Fixing up an old analog recording

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dreib

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25 years ago or so my high school band did a demo, I beleive it was done on A fostex 8track reel to reel, anyway after a long search we finally found a copy and Im attempting to spruce it up I suppose. Its a cassette that was duped of an origanal cassette. I dumped in my DAW(reaper) and did some EQing and such and it is sounding much better, but I find that I am also accentuating the bad stuff too! Tape hiss, muddiness, etc.

Just wondering if someone has a few tips for me to try to clean this thing up as best as possible. Again I just use reaper and the plugins that come with it.

I'll try to post some before and after"s of what Ive got so far later today or tonight if that would help at all?

Thanks!!
 
well, one possibility is that it was encoded with Dolby so if you're not decoding it then you'll have an exxagerated top end which will increase the noise problems.
So you need to figure out if it was dolby'd or not.

That's actually kinda important to get the best out of it.
 
Well the dude that recorded it for us is dead, but Im positive he used a fostex 8 track reel to reel because at the time we thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I wonder if those by default used dolby?
I'll try and look that up.

Also on my cassette player I have the dolby nr selector option and I punched it to take a quick listen and it certainly killed the top end but I felt too much? I guess I could do it again and try and add the top end back in with EQ?

I really dont have a trained ear so I just go by what I think sounds good at the moment I do it. I probably need make alot more subtle changes that add up rather than a few that really overall do nothing but make things louder, Im just not sure what I need to do to accomplish that.
 
Lt. Bob said:
well, one possibility is that it was encoded with Dolby so if you're not decoding it then you'll have an exxagerated top end which will increase the noise problems.
So you need to figure out if it was dolby'd or not.

That's actually kinda important to get the best out of it.
Click to expand...

Lt. Bob - what's the trick to the other side of the coin - if you are decoding an un-encoded tape - doesn't it pump or do something else weird? I forget...
 
dreib said:
Well the dude that recorded it for us is dead, but Im positive he used a fostex 8 track reel to reel because at the time we thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I wonder if those by default used dolby?
I'll try and look that up.

Also on my cassette player I have the dolby nr selector option and I punched it to take a quick listen and it certainly killed the top end but I felt too much? I guess I could do it again and try and add the top end back in with EQ?

I really dont have a trained ear so I just go by what I think sounds good at the moment I do it. I probably need make alot more subtle changes that add up rather than a few that really overall do nothing but make things louder, Im just not sure what I need to do to accomplish that.
Click to expand...
no .... NOT the original 8 track ....... I'm talking about the cassette copy. Dolby was virtually ubiquitous in cassette machines and was likely used on that cassette copy.
 
chuckduffy said:
Lt. Bob - what's the trick to the other side of the coin - if you are decoding an un-encoded tape - doesn't it pump or do something else weird? I forget...
Click to expand...

dolby was generally simply a boost on the highs ...... the noise floor would be unchanged ...... then at playback highs would be cut which reduced the noise level.
So usually decoding a non encoded tape would lead to a muddy sound with cut highs.

DBX was different and would cause some pumping if not decoded.
But DBX was much less common than Dolby in those old cassette machines.

There was also a Dolby S that was awesome but pretty uncommon.
 
Lt. Bob said:
no .... NOT the original 8 track ....... I'm talking about the cassette copy. Dolby was virtually ubiquitous in cassette machines and was likely used on that cassette copy.
Click to expand...

Ok then, I'll upload it again with dolby on and see what I can come up with after messing with it.

Any other tips would be much appriciated!!

Thanks Lt. Bob!
 
RAMI said:
Whoah! That's a little extreme. You know, you could have just not paid him if you didn't like the mix. :eek:
Click to expand...

LOL....Actually we mixed it. I wish we would have gotten that reel from him though back in the day, It would be cool to try and dump all those tracks into a DAW and see what we could do with it with today's technology ya know?
 
Lt. Bob said:
dolby was generally simply a boost on the highs ...... the noise floor would be unchanged ...... then at playback highs would be cut which reduced the noise level.
Click to expand...

Not so. Dolby B, C and S used a program sensitive high boost with a special sliding filter. It was changing all the time. They most definitely were not a simple boost to the highs. That job was done by the record eq circuit.

I cringe when I hear people say they "dumped" the track into their DAW and then started to "work on it", as if the "dumping" was the easiest part.

The most important step is getting the tape to play back as well as possible, with no losses. Nothing added, nothing taken away. Nothing digital involved at this stage.

