What is the best practice to remove the clicks/pops from the needle drops?

This thread is perfect timing for me. I've moved over to Scotland and all my vinyl is heading over from NZ so I can't wait to finish some of the needle drops I'd abandoned when I had to get over here in an emergency. But, I no longer have a PC anymore - now have an Apple MacBook Air. Sadly, Goldwave my go-to software is not compatible with iOS and I'll be honest, I when I did briefly use Audacity, I found it really clunky and hard to use in comparison with my old standby. Can anyone recommend some software that is easy to use for needle drops (preferably freeware)?

As regards the declicking option on Goldwave, I use it very liberally depending on the record. If it's a very poppy but very rare record, I try to balance the amount of surface noise to a minimum as sometimes if one tries to maximise the "ironing out" you can also warp the music as well as the pops. So, by listening carefully again and again you can hear the tipping point just before it warps the music and get the best possible declicking job done without compromising the music.

 

Ah right. I didn't realise the Sony Hi-Res Audio Recorder was the turntable I'm reading about that now. Thanks buddy

 

Grant. Do you only use "De-Clicker" and "De-Crackler" in RX? I haven't been able to figure out the "de-hum" and the "de-noise" yet, without removing the musical content.

Regards

 

For my part, I record using Audacity at 24/96. I then use Audition's click remover on the medium setting quite often. I know that people say it kills the music on the high end but I've never experienced that. The algorithm works incredibly well. I've used Click Repair in the past and that's really good too.

Ed

 

I use VinylStudio for recording. Works really well, is relatively cheap, and it includes things like retrieving album art and track list from the Internet and it even has some functions like declicker, but I tend to use it only for recording, splitting, retrieving cover art and encoding FLAC.

For processing I tend to use Waves X-Clicker and Z-Noise. I always eliminate DC offset. Then RX for any spectral repair and/or normalization.

 

I'l only say that the point is to reduce the noise, not totally eliminate it.

 

Then don’t do it. Keep all of that rumble. It’s your recording.

I’ve read before that vinyl has a high pass filter applied usually between 30 and 40hz. I quickly looked at found this snippet with tips on mastering for cutting vinyl.

High-Pass Filtering
Technique
A high-pass filter to cut between 20Hz and 30Hz with a slope of around 18db.

Reason
Inaudible frequencies (below 20Hz) and low-subs (around 30Hz) pressed to vinyl can cause the needle to jump out of the groove. This is the result of the needle swinging so far that it crashes into its neighbouring groove.

This is one quick reference, I’m sure I can find more. Regardless, I doubt there is anything meaningful below 35hz on vinyl.

I also go against conventional wisdom here and dither to 16/44.1 and only record in 24bit (32bit float, same thing padded with 0's) because audio programs work internally at that bit depth. I do this because there is no evidence to back up higher frequencies adding any benefit to music, and that's even if it was recorded in the first place since audio equipment is designed to capture audible sounds, and then that's if any of those frequencies weren't high or low passed out of the final product. Everyone is entitled to like whatever makes them feel good, but I have science on my side here.

 

The version of ClickRepair I have, does that automatically. Still too intrusive on some albums.

 

Do you guys hear things missing that CR removed, yet no red line is apparent to show for it? I assumed that any alterations are seen and known about as it goes.

Any mysteries going on in there?

 

I use an archaic version Of Sound Forge with varying settings of Sony Click & Crackle Remover.
I generally run over the whole recording with a minimalist setting & hone in on small problem areas with more power.
I also use Sony Noise Reduction with a EQ shelf setting to take out some fuzz.

 

24-bit and 32-bit are not the same thing.

A 16-bit integer can store 65,536 distinct values.
A 24-bit integer can store 16,777,215 distinct values.
A 32-bit integer can store 4,294,967,295 distinct values. Float, even more!

The psychoacoustic tricks used in low level digital records is not analog music like in a live concert; it's just about fooling your ears to think "that's what I call music".

 

Right, what I was saying is that 32bit float isn't 32bit... it's 24bit padded with zeros for scaling purposes.

 

Click Repair works really well.

 

In my experience with ClickRepair, this simply isn't true. Used carefully with low settings, ClickRepair had left the music alone.

