What can be done to improve the sound in this file?

[guy24s]

I digitized a 35 year old VHS cassette and the sound is very poor. Here is a download link to a 2-minute sample audio file of what the sound is like:
https://vocaroo.com/1oPyR5Ub429n

I've tried various settings in Sound Forge as per tips on YouTube but all they seem to do is make the sound even worse! Is there anything that can (easily) be done to at least improve the sound somewhat, at least to make it sound more clear / less murky but without adding other unwanted noises, and if so how?

[jagabo]

You should start be recording as uncompressed PCM, not lossy, low bitrate, mp3. If the tape has a HiFi track record that instead of the low bandwidth, mono, linear track.

[pandy]

follow jagabo advice, you can try to use exciter to make audio brighter - for example https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#aexciter

[guy24s]

You should start be recording as uncompressed PCM, not lossy, low bitrate, mp3. If the tape has a HiFi track record that instead of the low bandwidth, mono, linear track.

I already have it saved as an uncompressed WAV file. The website I uploaded it on to share it with you automatically reencoded it to mp3.

follow jagabo advice, you can try to use exciter to make audio brighter - for example https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#aexciter

OK thank you. Are there any special settings for that filter or do I just have to apply it and that's it?

[davexnet]

Upload a sample of the wav file here, or zip it up and use the external host.

[guy24s]

Upload a sample of the wav file here, or zip it up and use the external host.

Please try this download for a 2-minute sample of uncompressed WAV of the sound from the tape: https://easyupload.io/gbh1g9

The tape sounds absolutely horrible, even when played on the VCR to the TV.

[pandy]

Upload a sample of the wav file here, or zip it up and use the external host.

Please try this download for a 2-minute sample of uncompressed WAV of the sound from the tape: https://easyupload.io/gbh1g9

The tape sounds absolutely horrible, even when played on the VCR to the TV.

From my perspective quality is OK, knowing audio source more than good (any processing in between?) - exciter you need to do some experiments - not sure what is your expectations, seem there are some signal above 8kHz at least on spectrum analyzer, also noise floor seem to be dynamic (so from my perspective there is some processing obviously)

@ffmpeg.exe -i sample.wav -vn -af "pan=mono|FC < 1FL + 1FR,asuperstop=centerf=15625:order=6:qfactor=100,aexciter=amount=8:blend=0:listen=0" sample_.wav

[jagabo]

Maybe something like this:

ffmpeg -y -i sample.wav -af aexciter=freq=3000:level_out=2:amount=2:drive=8.5:ceil=20000 output.wav

[guy24s]

Maybe something like this:

ffmpeg -y -i sample.wav -af aexciter=freq=3000:level_out=2:amount=2:drive=8.5:ceil=20000 output.wav

The results from your code are really good. Thank you so much. I have applied the same code to the full file. One question though, the original WAV (100 minutes long) is 1.60 Gb in size, but the result ends up at 1.07Gb. Do you know why the reworked WAV is 500 Mb smaller?

[jagabo]

Oh, I didn't notice the size difference. The source was 24 bit, the new file is 16 bit. If you want 24 bit output:

ffmpeg -i sample.wav -af aexciter=freq=3000:level_out=2:amount=2:drive=8.5:ceil=20000 -acodec pcm_s24le output24.wav

[guy24s]

Oh, I didn't notice the size difference. The source was 24 bit, the new file is 16 bit. If you want 24 bit output:

ffmpeg -i sample.wav -af aexciter=freq=3000:level_out=2:amount=2:drive=8.5:ceil=20000 -acodec pcm_s24le output24.wav

Thank you.