I wasn't very impressed by SoundSoap 1, and CD Spin Doctor had this habit of inserting "skip" in my digitized vinyl (not to mention lack of proper documentation). I have about 20 digitized tracks in AIFF format that I would like to clean up. (And I'm not spending $400 for SoundSoap Pro.) I tried Ray Gun, but I also found that IMPOSSIBLY difficult to use, and Arboretum sofwtare was of no help to me.
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Anyone used SoundSoap 2?
- Thread starter Diomedes
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Diomedes said:
Soundsoap 2 added an enhancement feature similar to CD Spin Doctors filters and that is also similar to Ray Guns. They also added one other feature but I have not had time to play with it, just upgraded 2 days ago. I have to say though if you were not impressed by SoundSoap 1 you will probably not be impressed by SoundSoap 2. That leaves you with really only one option that I know of and that envolves spending lots of money. Remember when using these noise reduction programs never reduce noise too much or you will lose the music, just a little goes a long way, also you may need to enhance it after reducing noise. The best way really is to only put good sounding sound into the computer to begin with. I always try to clean up my analog sound first outside the computer with DBX noise reduction and some equilization and then run it into DAT tape to see how it sounds. Hope my 2 cents helped some, good luck with whatever you do.
Brian
Forgot one thing, you said CD Spin Doctor introduced skips? I've used Toast 5 and now 6, it never introduces skips and I am not calling you a liar at all, so that means you've got other problems with your set up.
Brian
Brian
Lacero said:
I know what you mean, sometimes I'm at this all day long, trying to reduce noise and there is too much of it. If you have too much noise to begin with, you will never get a good sounding finished product. Whatever you do, make sure that it is half way decent to listen to before putting it into a computer to be digitized. If you have a fairly good sound coming in, then you can reduce the noise a little and then enhance to bring back the vibrance of the sound. If you put in bad sound, you can fiddle and make it a little better, but it will never be broadcast quality. To tell you the truth, even if you spend 400 or 500 dollars on good soft it will not do too much better. If you buy the expensive Peak software by Bias you may be able to erase some things with their pencil tool, but if it's too bad it's the same old story.
Brian
Eastend said:
Yes, Spin Doctor introduced skips in the filtered copy it made. I have a pretty high-end system, and the skips were not part of the original recording. I may try it again with my new PowerBook to see if the issue re-occurs.
Eastend said:
Well the problem I usually ran into would be that SoundSoap (besides not being terribly intuitive) would seem to "over compensate" for pops and crackles. So I would have to take the file back into Peak to apply some DSP filters to bring some of the levels back up. Admitedly, GIGO, and the quality of some of the vinyl pressings I got were of lesser quality than others. (I frequently get promo pressings from labels that have remixes on them, and sometimes labels don't seem to pay much attention to QC with promos.)
Diomedes said:
Now I am beginning to understand everything more clearly now, you are not a newbie to these products at all. However, I will stand by what I said earlier about CD Spin Doctor introducing any noise, used it on 3 different macs in 2 different flavors, never had that kind of trouble, that's why I suggested it may be another problem unrelated to CD SpinDoctor (brittle lines no longer functioning correctly, etc, the larger the system is the more components that must be checked, a pain). I agree that SoundSoap is not very intuitive, but then you probably already know the other noise reduction software out there is also not very intuitive.
I have never worked with the expensive noise reduction software, but I would think the learning curve would be large and probably it would end up not being intuitive. Since you use Peak you know that looks great on the screen, but in the end it is not so intuitive, just my opinion. As far as music or sound is concerned, it is mostly up to the ear, sometimes that is not intuitive also. I also suggest when using Soundsoap or any VST plug in or plug ins in general, just use a little, a little goes a long way, do not use SoundSoaps learn noise button, it will kill the sound everytime, I bet you already knew that. SoundSoap 2 has a new enhancer and a Click and Crackle slider added to it, so it's now like CD SpinDoctor in that respect. I use SoundSoap as a plug-in within Peak or AudioHijack in conjunction with other plug-ins such as compression and equalization. These things will of course be of no use to you in trying to erase bad sound. All I know is that I use SoundSoap and then try to enhance it in Someway, sometimes using several plug-ins. Good luck with whatever you end up doing, hope you do not have to spend a bundle for your required results, whatever you end up with I'd like to know for my work, so I really do hope that you find a solution.
Right now I'm trying to bring back the voice of a person on tape, no matter what I do I cannot save the voice, the mic was way to far away from the person speaking so with the gain up it just sound like a jet. If it is really bad going in, it will never be good quality on the other end, that is my saying for the day as far as sound is concerned. Good Luck Diomedes.
Brian