Great new way to clean up clicks from scratched records

[wallewek]

VinylStudio has limited built-in capability to clean up clicks and pops from scratches.  When you have a scratch that goes right across the whole side, manually editing each click is too laborious.  But I've found a better way!

The iZotope RX 11 Elements plugin, an "AI-powered, entry-level audio repair toolkit" has de-noise and de-click functions that work better than anything else I know of.  It can make those clicks virtually inaudible.  It's not free, but the Elements plugin you need can be found at tolerable prices.  I got mine from Plugin Boutique.  The catch is that the plugin is not standalone, and the current release no longer includes an editor to use it with.  And the other catch is that it you activate it before you try to use it, you own it, no refunds. 

Unfortunately, VinylStudio doesn't appear to have support for plugins of any sort -- but Audacity does!  Audacity is free, and it supports several plugin formats, including the one RX Element uses.

It would be nice if VS supported plugins like this (AU, AAX, AAX Audiosuite, VST3), but in the meantime I'm OK exporting the whole album to Audacity, cleaning it up with RX Elements, and bringing it back in to VS.  I just wish there were a cleaner way to do that export/import.  Maybe it's just me, but I do find that a hassle.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

OK, we'll take a look at supporting, in particular, the iZotope plugin.  It sounds like a handy gadget.

[Indy33]

That would be very nice Paul! I would like to see it done.

[wallewek]

Hey, here's an off-the-wall idea.  VinylStudio and Audacity are very different, but can be complementary.  VS is amazing for ripping vinyl; Audacity is a "Swiss Army knife" for editing audio, including plugin support and other editing tools.

So, maybe if VS could "call" Audacity to edit a given album, you wouldn't need to implement RX plugins at all.

When I did this on my "rescue" album, the biggest hassle I had was figuring out where exactly the original whole-album file was so I could open it with Audacity.  Of course I had to redo the split, but that was easy on the clean album.  I wasn't able to find a place in the VinylStudio interface which clearly stated where the raw recording was located, and the documented examples were of limited use because I don't use default locations.

This feels very much like your article "How to record on one PC and split tracks on another".  I'm going to give it another read in that sense.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

'Calling out' to Audacity is not really viable, I'm afraid.  You can, however, locate your 'raw' recordings in VinylStudio by right-clicking on the file name in either the Split Tracks or Cleanup Audio windows and selecting 'View in File Explorer' (or 'View in Finder', on the Mac).

[wallewek]

Thank!  I'll make note of that.

[wallewek]

Sorry sorry being dense, and possibly blind, but I don't see any "file" mention in either of those screen.  Only album names.

If I go to the "Settings" gear at the top of the screen, there is a Collections path and a "View in File Explorer" that takes me to all the album files, though; I hope that should do.  I'm guessing if I edit an album file there, VS will pick up the changes?

[wallewek]

Further on this:  The Recordings (not file) list does in Cleanup Audio have a right-click function to "Save a copy" or Import sound files.  That's not available in some other versions of that list.  I'll try it.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Right-click on a filename is your friend.  Try it.