I’m working on a new track that uses a sample from way back when. It comes from an old CD that got sold at a car boot sale (Nooooooooooo!,) many, many (probably 20+,) years ago and all I have a poor, low quality mp3 Microsoft media rip of the track in question. I’ve trawled the internet and can’t locate the album - it’s by a long defunct UK band called “Fashion” and the album is called “Fabrique.” The file I have is OK-ish, but it sounds pretty poor.
I was wondering if anyone can suggest some processing that’ll add some life to it? Or, as a great IT man one said, is it a case of garbage in, garbage out? I’ve run out of ideas trying to make it sound better in my DAW; maybe AI restoration is the answer?
There are AIs that can restore this sort of thing now. Off the top of my head I know Izotope RX can work with this sort of thing. But if you can find a clean copy that is always better.
Also, I have had luck using Discogs to find some pretty obscure stuff, though it is up to the market whether it would be affordable or not.
Unfortunately no, audio restoration isn’t my forte. I know RX can do a lot with restoration and I specifically remember being able to de-alias audio and clean up stuff like a performance over zoom was a selling point a few versions ago. I haven’t upgraded since V7 which I only pull out to occasionally declip/declick an overcooked mix I get in.
That said, I have heard that RX really isn’t top of the heap when it comes to this sort of thing anymore - Acon Digital and Steinberg Spectralayers are trading blows for the top spot these days. None are free, though I think you can get free/downcost versions of them. Just glancing at the websites, RX is the only one that specifically has workflows related to cleaning up streaming/compression artifacts, but I suspect the tools are there to do it in something like Spectralayers as well.
RX is bloody awesome. Id buy it if i had the money. Maybe ill buy it near the end of the tax year and just claim it as a deduction, ha! If there are even better tools now days thats exciting!
It depends on what exactly the problems are - haven’t tried to clean up low-quality MP3 tbh. There are different potential problems such as lost frequency content, general noise floor, crackles, glitchy sounds, low bitrate. Some of these problems can be dealt with without big investments into software, but it’s much easier to remove some artifacts than it is to increase the overall quality of a recording with regard to bitrate or completely lost frequencies…
There are some free AI restoration tools (I think Adobe Enhance for instance) out there but afaik mostly for voice restoration and podcasting.
RX has an “elements” version with basic functionality (and some plugins for specific tasks) which is sometimes offered with additional discounts. Maybe you could also get it for cheap from someone who wants to sell it (older versions might also be an idea).
But for a really bad low-bitrate MP3, you would need something better, either some new AI stuff (there even might be some stuff out there already for free if you spend some time searching and getting it to run, possible with some google collab notebooks or whatever) or expensive stuff such as RX or the Zynaptic Repair Bundle with Unchirp - but even with investments like that you would also have to spend some time learning the tools. Looking for some AI to do it might be a better idea in this case for just one job if you have no general interest in audio restoration. You could also just try some of the free AI tools available that are made for dialogue and see if it works…
Is it possible to work with the lofi nature of the sample rather than against it? I have had some success with this in the past. Not saying the track has to over all be lofi. And without the sample in a project I am working on can’t give a specific suggestion. Does that make any sense though?
The sample in question is a drum/bass and synth riff. I’ve tried crunching and beat mangling it in ShaperBox3 and the results sound pretty cool. I’ve layered the kick and bass with some regular samples and it’s covered a multitude of sins.
Note to self: Get better quality samples next time. You can’t polish a .
Well apparently you guys aren’t assholes like me because I would’ve just gone with option A (A for asshole). Then again, I got a letter from my ISP once about that so maybe you guys are onto something.
If you’re deadset on using the current sample, you might be able to polish it additively. Layer it up with some other synths or samples (or use creative envelope following) to just make something even cooler out of it . Or of course, granulate it, real-time loop it, layer it on top of itself in multiple pitch configurations or something cool like that!
Rx or any other type of spectral processor (Bitwig’s Spectral container is nice) can basically drop the DB of noise elements down to nothing, although this might not do a whole lot in the case of your sample. You might also be able to embrace shit fidelity by using something like SpecOps on it to creatively mangle it even further into weirdness, which works really well. Changing the FFT window size and creatively degrading the shit out of it can really turn a bad sample into a world of detailed lo-fi artifacts and interest. Dial back the dry / wet knob and you might end up with a lot of cool configurations!
Just remembered the root cause of this. Indulge me…
Many moons ago, Microsoft tried to enforce DRM on CDs if anyone remembers? You could rip a single copy to your hard drive and add it to the Windows Media Player library. Fine, until you bought a new computer after selling your old CDs (house move, wife, you get the idea,) and discovered you couldn’t move the library to your shiny new computer because of some hidden file, encryption bollocks. Microsoft released a utility some time later that supposed to unlock the files but it never worked properly. You could re-sample the old library and hope your abacus machine would live long enough to finish the job before you, or it, died or try and re-build your collection from the internet. Result: my really obscure stuff is in the wind (still) and what’s left is, by today’s standards, very poor quality.
Good work Microsoft. (Couldn’t find a sarcastic emoji.)
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I’ve layered the kick and bass with some regular samples and it’s covered a multitude of sins.
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