The playback machine should be a good quality machine in top condition. The tape playback speed should be the same as when the tape was recorded. The playback head should be custom adjusted for azimuth to ensure no loss of highs. And all of that on a recording with no noise reduction encoding!

There can be other issues such as the tape needing to be carefully rehoused in a better cassette shell before being played. Sometimes cassette tapes have sticky shed problems although not nearly as often as with open reel tapes.

Cheers Tim
 
Wow....well I did clean the cassette player and it is in good working order and it is playing at the correct speed, and after all that ,I dumped it into my DAW. I didnt do the azimuth thingy and dont know how.

When I play the tape back with the dolby NR selected it becomes really really dull sounding. Im thinking when this tape was duped it wasnt encoded or whatever.

If I can tame the hiss and lose some of the mud I'll be happy.
 
dreib said:
When I play the tape back with the dolby NR selected it becomes really really dull sounding. Im thinking when this tape was duped it wasnt encoded or whatever.

.
Click to expand...
I would agree with that.

Actually though ..... sometimes back then the recording quality of some of those recorders was pretty limited in how high a freq. it would go ..... sometimes maybe only 12k or so. So I (and others I'm sure) would record with dolby but play it back without because it would brighten up a dull recording. So it's possible that's what's going on.
Regardless ...... however it sounds best is obviously what you want.
 
Tim Gillett said:
Not so. Dolby B, C and S used a program sensitive high boost with a special sliding filter. It was changing all the time. They most definitely were not a simple boost to the highs.
Click to expand...
well ..... ok if you want to be picky. I'm almost as much into the audiophile thing as I am into music and a sizable group of us were into good cassette decks, which were capable of better performance than most people realize.
And the filters, of course, were different for the three types of Dolby.
I didn't like 'C' much at all and preferred 'B' to 'C'. That was the mic controversy of it's day .... lol.
'S' however was a quantum leap forward as far as I'm concerned.
I still have two decks with 'S' on them and it's really excellent. I actually still use my machines occasionally because I have so many old live recordings on cassette.

Having said all that ....... in the context of someone wanting to try to archive some old cassettes and then throw them and the machine they road in on in the garbage ..... it's sufficient to describe it as a high boost because that's what it is, intricacies of it's implementation notwithstanding.
If there's no way to tell whether it was or not he'll have to rely on what he thinks sounds best.
 
dreib said:
Wow....well I did clean the cassette player and it is in good working order and it is playing at the correct speed, and after all that ,I dumped it into my DAW. I didnt do the azimuth thingy and dont know how.

When I play the tape back with the dolby NR selected it becomes really really dull sounding. Im thinking when this tape was duped it wasnt encoded or whatever.

If I can tame the hiss and lose some of the mud I'll be happy.
Click to expand...

If your machine is good and the tape is physically good (check the felt pressure pad in the cassette head window opening to see it is intact and in good condition) you probably need to adjust the azimuth. A simple check is sum the stereo signal to mono and listen. If the centre audio dulls, the azimuth is off.
The best way to tame the hiss is to play back the tape back as well as possible. That's what it's all about!

Also keep in mind that it's not a CD. You cant expect it to be that hiss free. But if it was a reasonable dub you can expect it to sound full bodied and not dull.

Why not upload us a short sample and we can tell if it was Dolby encoded and whether the azimuth is correct.

Tim
 
On my to do list last night was to upload some samples, but my wife and kids dont give a crap about my to do list and by the time all my other responsibilties were completed I opted to read the paper and crash!

Believe me I realize Im not going to get cd quality clarity I was just wondering what plug-ins might be used to breathe a little more life into this old recording.

Im pretty satisfied with what I have so far considering the age and quality I started with.

Thanks!!
 
P.S. Im going to post one song I finished on the mp3 thread, and later if I have time I'll post a before.

Comments welcome.
 
I've had good success transferring the cassette to digital wav (I don't use the dolby) then use the de-noise function in Isotope Rx. If you are unfamiliar with it check it out. You select a short (1 sec. or so) section of the material that has nothing but the noise (tape hiss, hum whatever). It then "learns" or creates a noise print. You then process out the noise from the file. It can yield fantastic results, although I shoot for no more that 9 db of reduction (typically 6 or 7). Once that is cleaned up, I go in and play with the eq curves to get the sound balanced the way I like it.
 
dreib said:
P.S. Im going to post one song I finished on the mp3 thread, and later if I have time I'll post a before.

Comments welcome.
Click to expand...


It's summed to mono. Also you seem to have compressed it or is that how it sounded? Just upload straight off the tape in 2 track without any changes.

Tim
 
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