Cool Edit Question for Clicks and Pops

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gary Taylor
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Gary Taylor

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I have a real old Peter Sellars record which I have recorded to my HDD. I am trying to clean it up using the Click Pop Eliminator Tool in Cool Edit 2000. It does a reasonable job, but there are still a lot that it will not remove. If I select too many passes for example, it loses the sound quality. Can someone please tell me what the Detect and Reject settings should be. I have tried to follow the Help Screen, but to be honest it is not very clear to someone who is not used to audio editing. Any help would be appreciated. Maybe there is another and better editing program out there? ... TIA
 
I'm not familiar with 2000 but in Audition you can go into edit view and select only the offending portion of audio, then apply the appropriate filters to that small section. This way you can perserve most of the track that isn't damaged.
 
SuicideNote said:
I'm not familiar with 2000 but in Audition you can go into edit view and select only the offending portion of audio, then apply the appropriate filters to that small section. This way you can perserve most of the track that isn't damaged.
Click to expand...

agreed, 2.0 offers even better options...
 
One strategy is to go to Noise Reduction/Click & Pop Eliminator and select about 50% correction, and make several passes. I cleaned up a home-cut 78 from 1946 that way. I also used NR and hum elimination; whenever there was an option to use the effect at less than 100% I cut it to about half. Worked for me.
 
Thanks for your suggestions people

Seems that if the program thinks that all the Clicks and Pops are supposed to be there if there are so many, that is one of the reasons it won't take a lot out. Seems that on a real bad recording, one needs to remove a lot of them manually? .... Cheers
 
That may be the case. There's no magic bullet, because so much of the noise is in the same frequency range as the content. In the home made disc I transferred, the voice was a (then) 5-year-old singing "Shortnin' Bread" and talking. There were places where you could hear someone speaking off-axis [note that I have no idea of what gear was used to make this recording, only that it was done April 16, 1946, according to the label) but the words were unintelligible, in spite of about a week's work on my part. The little girl would respond to the question, but if she turned her head it became impossible to retrieve the words.

Be sure to save a copy of the untreated audio so you can try the various NR tricks in different orders: sometimes it will work better in one sequence, sometimes in another.

Another trick, which I am sure you have figured out already, is to work on a monophonic file. Otherwise you'll double the work and the music will end up pretty much mono anyway, but the remaining clicks and pops will be in stereo!
 
Thanks Ipdeluxe

To be honest I had not figured out the "Monophonic" file bit. Can you tell me more? I assume there is a selection in Cool Edit? I have CE on my other PC, so I will check it out. Or .... is a the way the tracks are recorded. Hope to hear from you. ... Regards Gary
 
I hooked up my turntable to a stereo receiver that had a phono preamp on it (dedicated phono preamp interfaces w USB are available, also) and recorded it onto 2 tracks in CEP. That gave me a "stereo" recording which was actually "mono:" since the original was mono, I had the same signal on each track, but (in this case) each side picked up a different click/noise pattern.

I first tried to use the stereo version, but after a few stabs it was obvious that there was twice as much noise that way. In CEP, it is possible to make a stereo "mixdown" from a mono track. Highlight one of the two tracks and and go to Edit/Mix down/Selected Tracks. That made it into "stereo" which had only the noise from the single track.

That was a lot easier to deal with. I did the noise reduction, then converted to 16 bit, and it was ready to burn to CD.

If you are starting with an actual stereo recording, you probably want to do the NR on each track individually. Highlight the track you want to work on, hit F12, and it will be in Edit View. Finish your work on it, hit F12 again, and you are back to Multitrack View. Do the other track, and when you are satisfied with the results, go to Edit/Mix Down/All Tracks and you'll get, again, a stereo mix in Edit View. You can then trim the beginning and end (highlight the part you want to cut out, then Ctrl+X).

If this is too elementary, ignore the parts you already know how to do. I'm just trying to be complete;).
 
Never mind about being too elementary

You are streets ahead of me, but I really appreciate your input. I will take a close look at what you are telling me here. Thanks again ... and you still might here from me ... Gary
 
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