WASH YOUR OLD RECORDS, VIRTUALLY
One day I walked into a record store and there
were no more records. I remember that day quite clearly. When I asked
some teenage clerk behind the store counter where I could find any
45's or long playing albums, I got a strange blank stare. Have you
seen "The Time Machine?" My record experience made me identify with
that character who came from a past century. Like him, I am from a
past century and so are many of you!
The end of the 20th Century was the end of vinyl
and for many, even tape recording. But there are still a lot of us
time travelers out there who own vinyl record collections, audio
cassettes and yes, even 8-track tapes. But with the ever-increasing
difficulty of obtaining phonograph needles and the like to play any
sort of record these days, it's probably in ones best interest to
convert them into a digital format. Converting them will preserve them
for all time. The same holds true with any old movies and photographs
you may possess. Digital preservation will make them last forever.
Most of us know about digital cameras, scanners
and software that converts our conventional photographic images into
digital memories. Converting old vinyl records requires some hardware
and software as well. Connecting a record player to your computer is
fairly straight forward. If your turntable is hooked to a stereo
amplifier, just take the output from the amplifier to your computer's
stereo sound input. Depending on your make, model and platform, that's
located on either the sound card or the computer's back panel. Once
the physical connection is made, you'll need some kind of recording
software.
There are many titles to choose from and you can
find many free, shareware and commercial titles. Since you really
won't need to do any editing or special processing, transferring music
from a recorded source is pretty straight forward so you shouldn't
spend very much money. What you will need is something to help clean
up the older recordings. After all, vinyl records have things like
hiss, clicks and pops. These are little distortion noises that begin
to appear after you play a record over and over again. Needles made
little scratches, dropping the needle makes little pits that result in
popping sounds, plus dirt and dust add their own distinctive
distortions as well. Some say those sounds add character to the
recording, like scratches on a movie film. Still, you want to have the
best possible sound and that was how it sounded when it was played the
first time.
 One
of the easiest ways to digitally "wash" your old record recordings is
to use special software designed to clean things back to their
original pristine condition. One such program is SoundSoap from Bias (www.bias-inc.com).
SoundSoap lets you instantly reduce most any of the common types of
noise and distortion found on old vinyl recordings. This includes tape
hiss (from those old cassettes and 8-Track tapes), clicks, pops,
scratches along with hum, rumble and buzzing. Running SoundSoap first
displays an easy to understand control panel with two large knobs and
a Wash Window that displays before and after results. By turning the
big Noise Tuner and Noise Reduction knobs, you can tune in any
offensive noises you want removed. A Learn Noise button lets SoundSoap
automatically profile any noise in your recording and adjusts the
Noise Tuner and Noise Reduction knobs to their ideal settings for you.
The Wash Window display lets you see how much
noise is being removed. Its split before and after image lets you see
just how much your sounds have been washed. Other buttons let you
remove rumble, remove hum and let you select the frequency range of
the distortions to be removed. A Mode selection lets you listen to the
original sound, how it sounds with the distortions removed, or just
listen to the distortions themselves. These features can be a real ear
opener.
You can also use SoundSoap to clean up your
current digital recordings as well. For example, if you had an air
conditioner running in the background while you were making your
digital movie or recording, you can use SoundSoap to remove the
offending air conditioner sound while preserving everything else.
Photographs have products like PhotoShop to make
images look better. Now your audio tracks have SoundSoap to help clean
up everything you want to hear and preserve for yourself, the next
generation, or any would-be time traveler.
SoundSoap is available for Windows Xp and
Macintosh OS X. $99.
www.bias-inc.com |
