Help with scratch removal

[Ernst]

For about a week I've been trying to eliminate vinyl
scratches before burning old LPs onto CDs. I used
several pgms, WaveCorrector seemed the answer. But,
while I like that pgm best it still does not do what I
want; it will not remove audible scratches automatically.

I want to digitize my 200-300 LP collection. Most are
in good enough shape but some have audible scratches.

To avoid making this into a boring project I've rigged
a PC to capture the records from my stereo as I would
normally play them for my enjoyment, while I'm going about
my business, i.e. I'm not babysitting the recording.
Thus I needn't be aware of scratches and definitely won't
know where in a record they might be.
In the course of a week I have digitized a handful of
LPs this way. I want to use WaveCorrector to AUTOMATICALLY
remove the pops (obviously I don't want to take the
several hours to replay the music) before burning the CDs.
Surprisingly that didn't work out at all.
Although in the 'wave display' the scratches are clearly
visible as areas with sharp tall peaks, the algorithm
refuses to take them out. I've made repeated passes
at level 5 (the pgm made 5726 corrections in a one
minute sample), but exactly the 6 scratches (at 1.72 sec
intervals) clearly remain. I can only get rid of them
with 'cut and splice'; I'd never get through my collection
that way.

Any suggestions before I give up, thanks, Ernst

[citguy]

Hi Ernst. Have patience. I have used WC for several years and, like you, did hundreds of recordings. I am still learning about features on WC that I didn't realize existed. Can you hear a difference in playback between corrected and uncorrected? It is generally more advisable to use default settings and do a superscan (you choose how many passes). You can also create a block and scan the block only. You may want to go to "corrections" and click on "list" and set the threshold of which corrections get reported to you at a higher level so you are seeing only the most audible corrections. When you say scratches, do you mean light normal type of scratches from use or serious scratches from abuse?
Stan

[Derek]

Hello Ernst

It should be fairly unusual to need to use cut & splice so if you are using it a lot, then there may be something wrong with your set up.

The recommended technique is to make your initial scan and use Wave Corrector's search feature to find the largest clicks; by default it finds clicks with magnitude 30 and above. This allows you to check whether the program has successfully corrected these large clicks. If any are still audible, you can adjust them by dragging with the mouse. This will normally fix them without having to use cut and splice.

If your music has lots of percussion, this can make it difficult for the click detector to differentiate the clicks. This make manual intervention more necessary.

The fact that you have a repeating click with an interval of 1.72 seconds is puzzling. It may be that your turntable is running at the wrong speed (34.8 rpm).

If you like, you can upload the problem file and I'll analyse it to see if there's any further help I can give you. The easiest way to do this is via the upload page on our website. This is password protected so let me know if you want to use it and I'll PM you with the password.

good luck with your project.

[Ernst]

Thank you for your reactions.
Indeed my table is fast, I measure about 33.6 r/m;
I hope to use WaveCorr to slow that speed down.
Yes, I would like to upload a 25 second sample
with the worst scratches, for your help/suggestions.
(I deliberately started with a very old, fairly poor
record to assess how this process would work.)
My email is xxxxxxxxx@Netscape.net
Thanks, Ernst

[Derek]

Hello

I've sent you a PM with instructions for how to upload your file.

I've also partially obscured your email address above to prevent you getting spammed.