Wave Corrector - (Vinyl Rip restoration software)

[AlexM]

Hi,

I'm sure that many of you have some cherished LPs that you want to digitize, and you require some software that will allow you fine-grained click removal and noise reduction.

I wanted to recommend wave corrector, which I have been using for some time, and ask what others are using. It was written by some ex-BT researchers, who developed some very sophisticated signal processing methods that they have applied to vinyl ripping, editting and restoration.

The reason that I like this so much is that it allows full manual adjustment of the click correction, almost down to the sample level. It's automated identification and correction functionality works very well, but as an intermittent OCD sufferer I like to optimise each correction to get the best fit to the undistorted waveform, as shown below.

It also provides for track detection, meta data input, configurable rumble/hiss filters, graphic equalisation, channel balance and normalisation amongst other things.



The current version allows work with up to 24bit/96khz files wav files, and can export to OGG, WAV or FLAC formats.

I have used audacity and some other packages, but tend to find that the click reduction has too much of an effect on detail, or is ineffective.

Wave Corrector's click detection and correction generation algorithms are very sophisticated, and with full manual adjustment the results can be very, very good indeed. I find that even noisy records can be restored very effectively - it just take more time..

And best of all, it is quite cheap!.

What do you use? I'd be interested to know what others have found to be effective and easy to use.

Regards,
Alex

[lovejoy]

Thanks for the heads up Alex. That does look really good. I've been itching to get back into doing some decent vinyl recordings, but I have one concern:

The current version allows work with up to 24bit/96khz files wav files, and can export to OGG, WAV or FLAC formats.

But on the FAQ of their webpage I can see:

When will Wave Corrector provide support for 24-bit/96KHz sampling?

Unfortunately, 16-bit processing is embedded deeply in the Wave Corrector code and it would require an almost total re-write for 24-bit to be supported. Therefore, it is unlikely that this will ever be available.

Is this outdated information?

[Beechwoods]

Nice that it works under Wine. That means it'll run on my Mac as well as Linux

[AlexM]

Lovejoy,

Yes, the FAQ is out of date. I rip my Vinyl as 24/96 wavs in Audacity, and then process them inside Wave Corrector.

Regards,
Alex

[Slippershod]

looks very good - thanks for posting about it.

[WAD62]

looks very good - thanks for posting about it.

+1

Looks interesting Alex...

[Slippershod]

oh. my. g**.

Alex - thank you again for highlighting this software.

purchased - tried it on a mac - 'winebottler' let's it run, but I couldn't register it (this for the above poster who mentioned mac compatibility). I guess if you're au fait with terminal and Wine 'proper', it might not have this hitch...

anyhow - installed it on my pc laptop - no hitches.
and - it's incredible. To be fair, I'm certainly out of touch with this kind of software - when I last looked a couple of years back or so, the cheap stuff was not very good, and the expensive stuff, well, expensive, and forbiddingly technical. But even so, for the price, I can't believe there's much to match it ...?

I've just tried it on automatic with a Peter Pears classical song recital - a used copy which, while not terrible, had enough of the expected crackle and noice (hiss too infact) to be an uncomfortable listen really...

I've put it through both as 'vinyl' (for crackle and clicks) and as a 'tape' for hiss, and the result is stunning - and I'm sure it could have been better if I were more experienced with the programme - quite apart from the manual control that Alex extols ...

honestly - this should make a lot of my lps that there was really little point in listening to / ripping, quite the opposite.


maybe I shouldn't be going on so enthusiastically, given such little experience with it, but given that, it really does seem fab.


I should say, of course, that this could be beginner's luck, and that other kinds of recordings/ music might not be so straightforward - so anyone interested - do demo to your own satisfaction.

[AlexM]

That's excellent - very glad your test worked well for you.

I tend to find that if the correction threshold is set too low, Wave Corrector fixes clicks that aren't really audible anyway, or gets too many false positives with some music. The indication of over-processing is a softening of transients and treble reduction, so listening/comparing is the best final check.

I tend to adjust the settings so that I end up with 500-1000 corrections per LP (or more if it is a very noisy LP). You can easily re-scan for clicks varying the settings to get the right balance. If you are getting tens of thousands then the levels are probably set too high.

When I am being really fussy, I zoom the waveform to 50 samples/division and scroll through the list of corrections to check and adjust the corrections. This allows me set correction width and position to the waveform to get the audible artifacts as low as possible (best possible fit to the visible waveform). With practice it is very easy to distinguish between music and noise, and often even very severe clicks can be edited out and rendered completely inaudible.

Once I have added fade-out to tracks that need it, it is almost impossible to tell that the source is a sometimes grotty vinyl disk (in a good way).

Regards,
Alex

[kml]

I use VinylStudio 'cause it's idiot proof, and I'm on the left hand side of the IQ bell curve.



http://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/


cheers
ken

[AlexM]

Ken,

That looks like a good package too. Does it do 24/96? not clear from their website.

On my wishlist for the next WaveCorrector release would be FreeCDDB integration, richer metadata handling (i.e. Album Art), but it does what I need very well.

Regards,
Alex