Near field Monitors

[SirNickity]

My rationale is because it's vinyl and it's old and been carted about a lot.. A bit crackly in places and all that. Very few have level problems and I don't want to remix. Just wanted to clean them up if poss.

How you reckon I should do it?

There are a few ways to go about that... Some packages (Audition included) have de-noise filters built in. There are also some dedicated applications for post-processing digitized vinyl.

Alternatively, you can get some pretty nice specialized VST / AU plugins. Sidebar, in case you're not familiar with plugins: VST is the most popular plugin format on Windows; Audio Units (AU) on Mac, although VST is also an option on Mac, and some prefer that. Plugins tend to be available for either platform, often with the same license key (if it's a commercial plugin.) Either way, VST / AU support is pretty ubiquitous with digital audio editing software, so again, you can pick pretty much anything you like and use the same third-party processing plugins no matter what you choose.

Just remember, single track editing is a different workflow than multitrack. Most DAWs (Cakewalk, Studio One, Cubase, etc.) can do audio editing, but it's secondary and somewhat like using a cleaver to butter your toast. Editors (like Audition, Sound Forge ... ) are better for that sort of thing.

My advice: Download demos. Almost all pro-audio software is available in a trial. Try a few and see how it feels.

Software aside, most of the monitoring you need to do isn't critical. You can tell if it's noisy vinyl, and when that noise is gone, with a pair of cheap earbuds. Some decent monitors (M-Audios or the old Mackie stand-by) will be more than adequate. If you want to get into serious mixing, your room is a bigger variable than any half-decent speaker, so sink that spare change into acoustic treatments and upgrade your monitors down the road.

[doncolga]

Maybe a stupid question, but why are you concerned with perfect and accurate representation if you're just digitizing pre-recorded music? You could just run in straight in with no processing and treat it like you would any CD or download currently produced -- by adjusting on playback to suit your needs at the time.

BTW, I use Adobe Audition for single-track editing. It does that really well. Multi-track, not so much. Anything that captures the audio will be fine. The tools for slicing and dicing into tracks is really the only part that matters, and that's more of a familiarity thing. Any editor will have what you need.

Thanks, Sir N.

Since I really have no idea what I'm up to when it comes to software etc you ask an interesting question!

My rationale is because it's vinyl and it's old and been carted about a lot.. A bit crackly in places and all that. Very few have level problems and I don't want to remix. Just wanted to clean them up if poss.

How you reckon I should do it?

Thanks!

When I think of remixing I think of a big track count of the original material that's literally remixed. For this, as Sir N mentioned, a stereo editor would be best. If you're on Mac, which is what I'm thinking since you mentioned Logic, you could try a demo of Bias Peak. Have you tried Audacity?..that one is free and would probably do what you need. What kind of audio interface do you have?