Hi,

a friend of mine who is collecting west coast underground Hip-Hop Demo Tapes asked me for help on getting the files ready for printing them on vinyl for his private collection. So he sent me some digitzed files and they come with the usual problems you have with these type of tracks:

• 60 Hz rumble (already removed that)
• Tape Hiss (kinda tamed it)
• Muddy and over emphasized Bass (but punchy Drums)
• Missing top end

After I removed the rumble and tamed the hiss, I threw the tracks into my DAW and started EQing in M/S Mode (cleaning the sides, make subbass mono) as well as traditional EQ. I added a lot of Highshelf top end to open it up and give the vocal more presence. But I ran into problems with the low end. I Used multiband compression with a slow attack and low ratio (about 2:1) for taming the low end, which seemed to work nicely. But in A/B comparison I noticed that the Drums had lost some punch. I kwew that the kick and snare would kind of get in the background more once the mid and highrange opened up, but as it currently is, the Drums are just not rugged enough any more.

Anybody having experience with this type of work and has any tips and tricks for treating songs from tape? Should I use active EQs instead of multiband maybe?

Thanks.

 

If there is too much wobble (wow and flutter) you can try Celemony Capstan.

to bring back highs I recommand using Nebula or Acustica Aqua Plugin. a very transparent mastering eq like GML 8500 (tim petherick Surge EQ) or Acustica Coral. hope that helps

 

It sounds like you squashed your dynamics a bit. Try turning off the compression, using parallel compression (i.e. - a compressor where you can mix in the unaffected signal) or using a mastering plug like Ozone 5-7 that allows you to preserve transients. Remember, a signal on tape is already compressed a bit, so, if you're just trying to damp down the low end, try to use a shelving EQ instead of a MB compressor.

 

In my experience, Celemony Capstan tends to add more problems than it fixes, unless you do lots of manual hand-holding which is not worth the effort (in my opinion) unless you're doing something forensic or restoring something for a major project like a museum, etc.

Hip-hop demos? I can see making them a bit more listenable, but it seems a little bit silly to try to strip every amount of rawness from them. Then again, hey, to each his own. Experimentation can be fun too and boost your skills at the same time.

 

NO, no, i don't want to strip every amount of rawness. I just want to add some more fidelity.

THanks for the tips. Ill try to add the attacks from paralleling ut with the original.

UNfortunately i only have a free nebula version. I don't know how to use it or load any responses into it. I think its not possible with the free version?

 

A real simple trick is to adjust the playhead on the cassettedeck, if the original tapes are compact cassettes.
It will recover low & high frequencies that were lost because playheads of different decks are often mis-aligned to one another.
It only takes turning one screw, accessible when taking away the transparent cover of the deck.
Afterwards the tapes have to be digitized again, but the improvement is often really worth it!

Here's how (but the tape in the example doesn't have much high frequencies, so the result isn't very audible):

EDIT: play the YT at 32'45, I can't embed 'the start at' option over here..

 

Yeah, that's cool. I know about azimuth and stuff like that. But since I don't have the tapes, I have to stick with the Files ;)

I solved the problem now. This is how:

0. Throw Multiband Comp away!
1. Removed 60 Hz Rumble
2. Removed High Frequency Hiss by capturing a noise profile. Don't remove all/too much. Otherwise it will sound lifeless, unnatural and creates a lot of digital artifacts
3. Exported to wav 32 float @ 44.1 kHz.
4. Import it into DAW
5. Bring Level down with VUMT to 0 dBVU for much Headroom
6. MS/EQ Make subbass Mono (around 60-80 Hz) for Vinyl compatibilty, clean up the mid and side
7. Tame resonant Bass frequencies (taming some of the "bumps" that saturated tapes have).
8. Add broad high shelf boost to bring back the high end (The Exciter Module in Nomad Factory's Analog Studio Rack is really great for that!)
9. A Mastering eq on selected frequencies to cut boxiness and harshness.
10. A limiter at the end to bring it back up to reasonable levels without crushing it (about 1,3 dB of GR)

All this made me realize that in production having a good tonal and volume balance is much more important than having compression on every single element and the mixbuss. I think I will try to produce without any next time and try how far I will come with leaving enough headroom and then just do some nice eq and lifting the volume with a limiter.

 

Reads like you have figured it out. Less is more and the cleaning them up too much isn't always the best approach, sometimes a bit of hiss and resonance are part of the sound. Though we are kind of talking in hyperbole since only you have heard what you are speaking of, but I think you are on the right track [sic] do the minimum and every genera and time have their signature sound; the purpose restoration and archival isn't to make it sound like it was made yesterday, but keep it honest to how it sounded back then.

I have a feeling that if you had the ability and proper equipment to the transfer yourself you would have probably ended up doing even less.

Glad to hear you got acceptable results tough.

 

@5teezo
When Im bringing old recordings back to life, depending on the material if its dance or beat oriented Ill use nugen stereoizer on the tickle my beats preset, also their monofilter. plus to bring the kicks back out out ill use the boom plug from brainworx, this thing is great for that. But for vinly? I have no idea.

 

Last edited: Mar 25, 2017

http://help.izotope.com/docs/rx5/image/image_WN5YP4UQK24GMYQXVLUBAGJWKCUR7V4Z

http://help.izotope.com/docs/rx5/channel_ops.html

You do this in post with RX's auto azimuth & level adjustment.

 

Wow, i didn't even now RX had auto azimuth adjustment.

 

I know RX' (advanced only) azimuth adjustment, but often it's not that successful. If only turning a screw can get a much better signal into RX, I would try that first. Another digital tool to recover bad recordings: Zynaptiq Unfilter, available at our Sister's..

 

Some tips in RX
Time-frequency selection in spectral editing. Choose any part with bad sound, resonances, bumps in lows, clicks (manual selecting) etc. And apply some gain, not silence because there will be hole, and gain it down to level you need. So, it is frequency suppression in only small part you need.
There is a lot of interesting tips and tricks, because of spectrogram editing combined with free selection mode and their own stock instruments and vst support, now imagine how many possibilities you haven't ever thought of.
Rx is a super application to edit, restore, process (E.g. Choose any frequency range in any time selection and apply any vst, so any compressor can be as a band selected compressor, not full range), than any other old or new overhyped editor like sound forge, etc. It can be as a surgical tool, to restore very bad stuff into excellent clean fresh one. Bad it may take a lot of time. Rx is also the best src and dithering system.
So, I clean samples, rendered tracking, mixed premasters and final editing after mastering.
Soon reaper will support spectral editing as they promised in 5.50, because now it is under development. But now in 5.40 you have new stuff as spectrogram view for your audio, spectral peaks as well.

 

Last edited: Mar 25, 2017

Spectral Editing in Reaper. Wow, nice touch. Yesterday I was on plugindiscounts and I saw that they currently have the iZotope RX Plugins on sale. You know the once for dehum, decrackle and all that for around 40 Euros if I recall correctly.

 

Yes, and automation items in 5.50 or so. It means you create an item, draw automations and then move this item with these automations to another place, or copy item with them. And more. There is a huge changelog for this feature, but still not ready.
About spectral editing, I don't know if it will be too accurate and precise as in RX, or it will be just for small fixes, editings, not so deep. But who knows, maybe reaper will be as a pro restoration and remastering system soon too..