I'm recovering four song tracks from a cassette - the only source I have for them.  Has anyone done this and got any tips at all?  The main issue  that I notice is some sibilance here and there on the vocals.  What's a good way of removing/attenuating this?
 
Any help gratefully received! 

Depending on the musical content, a couple light passes of noise reduction might reduce enough "random" hi freq energy to make the sibilance seem less aggressive.


best regards,
mike

I grabbed a track from a cassette the other day. It was a basic voice only.... I had to use compression, EQ and Boost 11 to overcome the drastic level changes as the speaker moved closer and further from the mic. 

I needed a high pass to get rid of the hum. 

Sibilance is printed to the track so removing it is not easy. BUT.... you can reduce it bu using the EQ in the frequency range of the sibilance. 

Good luck with it... I worked on my track easily half an hour to get it halfway respectable.

The VX-64 Vocal Strip might be useful.

You can also try a multiband compressor. Check out Power Tip #10 at:
http://www.garrigus.com/p...oks/SONARPowerTips.asp

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com - SONAR X2 Power! - http://garrigus.com/?SonarX2Power
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

Some great tips there, thanks!  I won't be 'wandering about' when I start on these now.
Thanks Scott for the detail in that link.  (Yes....the book's on order....)  

Ive used Tape decks and a product from Grace that plays cassettes to recover from cassetts into Sonar.  

Its kinda one of those things that as far as what is on the tape is what you are stuck with.  IMO going direct into your interface from a player is about the only way to do it.

Once you have it it Sonar, then you can process it with some of the suggestions above.

Ive done from tapes I have from the 70s and 80s - kinda fun going back into the memories   

Skyline_UK

Some great tips there, thanks!  I won't be 'wandering about' when I start on these now.
Thanks Scott for the detail in that link.  (Yes....the book's on order....)  

Thanks, John! I appreciate it.


Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com - SONAR X2 Power! - http://garrigus.com/?SonarX2Power
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

to get the tracks into sonar, I simply ran a cable out of the headphone jack to a splitter (Y cable) and into my interface..... turned the levels all the way down and then adjusted as needed. 

If sibilance is the main issue, try a dedicated de-esser... which is just a compressor keyed on frequency. I've gotten good use out of Voxengo Deft compressor in de-ess mode... there are certainly others to check out, like sonnox (mucho dinero!), fabfilter, toneboosters, etc. 

RE: multi-band compression... one tool I've used for cleaning up/enhancing very old cassette recordings is Voxengo Soniformer, which really allows fine control of compression/expansion across the spectrum... basically multi-band compression on steroids. There are similar tools out there from other vendors. For example, it's a useful tool for zeroing in on noisy portions of the spectra, enhance those via upward compression, then follow with a noise filter dialed into taming the enhanced frequency ranges. "Normalizing" the bad frequencies allows the noise, click, whatever filters to not have to "dig into" the source so much, know what I mean?