Live 12 Tape Hiss Solutions?

[MaxGain]

Using Live 11 Lite I had imported my inventory of live band recordings made years ago on 2-track cassettes. Unfortunately many sessions were made without proper care taken for gain levels so there is a lot of tape hiss. I'm still a novice getting familiar with the Ableton environment and not yet familiar with importing 3rd party plugins however, I just upgraded to Live 12 Standard and was hoping to find some additional internal effects that might help.

In another thread I saw reference to EQ8 which I will try but are there any other effects, perhaps filters I should try? Also, any EQ setting suggestions would be much appreciated.

Many thanks!

[102455]

Rather than try to find a solution within Live, I'd suggest using an audio editing program to perform noise removal.

This involves "teaching" the software about the noise first (selecting a section with just hiss), then processing to remove just the noise.

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to ... -hum/27774

[MaxGain]

Thanks and that looks like a good option.
Can I please follow with 2 more-

• Since it involves installing and learning another application, I might consider an Ableton 3P noise reduction plug-in. Can you suggest one for this purpose?

• From your response, it appears Ableton is not considered for audio editing. This seems a bit odd given the surgical nature of the audio creation tools it provides where implicitly, editing would also very likely be necessary. Can you explain why this would be the case? and please don't consider this a criticism of Ableton, I'm just trying to understand its intended scope.

[102455]

• iZotope RX11
• Just a case of using the right tool for the job. DAWs are typically for recording/arranging, not for the more detailed stuff like cleaning up audio.

[[jur]]

It really depends on the type of "noise" you want to remove.
In the case of tape hiss, imho there's quite some chances that you'll get more natural results with surgical equalization VS noise reduction plugins.
Nobody can recommend any EQ (or any other device) settings without hearing the audio! What we call hiss is "mostly" happening in the high end of the spectrum, but it's most of the time broadband so you need to search and find the areas where it's masking the music the most, and eq out those areas as much as possible until it goes against the music etc...
It's a good occasion to try by yourself, discover and learn

[MaxGain]

>> DAWs are typically for recording/arranging, not for the more detailed stuff like cleaning up audio.
I wasn't aware of this so thanks. I'm new to recording so these are the fundamentals I am still learning and

>>In the case of tape hiss, imho there's quite some chances that you'll get more natural results with surgical equalization
Right, that's what I finally did along with using Utility-Gain to vary the volume at selected points in the track.

I hope I can I ask an unrelated question...
I'm having trouble with my forum profile but have had no luck contacting the Admin.
Despite my profile set to enable notifications, I never receive any and all my PMs to the Admin just stay in my PM Outbox.

Do you know of a better way to contact the Admin?

Thanks for any help!

[[jur]]

I hope I can I ask an unrelated question...
I'm having trouble with my forum profile but have had no luck contacting the Admin.
Despite my profile set to enable notifications, I never receive any and all my PMs to the Admin just stay in my PM Outbox.

I'll have a look and find a way to fix it.

[[jur]]

>> DAWs are typically for recording/arranging, not for the more detailed stuff like cleaning up audio.
I wasn't aware of this so thanks. I'm new to recording so these are the fundamentals I am still learning and

That's to be taken with a grain of salt: DAWs are audio editor. @102455 said dedicated audio editors have a few specific tools that DAWs don't necessarily have, but it depends on which audio editor and which DAW - here their point was specifically about spectral denoizing.
But you can use denoizing 3rd party plugins in a DAW, so don't worry too much about it.

[otalgia99]

And there will always be a trade-off removing "hiss," because simply killing the top end will attenuate highs you might like to keep (which of course the hiss is masking anyway).

But working to apply a brute EQ solution might create a "dull-ing" result, while you discover that the true nature of "hiss" can be more frequency-complex than it might seem.

I believe I recall that even at their freshest and best right out of the shrink-wrap, even high-bias cassettes only topped out at around 15k anyway (assuming your mics and recorder rendered that freq to begin with). So there' a limit to the amount of "sparkle" cassettes ever had.

I offer the suggestion that perhaps you might want to accept a certain amount of "native fidelity" (as I like to call it) being a part of the document's origin-story.

Certainly you should try your best with whatever sensible tools are at your disposal, but not drive yourself too crazy making what might be an admittedly compromised source recording be something it isn't.

I was always taught that "You can always take sound away, but you can't restore sound that wasn't there to begin with."

Anyway, just my $.02

o99

[MaxGain]

>>accept a certain amount of "native fidelity" (as I like to call it) being a part of the document's origin-story.
Well said and something I have come to accept.

The challenges were well explained here by others as well so it does give me some sense of relief knowing I'm not missing any obvious solutions.

Thanks to all who responded!

[[jur]]

Nice one Otalgia99.

Though you can really clean things up with very narrow eq cuts: there's always places where the noise is masking way more than other places (usually in the top end) and you can often accomplish a great improvement with 3 or 4 very narrow notches/bells.

[102455]

In my use of these automated "intelligent" noise removal tools in the likes of Adobe Audition, I've always found them to be pretty good at their job - removing the targeted noise without overly affecting the wanted parts. You can usually fine tune the amount between "too much" and "not enough". If any wanted highs were affected, then other tools can be used to synthesize those back in a la Aural Exciter.