Noise reduction for Mac music files?, Want to reduce surface noise on 78s. Options

I've had good success transferring cassette and vinyl recordings to iTunes using a freeware program called 'Coaster.'  But before burning CD's of my noisy 78 RPM recordings I'd like to find some program that features equalization and noise reduction.  I know about Spin Doctor, but that requires purchase of Toast and moreover it does not have 'real-time preview,' which permits you to listen while you adjust the settings.  There are 4 programs that I'm aware of with this feature, but I believe all are for Windows machines: Sound Laundry, DCART, Wave Repair, and CoolEdit (just recently added the preview feature).  Does any one know of any comparable programs for the Macintosh?  (I'm not an audiophile--just looking for something relatively simple and inexpensive.)

Sam

I have used a VST plug-in called Denoiser to do this job, with a great deal of success. However, it's expensive. I think a good place to start would be a search through the Mac section of www.tucows.com - enter Audio in the search string . . .

[Synthetic]

other than using a VST app and plug system as mentioned above or using PT with Broadband Noise Reduction RTAS plug, I don't know of any app that works on mac and gives you real time preview of the sound input with noise reduction. You may even want to consider just getting the sound into the mac and then using another app to do your noise reduction on the recorded files. May take longer but may be cheaper in the long run.

I realize that not everyone has lots of money to spend on apps and equipment but sometimes when you are really specific about how you want something done on a mac... you really are going to have to buy some goodies, or find a friend with a mac and lots of apps, or cover one eye with a hand (and walk with a peg leg) and voyage out on to the deeper darker corners of the net and break that modem in with some hot d/l's. Good place to look is within the hotline servers. App can be found at http://www.hotlinesw.com/

[abbie]

I purchased Toast/Spin Doctor for this purpose which certainly does allow real-time preview. Basic procedure is to fire up Spin Doctor, transfer the record to your hard-drive (Spin Doctor will save this as an AIFF file), and apply filtering using Spin Doctors 'slider' controls. One can apply noise reduction, pop reduction, high end, low end boosting, stereo enhancement, and volume adjustment. When it sounds as good as you can get it, the last step is to save the file to permanently keep the settings. This is not a miracle program, however, but I am satisfied with its results and is is pretty easy to use. I would say that you can eliminate about 50% of unwanted noise before you start seriously cutting into the fidelity of the original recording. There is another program called Ray Gun from Arboretum Software which I believe achieves similar results and can also be run real-time either as a standalone program or as a VST plugin.

p.s. not sure but I think the Windows version of Spin Doctor doesn't allow real-time tweaking.

[WSpeckmann]

Hi Samuel,

the best DeNoising/DeClicking software I ever heard ( including previews ) is TC Works' Spark XL (forget Digi's DINR !)
Although I have to admit it's not really cheap ...
Try to get a demo CD ROM from your friendly TC dealer.

Kind regards
Walter