Removing Hiss

[liverpool64]

I have some 45's that play perfectly fine except occasionally has some annoying hiss in parts. I was hoping to learn what would be a good editing software for this problem when recording. Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Frantic]

Hiss is almost impossible to get out without sucking the life outta the music. I suggest leaving it in.

 

[chas_kit]

Hiss is almost impossible to get out without sucking the life outta the music. I suggest leaving it in.

If you have a program that gives a spectral display of frequencies, you may be able to isolate the hiss, remove it and restore the proper sound of that frequency range by sampling another part of the recording.

I agree with Joey that this is usually impossible to do with hiss, as it tends to affect a range of frequencies of the music.

 

[chas_kit]

If you can upload a sample as a wav file somewhere, I'll take a look at it.

 

[liverpool64]

Thanks Joey and Chris, I appreciate your comments.

 

[wildpaws]

I have some 45's that play perfectly fine except occasionally has some annoying hiss in parts. I was hoping to learn what would be a good editing software for this problem when recording. Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated.

I have had a little sucess recording a 45 to a Yamaha MT2x or MT3x multi-track cassette recorder using DBX noise reduction, while it did not eliminate the hiss entirely, it certainly made it less noticeable. You have to be very careful wiith the amount of DBX used, too much and like others have mentioned you destroy the music. I still have both of these recorders and used them in my home studio up until last year when they were replaced by a Yamaha AW1600 digital mixer/recorder.

 

[redsky]

The best program I've found to reduce hiss is Izotope RX2 Advanced. If you know what you're doing you can eliminate hiss without affecting the music. I've had great results with this program.

 

[bosshoss]

The best program I've found to reduce hiss is Izotope RX2 Advanced. If you know what you're doing you can eliminate hiss without affecting the music. I've had great results with this program.

Really appreciate this tip. I tried it and bought it based on your post.
Much, much better for 60s garage vinyl click, crackle and noise removal than anything I've tried before.
I actually didn't buy the Advanced option, as the cost seemed a little over the top for the extra features, many of which I wouldn't have used.

 

[redsky]

Really appreciate this tip. I tried it and bought it based on your post.
Much, much better for 60s garage vinyl click, crackle and noise removal than anything I've tried before.
I actually didn't buy the Advanced option, as the cost seemed a little over the top for the extra features, many of which I wouldn't have used.

Glad you like this program. I think it's great.
The Advanced version does have extra options for removing hiss that I've found to be very effective when all else has failed.

 

[EXPO67]

I bought iZotope RX2 the other day for $350 which is expensive compared to every other audio restoration programme I've used or tested. Anyway, I decided to buy iZotope RX2 instead of spending that money I'd put aside to BID for some 45s on Barry Wickham's latest auction.

The results on my mono New Colony Six 'Colonization' album were phenomenal. I then tried it on my beat up mono copy of Federal Duck. That was in bad shape with many click and pops, so many infact that I could never be arsed to even try to manually remove them using Magix Audio.
I simply used the pre-set and upped the de-click and de-crackle strength. It removed every annoying click, crackle etc easily. I just sat back and let iZotope RX2 do it's work. So easy to use.

Stereo mastering has always been much trickier for me than mono recordings. I decided to test iZotope on my stereo Max Frost & The Troopers album. Result was so impressive I nearly fell off my chair.

Seriously, this is the best $350 I've spent.

 

[Richard Whig]

I bought iZotope RX2 the other day for $350 which is expensive compared to every other audio restoration programme I've used or tested. Anyway, I decided to buy iZotope RX2 instead of spending that money I'd put aside to BID for some 45s on Barry Wickham's latest auction.

The results on my mono New Colony Six 'Colonization' album were phenomenal. I then tried it on my beat up mono copy of Federal Duck. That was in bad shape with many click and pops, so many infact that I could never be arsed to even try to manually remove them using Magix Audio.
I simply used the pre-set and upped the de-click and de-crackle strength. It removed every annoying click, crackle etc easily. I just sat back and let iZotope RX2 do it's work. So easy to use.

Stereo mastering has always been much trickier for me than mono recordings. I decided to test iZotope on my stereo Max Frost & The Troopers album. Result was so impressive I nearly fell off my chair.

Seriously, this is the best $350 I've spent.

wow - those are very positive endorsements...any of you tried it on a cassette by chance? have some old cassette demos I wouldn't mind livening up a bit.

 

[EXPO67]

I wish I had a cassette deck to try it out on. I'm sure the results would be good but I think the iZotope RX2 programme I've got is more geared towards vinyl restoration.

 

[Frantic]

I wish I had a cassette deck to try it out on. I'm sure the results would be good but I think the iZotope RX2 programme I've got is more geared towards vinyl restoration.

Once a wave is created (or before) I don't think Izotope would care where it came from. Just sayin'

 

[redsky]

I wish I had a cassette deck to try it out on. I'm sure the results would be good but I think the iZotope RX2 programme I've got is more geared towards vinyl restoration.

If you have Izotope RX 2, you can use can use any third party plugin. For cassettes you can use an EQ plugin to get the desired sound (I use Izotope Ozone 3 for this), then use RX2 to take out the hiss.

 

[bosshoss]

If you have Izotope RX 2, you can use can use any third party plugin. For cassettes you can use an EQ plugin to get the desired sound (I use Izotope Ozone 3 for this), then use RX2 to take out the hiss.

Unfortunately this is only true for the $1200 Advanced version

 

[redsky]

Unfortunately this is only true for the $1200 Advanced version

You can use the regular version as well. You just get better results with the Advanced version. What you need to do is get some samples of tape hiss or record hiss from your tapes or records, and then use those as your basis for removing the hiss.

 

[bosshoss]

But according to the website, you can only use plug-ins with the Advanced version. My regular version does not seem to be able to load any plug-ins at all. I hope I'm wrong...

 

[redsky]

But according to the website, you can only use plug-ins with the Advanced version. My regular version does not seem to be able to load any plug-ins at all. I hope I'm wrong...

Unfortunately, this does seem to be the case. However, RX2 does have a 6 band parametric EQ. To get a sample of noise, I took a file I recorded from a cassette tape (Dolbyized) and set the denoise function to learn on a part of the file that was just hiss. Then I saved it. I now use this setting for reducing hiss and background noise on everything. I only use the broadband settings, not the tonal. I recommend experimenting to get the best results for yourself.

 

[bosshoss]

There's no doubt it's a great program. I upgraded to the Advanced version yesterday, and added Ozone as well. Thanks again redsky.