Perhaps a little sample of the problem audio you wish to fix would help get some responses. I think most of these problems can be fixed w/ eq solutions. The Static problems are interesting and that is what I would like to hear to make sure what you are referencing...

All I can say is that some may be poor recordings and may contain static, hum, background noise, etc. from little hand-held recorders. I'm just looking for some suggestions on good, user friendly software products (at reasonable prices) that can combat these issues. Some may be unrepairable, but that's going to happen.

Unfortunately I don't have any samples and could not supply one if I did because they are medical transcriptions and protected under the privacy act. Maybe one's from your last doctor's appointment telling us you've got some infectious disease on a shameful part of your body :eek:

Uh oh you might have found that dirty lil secret in regard to a visit to Dr. Drew.... Ewe! Anyhow I remember taking a psychology class in college and the teacher would read the questions that would be on the test. All these tape recorders were then placed in the center table. As he read the test (yes, how lame of a class...) we would record them on pocket recorders. At home trying to decipher the words were tough at best. The recordings were not too awful but still his voice was rough and monotone. I wound up playing it at 4X speeds, as if he was mickey mouse, and the words were much easier to hear and decipher. That was one way to make the voice on the tape stand out better as long as you did not mind the mickey mouse type voice.

So how are you transferring this recording into a digital format? Line out or mic? Or are these files already in digital format? I personally have not tried much of any restoration program software. But I would guess that low pass and high pass filters are the first thing to implement on the digital side. I would probably look into using waves linear phase type equalizers, because I have used that plugin to bring out hidden artifacts buried in a mix. Maybe that's a different cat to skin but it would be my first choice. I personally have taking some bad recordings from old cassette tapes and made improvements on the digital side. My idea would be to blast the frequencies where the voice on the recording is located mostly and then put a noise gate to respond to the voice. At least this would get rid of some of the dead air moments between talking and not talking. That may not work but just a thought, good luck.

Thanks. I may go for the iZotope product in the long run. The files are transferred digitally over the internet.

I downloaded and tried the iZotope Music & Speech Clean and it was useless. The RX2 demo was amazing, but too expensive.

Have you checked Soundsoap Pro 2 from BIAS? heres a link so you can check what it does and if thats what you need. I dont know how much it is though. But i think its a really amazing tool.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.youtube…"]YouTube - BIAS SoundSoap Pro 2 Movie[/]="http://www.youtube…"]YouTube - BIAS SoundSoap Pro 2 Movie[/]

Hope it helps

You may try downloading free Audacity. It has noise removal functions, as well as basic EQ and compression stuff. They are in the "Effects" section, and supposedly do something similar to Adobe Audition by creating and saving a noise profile from a section, and applying that. Don't know how well they work, but worth a try for free.

"Whaddya want for nuthin'..."

Oh, and oftentimes with those kinds of processes, it may be better to do a couple of passes at lighter settings, than applying a heavy process once. Too heavy, and you'll end up with aggressive gating and funky phasing effects.

If you get rid of most of the hiss and rumble, then you just may have to manually edit out the coughs, burps and farts, etc. Denoise first, then maybe some light compression and/or EQ?

It's possible you can get it "good enough" for those purposes.

Can't hurt to try...for free. If it doesn't work well, then try something else. I wouldn't advise using it for anything too serious, but to just clean up lectures for personal use? Why not?

Kapt.Krunch