Fixing bursts of sound (SOLVED)

[Wires&plugs]

Using version 2, within Win 98se (off line computer) Question may apply to older versions.

My brother sent me a cassette tape with a number of 1920s jazz tunes. He recorded them from original 78 rpm records. Unfortunately one of songs has 2 problems I want to fix with Audacity. First, there's a thump at the beginning which is only a fraction of a second in length.
Second, as the song starts to fade out near the end he must have accidentally turned up the gain on his tape deck for a second, causing an annoying rise in the level of the sound. I would appreciate some easy to follow advice on how I can fix these problems.

Thanks ........ Alan

[kozikowski]

The thump at the beginning is the needle impact with the groove. You can get rid of that easily by drag-selecting the thump blue wave and pressing Delete. Drag-Select the beginning of the show and zoom in Control-E. Keep doing that until you can see the thump. When you're done zoom back out full Control-F.

I bet he didn't "ride the gain" on the show. I bet he was recording on a system that thinks it was supposed to maintain volume by itself. It's a recording mistake and it's very common on Windows machines. You can zoom into the "fade" and put your own fade there instead. Watch the cursor at the end of the song. Drag-select where the fade was supposed to be and Effect > Fade Out.

Koz

[Wires&plugs]

Thanks. I'll see how I do with the first part.

Regarding your second paragraph ..... My brother is an older gent and doesn't use computers except for some surfing. The tape was made on vintage equipment that's been well cared for.
He accidentally bumped the tape deck knob causing the burst of sound. Roughly 12 seconds of music follow this burst. Can I smooth it out and bring it to the sound levels on the left and right? Need step by step info for dummies kinda thing. Thanks

[steve]

He accidentally bumped the tape deck knob

So the "burst of sound" is the correct audio, but just too loud?
If so you can adjust it using the Envelope Tool: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Envelope_Tool
(this tool is a bit fiddly).

[Wires&plugs]

That worked. Thank you very much !