Comments on: Removing Audio Background Noise with Audacity

By: Wolfgang

Wolfgang — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 07:07:39 +0000

I am not sure why my reply was not posted – I wanted to help – as your posting does not give a full correct way of removing background noise, nor did you advise Scott not to use dual mics. Ru’s question is very relevant – recording with mics will pick up ambient noise and if the noise varies a lot, he may not be able to remove all of it.
Firstly, after getting the noise profile, you need to apply step 2 in the noise removal menu. You also may need to listen what the track will sound like – it is better to try it at different places on the track first before running the noise removal over the whole track. The danger here is that parts of the noise can also be part of the recording and removing the noise may remove some of the sound you want to keep (and the cleaned track may sound hollow, squeaky etc) – that is the reason for step 2.
With regards to the recording with mics, I would not recommend that at all. Some laptops’ build in sound system may be able to take the line out from the deck to the line in of the laptop. Some have a boost facility built in the recording side and the low input signal may be boosted to sufficient levels.
If that does not work, you may need to borrow/buy a small mixer and do the recording via the mixer. I followed that route as some have also some EQs.
You can get a very high quality recording, however the way it is done is as important as the quality of your original.

By: Wolfgang

Wolfgang — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:25:26 +0000

I have read the question several times and my initial question is – do you convert cassettes to digital recording by recording them on your laptop, that is, your end product is a digital file? If so and you have a large amount, let me know at wolfgang.ries@gmail.com and I can give you a few very practical tips – not sure whether this forum is the place to do it? Maybe WS can advise. I have more than a 1000 cassettes to convert and learend some good lessons.

By: ru

ru — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:39:54 +0000

I am not familiar with the software so I have a question: Couldn’t he record using a cable (RCA to 1/4-inch or whatever) from the tape deck to the laptop? That way he didn’t have to deal with ambient noise and achieve a better signal-to-noise ratio.