Audio Restoration

If you have recordings on vinyl, cassette, reel to reel tape, VHS, Beta, or some other old format I can produce a high-quality digital copy and produce a CD for playback on today’s equipment. I have the highest quality tape decks and turntables to yield great results. As a secondary part of this process I can often improve your audio by further processing:

 

  • Reduction of hum and noise
  • Improvement of intelligibility
  • Speed correction

Of course I can’t do the impossible, if you give me a completely erased tape, a recording with much more noise than signal, or one so muffled that there’s no intelligibility at all, I may not be able to help. I’m always willing to take a listen and give you an opinion before starting any actual work.

Noise reduction and intelligibility enhancement

This is an old interview from a cassette tape made in about 1972. It is full of hum and noise and very muffled sounding. A variety of techniques was used to clean up the worst of the problems and make the speech easier to understand. Compare the before and after recordings to hear the results.

Cassette before processing

Cassette after processing

Vinyl LP recovery and restoration

This transfer was made from a badly scratched LP vinyl record. The clicks and pops were removed using an automatic tool and then a little manual touchup removed some remaining artifacts. Compare the before and after recordings to hear the results.

Vinyl before processing

Vinyl after processing

Historic 78 RPM record recovery and restoration

This is from an old 78 RPM record I bought for $.25. Johnny Ray was pretty amazing. The record was very beat up and I used a new process to pretty much eliminate all the surface noise and groove distortion.

Old 78 rpm record before processing

Old 78 rpm record after processing

A 45 RPM record with severe scratches

This is a 45 RPM record by the Chuck Alaimo Quartet. This is the fade-out at the end of the tune where you can really hear the surface noise. After processing there isn’t any noise, the fade just goes to silence. I added a little stereo width too just for grins.

Local-66 before processing

Local-66 after processing

These are only a few quick samples of some things that are possible with old audio.