Hi I am transferring some of my audio tapes to wav format. My question
is I have a few tapes which were badly recorded and are peaking at +3
and +6db instead of 0 db on my casette player. I know it's probably too
late but is there a way to fix the distorted sound through something
like sound forge? And since the distortion is due to clipping, will
this hurt my speakers when playing if I normalize it through sound
forge? Basically it will be playing at 0db but was recorded over 0db?

wrote:

Hi I am transferring some of my audio tapes to wav format. My question
is I have a few tapes which were badly recorded and are peaking at +3
and +6db instead of 0 db on my casette player. I know it's probably too
late but is there a way to fix the distorted sound through something
like sound forge? And since the distortion is due to clipping, will
this hurt my speakers when playing if I normalize it through sound
forge? Basically it will be playing at 0db but was recorded over 0db?

Actually the distortion is almost certainly not clipping. It's likely to be
simply 'tape overload' which compresses the signal fairly gently, initially
at least.

In theory it might be possible to recover some of the damage. I have no
idea in practice if there's anything around that'll do it.

Graham

On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 18:32:58 +0100, Pooh Bear
wrote:


wrote:

Hi I am transferring some of my audio tapes to wav format. My question
is I have a few tapes which were badly recorded and are peaking at +3
and +6db instead of 0 db on my casette player. I know it's probably too
late but is there a way to fix the distorted sound through something
like sound forge? And since the distortion is due to clipping, will
this hurt my speakers when playing if I normalize it through sound
forge? Basically it will be playing at 0db but was recorded over 0db?

I suspect it would only hurt your speakers if you're playing it so
loud that it's already hurting your ears.


Actually the distortion is almost certainly not clipping. It's likely to be
simply 'tape overload' which compresses the signal fairly gently, initially
at least.

Since these are cassettes, there's no telling how good or bad the
recorder was - the record amp might well have been clipping, and I
don't know how differently tape saturation is at cassette speed and
track width.
I also wonder if 'high output' tape recorded at a high level might
clip a marginal playback preamp. I'd listen to playback on several
different machines to see if it sounds less distorted on one than
another.


In theory it might be possible to recover some of the damage. I have no
idea in practice if there's anything around that'll do it.

Google RAP for some declipping algorithms/plugins and reviews of
them. Ironically, these may work better with hard-clipped program
material than with the softer 'tape saturation', presuming cassettes
give that.

Graham


-----
http://www.mindspring.com/~benbradley

In article .com writes:

Hi I am transferring some of my audio tapes to wav format. My question
is I have a few tapes which were badly recorded and are peaking at +3
and +6db instead of 0 db on my casette player.

That isn't a symptom of "badly recorded," it could be that the tape
was recorded on a machine set to a different reference fluxivity. It
could be that they're well recorded and your playback deck is
distorting because it can't handle the higher playback level. Or it
could be that they're just badly recorded and the distortion occurred
before it even hit the tape.

In any case, adjust the record level (perhaps by adjusting the
playback level of your cassette deck) going into your computer so that
you're not clipping there. Once it's digital, there are some clean-up
tools that might work, or might not. Depends on what the problem is.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Find out if the distortion is on the tape itself. If not, you may be
able to re-record it to your comp without clipping. If it is, bad luck;
there's a 'restore clipping' feature of Cooledit or Audition which you
might try.