness and you stop noticing it and you can focus on the music. BUT...if you've filtered out all those high frequencies, your brain can't replace them, so you never stop noticing the flatness of the recording.

If the original LPs had hiss, my advice is: keep them that way. Most analog recordings from the 1970s and before have noticeable hiss, because that's what the original master tapes sound like. For example, most of the early Beatles LPs have hiss. I wouldn't dare try to improve on the work of George Martin by using Acid Music Studio (or any other software).

Do your best to restore the LPs to their ORIGINAL QUALITY, hiss and all. Get rid of the pops and clicks and that should be enough to make you happy.

Subject:RE: good VST to eliminate hiss

Reply by: stuffedspacedog

Date:11/28/2006 2:04:46 AM

Waves X-Noise is good, if you really have to, but as with any noise reduction, if you go too far you'll end up with unwanted artifacts.

Subject:RE: good VST to eliminate hiss

Reply by: wynton

Date:11/28/2006 5:11:15 AM

Thanks everyone.

The tip about using SoundSoap twice was good. But the remarks about removing too much hiss are clearly correct also.

I just used SoundSoap twice on a jazz album from the 1960s and, sure enough, the damn recording does sound kind of flat to me. The cymbals in particular lack a certain sparkle. And I find the absence of that sound much more irritating than a few extra crackles.

The problem with this project is that I'm turning into more of an audiophile than I want. I started out just wanting to digitize the vinyl, and inexorably I'm paying more attention to the noises than the music..

Subject:RE: good VST to eliminate hiss

Reply by: feign

Date:11/28/2006 8:32:33 PM

I went through the audiophile transition as well. Once you mingle with other audiophiles, you'll find that the Holy Grail for audiophiles (those who don't turn their noses up at digital audio entirely) is to recreate the analog sound as closely as possible within the confines of digital compression (and CD or DVD compatible WAV files don't have the full dynamic range of a purely analog recording). That means keeping the hiss, since that was how the original master tapes sounded, and tolerating the difficult crackles, because that's how vinyl records sound.

Next you'll need to spend thousands on vacuum tube amplifiers and pre-amps (worth the money!), and speakers that you'll need to mortgage your home to buy.