Software to "clean up" audio?

[Rawns]

I have a a large number of classic BBC radio shows in MP3 format from CD, tape and radio. Some of the tape and radio recordings are a little crackly (some you can barely hear) . I was hoping to find some software which I can run these through with minimum fuss to "clean them up" a bit. Does anyone have any recommendations?

[MK-2]

not sure if any of the filters in audacity would do this? i think they have ones to normalise and ones to remove hiss and background noise which might help making them clearer, though I've never done this before so it's just a guess, sorry!

[featured_spectre]

Another vote for Audacity if you want a free piece of software, otherwise you could pay a fortune for a professional piece of software.

[Rawns]

I'll check it out later then. Ta chaps. <@

[mac_shinobi]

I was thinking audacity - then remembered audio grabber and CD EX ( keep an original copy of the audio files and that way if it goes wrong then at least you have a copy of them

 

Thanks

[rdhawkins]

Also look at VinylStudio, not free but not expensive either. It's usually used for cleaning up a recording direct from vinyl, it might be able to clean up from MP3 too.

 

Rob

[Domino]

There's a good little guide here: Technology Made Easy: Removing Hiss with Audacity

 

Used it before with varying results, but if you can get a hiss sample with no foreground noise then it does make a marked improvement.

[GrumbleDook]

If you have audio with variable volume causing a problem then something like Levelator can be an answer too. I've used it on a regular basis for smoothing things out for podcasts.