Filter setting behaviour.

[ianinfrance]

Hi,

It's probably me, so could you help a nincompoop please. When I'm cleaning up my audio files, I want to be able to set the filters, as well as use the click filter, fairly obviously. While the click filter remembers the last setting used, the "normal" filters (hum, rumble and hiss filters) seem to get reset to "no filter" every time. When going through a collection of similarly well preserved (or badly preserved for that matter) it would avoid me making a silly mistake, if the filters were to default to the "last used" setting, in the way the click filter does. Or is there some way of getting this to happen which I've been too stupid to notice? Additionally, is there a particular reason why one needs to sample for hiss  for each side of every record? What would happen if I didn't provide a sample?

All the best
Ian

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi Ian,

Just select 'Last used settings' from the Presets dropdown.  Or, better yet, set up preset(s) of your own.  We don't do this automatically because if these filter settings include the hiss filter, you would get an annoying prompt (to define a noise sample) as soon as you opened the filter settings dialog.  We need to prompt because ...

... hiss filtering works by subtracting the background noise from the music.  It's not a perfect process of course - there is always some impact on the sound - but that's the basic idea.  To do this, the hiss filter needs to know the amplitude and frequency spectrum of the noise in question.  It's important (vital, actually) that this is as accurate as possible, so we prompt for it every time, but I suppose in the majority of cases that is overkill.  You can record both sides of an album as a single file of course.  That might save you a few mouseclicks.

If you get the noise sample wrong, it sounds terrible.  You might like to try this, just for amusement.  If you don't define one at all, or select a silent section before the needle drop, say, there is nothing to subtract so no hiss gets removed.  Some programs try to guess or make a suggestion, but the effects are so bad (or, "huh! it doesn't work")  if it gets it wrong that we don't like to do that.  It's much better that people master the process for themselves.

[ianinfrance]

Paul

Thanks very much. When I get back home, I'll give it a try.

ATB
Isn