Syntrillium Backup Forums :: View topic

1wingman · Posted - Sat Mar 01, 2003 8:22 am

I've copied younglove's script from the tips and tricks page and have actuallly run it on one of my pieces. There is a part in Syntrillium's instructions that is a bit confusing to me. It's in the part where he is describing the creation of the decrackle.fft file. 'Younglove's Decrackle Technique' (Starting with the 6th paragraph.)

He states "Click the Keep Only Noise button, and click Get Profile from Selection. Click OK." Why would you click "OK" as this would keep only the noise from your selection using the noise profile you just created? Nothing else is said about the selection that is now just noise. Synt. goes on to say you need to save your noise profile as if the NR dialog is still open. (It's not, it closes when you click "OK".) "In the Profiles box in the Noise Reduction window, click the Save Profile button, and save it in the scripts folder as decrackle.fft."

Am I correct in thinking Synt's instructions to click "OK" after creating the profile is a typo?

I created my decrackle.fft file by doing everything in the instructions except clicking the "OK" button. I ran the script and it completed without trouble. The crackle was reduced a bit, but not as much as I thought it would be. Is this what I should expect? (I know that's a subjective question, sorry! Big Grin

)

I'm also assuming that all of the parameters in the NR dialog need to match Younglove's script's settings when you're creating your decrackle.fft file. (I know that the fft size has to, I read that somewhere...)

Thank you for your help. Smile

1wingman · Posted - Sat Mar 01, 2003 11:41 am

I'm hoping I'm not "offending" any of the regulars here by the above question. I've searched through 99% of the younglove topics and haven't seen my question addressed.

VoodooRadio · Location: USA

I doubt that you've "offended" anyone. I think it's more of a matter of someone who actually uses the process (I personally don't) seeing your thread and posting some "enlightenment". I can say this... I've been around here awhile, and I know alot of folks who use it with regularity and I haven't seen many questions in regards to any "typo's". Hopefully, some vinyl types will jump in soon and give some clarification!

1wingman · Posted - Sat Mar 01, 2003 7:04 pm

Thanks. I'm just not sure what the other settings should be in the NR dialog when you create the noise profile. I know the FFT size should match 8192 as in the script. I'm guessing the other values should match what's in the script but it's not obvious to me how they correlate to one another. I still don't know why Synt says to click ok after making the profile right before you save it.

Incidently, I went through and followed areny's manual process (http://www.a-reny.com/restauration/avance.html) for doing the younglove tecnique and it took probably twice as long as running younglove's script. I'm not really sure if there's a difference in the sound between the two at this point. Anyone have any comments?

I'd also like to offer my thanks to younglove for sharing his method with all of us. Cool

1wingman · Posted - Sun Mar 02, 2003 1:43 pm

Geez, nobody can help me here? I guess the LP folks are on vacation over the weekends... Sad

VoodooRadio · Location: USA

Have you tried going to Younglove's profile and emailing him directly? Sometimes the best answers... come from the source. Wink

younglove · Posted - Sun Mar 02, 2003 3:42 pm

The "click OK" should not be there. The FFT size should be 8192 to match the script. The noise profile should match the wave file
you will be running it on in sample rate (44100), and number of channels (if wave is mono, noise profile must be taken from mono;
if stereo, then stereo). The script could be modified for wave files
of other sample rates. Other parameters, like number of snapshots,
reduction level, etc., don't matter for the noise profile.

VoodooRadio · Location: USA

Thanks for the reply Younglove. Admittingly, I don't use the script (or any scripts for that matter) because I'm not a Vinyl restoration guy. Maybe in the future..... Wink

1wingman · Posted - Sun Mar 02, 2003 5:31 pm

Thanks for the reply. Smile

I changed line seven to 96000 to match my sample rate. I'm assuming that "cmd: Channel Both" causes the script to work on stereo files?

Mel Davis · Posted - Mon Mar 03, 2003 8:55 am

1wingman · Posted - Mon Mar 03, 2003 10:29 am

Hi Mel,

I'm new to restoration, so I'm still learning everything. The LP I've started with is a recording of Christmas music from my grandfather's church's choir many years ago. It's in fair shape compared to pristine audio so there's plenty of crackle, clicks, and pops to clean up. I just ran the script for the first time the other day and so I had no idea what to expect. There is still crackle there, but it's much better than before so I'm definitely happy with the results. I haven't done an NR on the piece yet, but I'm sure that doing so will finish things off nicely.

Mel Davis · Posted - Mon Mar 03, 2003 2:48 pm

I find choir recordings to be particularly challenging. Maybe that's only because the first records I worked on when learning to use Cool Edit were choir recordings. By contrast, for example, with rock and pop records, a lot of junk gets covered up. With choral records, every vinyl problem such as clicks, pops, crackle, and rumble remains apparent, and I find setting levels for noise reduction to be particularly challenging such that audible artifacts-- such as soft wind chime noises-- aren't introduced when setting noise reduction on choir recordings.

Since you're just learning to use CE with LPs, a little experimentation will pay off big time in learning what works for this LP. If you still have a copy of your wave before you even applied CE to it-- always a good idea-- this means using "Save As" to change the name of the file-- then highlight and use "Save As" to save another one-minute section of one track that combines high and low volume levels as another file again. (Combine two different sections if no one-minute segment has both high and low volumes.) If you don't still have a copy of CE before editing, record another one minute wave to play with. It shouldn't be from the first or last minute of an LP side, because those often are noisier than excerpts from the middle of the side. Now experiment with that one. Keep using "Save As" to change the name of the file to reflect what you tried. You can do all kinds of declicking, noise reduction, Younglove script, etc., quickly on one minute segments. (It doesn't make sense to waste half an hour running a CE procedure if you could have determined by checking after a quick run that the results weren't going to be what you wanted. So experiment on brief sections.) Monitor the edits with headphones and make sure you don't hear those wind chimes when the choir goes silent.

Younglove script will not remove all the strong clicks and pops, especially from a worn record. Take out those big ones that show up in Waveform View extending all the way vertically, one at a time, before running Younglove.

If you just run declicking and denoising without Younglove on a lightly crackling LP, you're likely to feel there's still a constant crackle you find annoying. Or if you set things high enough to get rid of that constant crackle, your wave will sound muted or artifacty. That's where Younglove is useful. But it sounds to me, the way you describe the age and condition of this particular LP, that it has more than light crackle. That may be why you were disappointed in the results. In that case, Younglove may not be as useful as standard Click and Pop Removal.

Here are a couple of good threads I've saved as Favorites in my browser on working on older, noisy LPs:

'Reducing noise from vinyl LP recordings'

'noise reduction question'

There are many other threads on working on LPs in the archives.

1wingman · Posted - Mon Mar 03, 2003 6:20 pm

Thanks for the advice. I was actually experimenting with the short snippets last night and it is nice to try things quickly. Thanks for the links, I'll have to check them out.