Can SpectraLayers improve sound quality of an old tape recording turned into an MP3?

SpectraLayers
1

Hello,

I have been given some MP3s of my late father telling his story of his life during WW2 and I would love to be able to clean up the audio. At the moment his voice sounds far away and you can hear quite clearly birds tweeting, dogs barking etc (As it was taped outside) Will SpecraLayers help? It was taped either in the late 90’s or early 00’s on a tape recorder. I just want to hear his voice clearly.

Thanks for any help.

Gabi

2

The MP3s can be loaded directly into SpectraLayers so from that point on at least, the quality should be preserved (there would already have been some loss of quality on the tape itself, and again during the transfer from tape, and again during the encoding to MP3).

SpectraLayers can be used quite effectively to remove background sounds as long as they don’t completely obscure the spoken words, but bear in mind that there is quite a steep learning curve, in case you haven’t used SpectraLayers before.

Once the spoken word is recovered, there may still be other issues (such as excessive reverberation or background noise) but these might be more straightforward to deal with, and some can also be addressed using SpectraLayers, depending on the exact nature of the issue.

3

For someone inexperienced in noise reduction, I’d suggest experimenting with something like Audacity first, before going the payware route.

4

Or experiment with Spectralayers for free for 30 days:

But maybe first, watch a few tutorials, to see if the required learning is intriguing to you?

Audio restauration is quite a rabbit hole, which can be deeply fascinating and rewarding for some individuals, and incredibly boring and/or frustrating to others. So hopefully by watching some videos, you’ll find out, if the required learning is something you’d enjoy, or something that would just cause you stress.

https://www.google.com/search?q=spectralayers+audio+restoration+tutorial+for+speech

5

Independent of whether you decide to go down that rabbit hole it is a good idea to digitize those cassettes if you want to preserve them.

6

Aren’t they already?

7

Opps, I went right past that and thought they were starting from the originals.

1 Like
8

Thank you everyone for your input. I’ve managed to get the sound to a much better quality using something else.
I think (as everyone rightly suggested) SpectraLayers is a bit too complicated for a novice.
I’m so happy I get to hear my dads voice clearly telling his story of his experience in WW2 growing from a 14 year old boy stealing guns from Germans, joining the underground army, escaping all sorts of crazy situations and finally being reunited with his mother & father at the age of 20.
Next recommendation will be how do I get a producer to listen to this?! The story is amazing.

Thanks again.

Take care

Gabi