Hi,
I have about 50 old (but high quality) cassettes I recorded about 20 years ago using Dolby B.
When I play them back (on several cassette players) the high frequencies have been rolled back (probably due to the age of the tapes) and as a result the sound is a little muffled.
As a newbie to Audacity (the latest version, Windows 7), could anyone give me instructions as to the best way I can use Audacity to restore the high frequencies on the cassettes?
Thanks for any help.
Do you already have sound files and are they MP3?
I don’t know that I agree the sound is muffled because of age. I think the recording machine may have been a little too gentle on the correction, particularly if, as you say, you tried a bunch of players and they all did the same thing.
Cassettes are always a juggling act. Tape hiss and crisp, high music frequencies are always at each other’s throat and the purpose of all of the Dolby services is to give the music a head start. If getting into Dolby and getting back out again didn’t match, then corrections are always going to be a patch job.
Obviously, we’re not going to say “push this button and your troubles will be over,” so you need to give us a push. Post some of the muffled work on the forum. You can use WAV, but I think you can get more on with FLAC.
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-post-an-audio-sample/29851/1
Koz
Thanks Koz,
I’ll convert them to WAV in a few days and then post a representative one on this forum.
Fingers crossed and thanks again for your reply.
You might want to have a read of this article from the Audacity Wiki: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Recording_from_Cassette
It may be that the heads and drive mech. need cleaning, the head azimuth may need adjusting, etc. the article in the Wiki addresses these issues.
Before I made my tape cassette conversions I sent my trusty old Nakamich BX-2 to Bowers&Wilkins (the official BAK repaira agents) for a full service - worth it I thought as many of the tapes had material on them that was irreplaceable and of value to me.
WC