Overly Quiet Recordings

[marksturdy]

Another question here, maybe someone will be able to enlighten me.

I've got a couple of live recordings on MD where the signal is very, very weak - to the extent that you've got to turn it up VERY loud to even detect whether there's any music on there at all.

I've attempted to rescue these recordings by transferring them onto the PC and normalising them in CoolEdit. However, boosting them in that way obviously means that the background noise is boosted along with the signal, and you're no better off than when you started.

Is it possible that the background noise, rather than being inherent to the actual recording, is being picked up during the transferring process via my line-in lead and fairly ropey soundcard? If so, is there a way of boosting the original signal in a way that doesn't pick up deafening amounts of hiss?

[greenmachine]

All i can suggest with your current method is to turn up the player's volume to the maximum and adjust the recording volume with the soundcard mixer.

To completely avoid the possibility of additional noise being introduced in the transferring process, you need to do it digitally.

If the recordings themselves are very quiet, you can't do much about noise though except for trying the various noise reduction features in cooledit/audition. If you use them wisely, maybe you can rid of some hiss without damaging the music too much. As always, exaggeration does more harm than good.

[bug80]

I should turn the volume of your player up to the max, like greenmachine suggested. You can also look for a device that you can use as a pre-amp, for instance a mixer, before your send the signal into your soundcard (watch out for clipping, though).

The best solution would be digital, you can look if you can borrow a deck from someone with digital out (or search on eBay). If you do a digital to digital copy, no extra noise will be introduced.

If you can't get rid of the noise using the methods above, you can use the noise reduction feature of CoolEdit (or another audio editor) to remove most of it. You have to do this carefull though, because it will alter your "clean" signal also. If you use this, I'd suggest you make a backup of the original recording (edit: I mean the recording + noise) first.

Edited June 21, 2005 by bug80

[greenmachine]

Thank you for the translation

[bug80]

Thank you for the translation

←

Eh, yeah sorry I was sleeping I guess

But hey, the external mixer part was new!

[marksturdy]

Thanks guys - I will try and get hold of a deck with digital out.

As an aside, I've been turning the volume of my player (a Sony Net MD MZ-N510) up to the max and it just doesn't have enough power to boost these signals to a decent level. Do different players have different maximum volumes, or is top volume on one deck going to be the same as top volume on any other?

[greenmachine]

MD decks tend to have a significantly higher output than MD portables, which can improve the situation. Nevertheless, try to do it digitally if possible.

[zerodB]

Perhaps you should try a unit with a MIC in, instead of using the LINE in.

Either that, or trying setting the record levels on your unit to maximum.