Restore an old/poor cassette recording

[Vladislav123]

Hi guys! I have some old audio books and I did my best to restore them. I used those tools: declipper was used twice. 

Sounds better than an original, at least I hope so.  Any ideas or advices for me? 🙂

[EuanWilliamson]

Hi, can you confirm which file is the original audio from the tape?

ps. Nine Princes in Amber, one of my favourite books

[Vladislav123]

Hi. The raw record is an original (raw), the sample record is a sample of my additing.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

If the 'raw' really is the original, I'd try turning the record level down, and re-digitising it. The chances of getting clipping from a cassette recording are, if you digitise it at a sensible level, zero. Simply because no tape recording clips - all they do is work their way into saturation - and that will never result in any clipping at all. If you have got identifiable real clipping, you have almost certainly caused it yourself!

Also, it's very unlikely that you'll need to do much playing about with the frequency response. The most you'd normally need to do to a cassette from this POV is boost the treble slightly - perhaps. And perhaps get rid of some of the rather inevitable background hiss. But other than that, the raw file (apart from the excessive record level) sounds fine.

[Vladislav123]

I do not own those tapes, I just have mp3 files. Maybe both of them sounds more or less normal, but I heard not only hiss but hum as well, and I tried to get rid of it. For some reason (and the hum is mine main suspect) after 30-50 mins my ears hurt, that's never happened before. So I used all those effects (the frequency responses) to clean as much silence hum as possible. Also the 'metal can' sound like he speaks in a toilet room or something may cause that pain. And I don't know how to do that toilet room sound down.

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

The trouble with any form of distortion is that fundamentally, you simply can't get rid of it - because you have absolutely no reference to what it should sound like. Doesn't mean that you can't cheat a bit though. I fed your raw file into Adobe's Speech Enhancer ( here ) and whilst it isn't by any means perfect (still sounds gravelly), it's improved slightly. See what you think...

[Vladislav123]

I have not. You .wav sounds better. Would you be so kind to recommend some literature on a restoration topic for a rookie?

[Vladislav123]

P.S. Yours* .wav.
My mp3 player so mp3 that plays only .mp3 and .wma... I got a fact, that lossless is mostly prevail over lossy files in quality. 🙂