 

I can highly recommend (other than cleaning the record through a record cleaning machine), the Integrity Hifi's Tru-Sweep as part of the solution:

integrityhifi Canada (has videos of set-up and the tru-sweep in action)

"Crafted in solid (304 & 316 Surgical Stainless Steel) The perfectly balanced Uni-pivot arm allows the Camel Hair brush to gently track the grooves of the record. With adjustable tracking force you can control the speed of which the arm travels inward.
The soft Camel Hair brush gently sweeps across the record picking up fine dust and drains the static build up thru a connected ground wire keeping your stylus dust and static free."

Reference Analog (Jeff Harris) sells them if you're in the United States: The Emotion In The Music

 

Last fall a gentleman came into the local record store looking to have a transcription disc transferred to CD. The store was not equipped to handle it, so I volunteered. It was a chore to get the music out of it. Rolled off the high end, since that was all surface noise. Had to record it at 45 because there was a dent in the record that made my arm jump at 78. Then I sped up the playback. Ran it through Click Repair and manually removed the biggest spikes. Still couldn't get the last 10-20 seconds, as my table has an automatic shut off that interferes with playback that goes too far towards the center.

I only record to listen in the car or to put it on a phone. I want to get an album processed as quickly as possible with satisfactory results for those applications. So I used Click Repair.

That said, I do have a couple of 45's that are rare enough that they'd warrant your kind of effort. But I'm afraid I don't have your patience or technical competence.

 

Congrats, it feels good to get results like those, doesn’t it?

That was a stereo record, correct? I’ve used mid-side decoding to get rid of stereo reverb added to mono recordings when they were mastered for CD, but I don’t think that’s what you’re alluding to here?

 

Then it doesn't fully repair the clicks.

It's an easy test. I subtracted the post processed file from the pre. Adjusting the settings to the level that the clicks were adequately reduced (and not even fully eliminated), too much music was removed.

 

The 32-bit float is used for more headroom in the DAW and for avoiding clipping. Many sound engineers don't use it because they keep the recording under -9 to -12 dB when processing. By the other hand, other sound engineers are saying the 32-bit float give an extra "3D" fuller and better soundstage to the recording.

In my needledrops processing chain I use the wav 192/32-bit float format (the highest quality my PC and software can handle) and when "all the cows are home" and job is done I resample to wav 44.1/16 carefully to avoid any aliasing artifacts or record clipping. Then I lossless compress the "master" wav 192/32-bit float with wavpack.exe and I send it to my musical "vault" archive.

 

I use Mid/Sides processing only in extremis, if other methods fail. If the recording isn't broke, I don't fix it. In my needledrop processing chain I use as few interventions as possible to not alter the original sound.

 

If the record has many clicks/pops (usually on used old vinyls) I use the RX6 automatic "De-click" first at sens 0.5, three times with the "Frequency skew" set to "-7.0", "0.0" and "7.0". If this cleaning is not enough, I rise sensitivity to 1.0 and I repeat the whole process. And so on (1.5, 2.0, 2.5 up to 3.0 maximum). Before the cleaning, check everytime the "Output clicks only" and listen carefully, to not remove the original record sound. For cleaning the space between tracks I use de-click three times with "Frequency skew" set to "-7.0", "0.0" and "7.0", at sens 5.0. A hard used full LP may have even +100,000 clicks/pops. The automatic processing is fast and the quality is preserved. I think it takes years for the manual clicks/pops removal.

 

I've been using Wavelab for years. I have version 6. I know there are later versions but I think I would have to upgrade computer to Windows 10, which I'd rather not do. I'm content with version 6 for right now. I spend a lot of time in front of my computer too. Needle drops sound great. And, the cleaner the record the less de-clicking needed. I always de-click manually. Takes time but the results are always good.

 

No. All that rumble has already been removed in mastering. It's a must when pressing vinyl.

 

Izotope RX is the Bee's Knees I use it every day in the studio to clean up clicks, zap out hum, fill in drop outs, etc. You just gotta be careful you don't remove music along with the clicks. Sometimes it mistakes percussion instruments for clicks. To be sure you are only removing clicks, turn on the option to preview only the noise it's removing, and listen carefully. If you find it's taking some music along with it, back it off a bit. Usually a setting of 2 or 3 is good for removing occasional clicks. I don't go much further than 5.0 for a beat up record or it starts to sound mushy. If it's still noisy, time to find a better copy!

 

Thanks for the tip. Highly appreciated.

Regards