Review: Golden Records
I'm already on record with Audacity being my favorite software for recording audio files. If I'm recording an album with some pops and clicks I then save the Audacity file to wav and run it through ClickRepair. I'll then save my repaired wav file as mp3s. This makes for some nice clean audio, but it also means spending at least 80 minutes to record a 40 minute album...first 40 tracking the album and second 40 in ClickRepair.
I wanted to give NCH Swift Sound's new software a try, it's called Golden Records (Golden v1.05) and features real-time click removal.
It's actually pretty dandy software which records your audio feed from your stereo and automatically breaks it into tracks with trimmed ends. While recording it has some noise suppression utilities that treat the incoming signal. This would cut my time spent recording an album in half! Cool!
I had to transfer Three Dog Night's Golden Biscuits to mp3, so that was my test disk with my freshly downloaded Golden Records software. I'm happy to report that the click suppression part of the software is very good, removing all the background crackle and 90 percent of the clicks. Not as incredible as ClickRepair, but still very good with no distortion. Recall that this album has some fairly quiet passages, and Golden Record's noise suppression utility handled them with no problem.
What was a problem for me, though, was setting the input levels so that the software knew where to break between cuts and when to start the next cut. I fiddled with it for a couple of hours and continued to end up with bit and pieces of songs broken up into individual mp3s. Even if I did get the software to break at the end of a song, any excessive background noise and it would take that to be the beginning of the next cut. The attached help file was no help and any online manual was non-existant. I was working with the free trial download, so maybe the full program includes an additional help file. Doubt it though.
I still like Golden Records for recording one long declicked file, which I can open in Audacity to break into individual cuts. That alone cuts my recording time in half.
ADDED TODAY
Three Dog Night - Eli's Coming
I wanted to give NCH Swift Sound's new software a try, it's called Golden Records (Golden v1.05) and features real-time click removal.
It's actually pretty dandy software which records your audio feed from your stereo and automatically breaks it into tracks with trimmed ends. While recording it has some noise suppression utilities that treat the incoming signal. This would cut my time spent recording an album in half! Cool!
I had to transfer Three Dog Night's Golden Biscuits to mp3, so that was my test disk with my freshly downloaded Golden Records software. I'm happy to report that the click suppression part of the software is very good, removing all the background crackle and 90 percent of the clicks. Not as incredible as ClickRepair, but still very good with no distortion. Recall that this album has some fairly quiet passages, and Golden Record's noise suppression utility handled them with no problem.
What was a problem for me, though, was setting the input levels so that the software knew where to break between cuts and when to start the next cut. I fiddled with it for a couple of hours and continued to end up with bit and pieces of songs broken up into individual mp3s. Even if I did get the software to break at the end of a song, any excessive background noise and it would take that to be the beginning of the next cut. The attached help file was no help and any online manual was non-existant. I was working with the free trial download, so maybe the full program includes an additional help file. Doubt it though.
I still like Golden Records for recording one long declicked file, which I can open in Audacity to break into individual cuts. That alone cuts my recording time in half.
ADDED TODAY
Three Dog Night - Eli's Coming
posted by Rich @ 7:19 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:23 AM,
David Smith said…
Thanks for the review. I've recorded many album sides using Wavepad, which I believe is made by the same people that offer Golden Record. Are there any other "freeware" programs, like Audacity, that can be used for this? I'd like to compare before plunking down cash. Also, I have not had any luck converting vinyl to mp3 using Audacity. Something always goes awry. Could you provide details?
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