Software for ripping and declicking vinyl

by **Axon** » 21 Jan 2009 20:40

The click removal in Audacity is about as simplistic as it gets. It works well for removing large clicks that otherwise would compromise amplifying the audio up to 0dbFS peak, and for removing some of the noise in silent bands. But it can also remove a lot of real musical signals, and especially stuff like horns. I only use it in specific regions. (It's too slow to use across an entire track anyway.)

by **Werner** » 22 Jan 2009 07:47

All, forget about these toys. ClickRepair is utterly brilliant and costs next to nothing.

by **michaelevans60** » 22 Jan 2009 14:45

Axon wrote:The click removal in Audacity is about as simplistic as it gets. It works well for removing large clicks that otherwise would compromise amplifying the audio up to 0dbFS peak, and for removing some of the noise in silent bands. But it can also remove a lot of real musical signals, and especially stuff like horns. I only use it in specific regions. (It's too slow to use across an entire track anyway.)

Yup, as I said in the previous post that is exactly how I use it. I don't want to process the recordings through any filter to be honest - just pick out the big clicks and leave the rest in all it's ripped analogue glory!

by **ripblade** » 22 Jan 2009 23:00

Werner wrote:All, forget about these toys. ClickRepair is utterly brilliant and costs next to nothing.

Yes, but does it have a spectrogram for viewing clicks in the waveform? Much easier than a 2d line trace.

by **Werner** » 23 Jan 2009 08:08

ripblade wrote:Yes, but does it have a spectrogram for viewing clicks in the waveform? Much easier than a 2d line trace.

No. But IMO you don't need that. I used the spectral way too, in the past, but I find my workflow with ClickRepair is infinitely better and faster.

I use it with the DeClick parameter at 5, which makes it very mild in detection. Then I allow it to process automatically for corrections up to 20 samples wide. If the proposed correction exceeds this limit the tool comes back to me to make the final judgment. In most cases I can at that time visually ascertain if the transient is a click or genuine musical signal. Although I have to admit that I only got that sensitivity after having done a couple of albums.

While running ClickRepair continually displays detection statistics and paints corrected areas in the waveform. One can see it easily when the parameters are set for over-correction. It is then just a matter of aborting, lowerin the detection settings, and restarting.

To all, just give it a try. The demo version runs for 10 days or so.