Audio software to remove crackle?

[Baree]

Good day,

I am a animation enthusiast. I don't have that much stuff yet (when you look at how much there is out there), but I do collect. Right now I have a NTSC VHS tape that already was giving me troubles when I first got it from Ebay. My PAL VCR wouldn't play it whatsoever, and spit out the tape after a few seconds. I moved it to a different case, after which I could play it, but now there is some noise interference. A sort of buzz/crackle (not sure what the right word is) that isn't constant, but keeps coming back and then stopping again. I don't think it has to do with the fact that I play a NTSC tape in a PAL VCR, that has never given me audio problems before.

I have been looking at "static noise" removal software, but after reading about it I think that actually has to do something with the quality of the video, not audio. Is there any software that, for example, could remove sounds of a certain frequency or some such? Anything that may help? This is probably a question that gets asked a lot, but I don't think I saw it in one of the sticky's. Thanks in advance.

[jagabo]

Audacity is free and has some noise removal features. If you post a sample of your noise someone will probably give you some pointers. The higher quality the better. Post uncompressed WAV, not low bitrate MP3, if possible.

[Baree]

Ok. I am copying the VHS now (should be finished actually), so maybe I can separate the soundtrack with virtualdub or audacity or something. Never tried that actually.

[redwudz]

Static is usually a mix of frequencies, so not so easy to eliminate without eliminating most of the audio. But you can likely get an improvement on it. If you can load it into Virtualdub, you could save the audio out in WAV format, then import that to Audacity. Try the high and low pass filters. Or maybe the Click filter. You can experiment and 'redo' if you don't like the results. You could also just treat the parts of the audio that have the noise.

This will probably make the audio a bit 'muddy' sounding, but probably more bearable than a sharp crackle. If you left VD open, just add back the finished audio (Maybe converted to AC3 or MP3, depending on your video format), then disable the original audio and save both the new audio and video as 'Direct stream copy'.