I’ve been looking through effects and so on. But don’t seem to find what fits my bill.
I have a number of tracks, files call it what you will which date from the mid 70’s. I would like to enhance the sound on these tracks, independently but without going through the procedure of a ten band or six band eq for each audio file. I’m not looking for something sophisticated merely an audio enhancer which levels of top end and low frequencies can be enhanced to feel like a more recent audio recording.
I remember in my days within pro audio we used to have units such as Beringer and a few others which used to accomplish this stuff. A bit like boosting at the same time compression. There was also the BBE unit. levels of enhancement for the high and low end were variable. Some audiophiles will think this procedure is the devil’s work but for certain applications it’s particularly useful.
Does an effect or process like this exist within audacity or the plugins available?
The cheapest automated equalizer plugin I know of is Hornet thirty-one …
https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-thirtyone-mk2/ (~$10)
There are many free multi-band compression plugins …
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/mastered-fm-radio-compressor-preset/64340/4
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/mastered-fm-radio-compressor-preset/64340/7 (sounds like FM radio)
There’s a free plugin called La Petite excite … https://finecutbodies.com/?m=S008&p=sound&m=S008
It’s billed as an exciter, but it’s actually a 2-band expander: boosting the bass (low) and treble (high).
(expansion is the opposite of compression).
Personally, I don’t really trust anything automatic.
Commercial studio recordings from the 70s were generally excellent. A CD made from a 70s (or even 60s) recording often sounds very good, even if it’s not remastered. But the released vinyl or cassette didn’t match the original studio quality. And most of my vinyl somehow “developed” clicks & pops. Cassettes had hiss and most records had rolled-off highs.
With vinyl, I have a couple of special-purpose applications for cleaning-up the clicks & pops (Audacity also has a couple of built-in tools/effects that can help with this too). Beyond that I might boost the highs if they sound dull and I might use some “regular” noise reduction.
With noise reduction to work properly you need a sample of noise-only and that’s specific to each recording so it’s not easily automated. And you can get artifacts (side effects) with noise reduction so sometimes it’s better not to use it. I’ll usually just use noise reduction during the fade-in and fade-out or during other quiet parts.
As for the La Petite expander, thanks for that. It’s exactly what I needed. It works well if used in moderation and in a subtle manner. Wish I’d known about this earlier. Cest La Vie.!
And yes, many of the recordings from the '70s are pretty good. In my case the vocals are quite amazing. Some dodgy sounding acoustic guitars going on and slightly overloaded acoustic bass.