[NFBCS] Audio SW optimized for voice cleanup?

[Dale HELTZER]

Hi Steve,

I am using an old cassette player lineout fed to a Zoom h6 Essential.
The tapes, as I said, are old recordings of lectures, interviews, and speeches. Most of the tapes are  home-made.  Also, there are a few commercially-produced.

I have Adobe Audition - about twenty-year-old version.
Audacity has been installed, but I haven't taken the time to become fluent with it.


I don't have any illusions about getting pristine results; I'd take easily-listenable as a successful product.

I can do basic de-essing (some of the tapes really need it).
I don't have a lot of experience eliminating tape hiss with filters, so any suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks

Be well -D

I'd


From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Steve Jacobson via NFBCS
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 9:36 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Steve Jacobson <steve.jacobson at outlook.com>
Subject: Re: [NFBCS] Audio SW optimized for voice cleanup?

Dale,

I have had some experience with digitizing old recordings, although I don't know that I have gotten into it to the degree that Ty has.

It would be helpful to know what equipment you are using and if you already have any audio software such as Audacity, Gold Wave or something similar.  To play the cassettes, are you using a cassette deck or are you using a cassette player?

There are a number of options for removing noise, but frankly, it is very easy to introduce other problems when doing that.  As Ty has already stated, there is a lot you can do through equalization, and hum can largely be removed with a notch filter.  Equalization can be applied with less risk of introducing additional problems.  Most audio editing programs contain some kind of equalizer.

Let me know more about your equipment and we could discuss this offline if you like.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

From: NFBCS <nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Dale HELTZER via NFBCS
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 4:05 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org<mailto:nfbcs at nfbnet.org>>; main at jfw.groups.io<mailto:main at jfw.groups.io>
Cc: Dale HELTZER <deheltzer at msn.com<mailto:deheltzer at msn.com>>
Subject: [NFBCS] Audio SW optimized for voice cleanup?

I'm in the process of digitizing a number of old cassette tapes of lectures, interviews, etc.These are *old tapes, and most of the audio so far is muddy or sloppy on the sibilants - tape degradation, I'm sure.

A quick Google search has found apps that are especially for cleaning up podcast voice recording.
Does anyone have experience with any of these?

Thanks

Be well -D
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