Software Tools for Removing Pops and Scratches

Mark writes, "I'm still having troubles getting my vinyl records over to CD. I can't find a good software product to lessen the pops and scratches. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

My in-depth tutorial, Converting Vinyl LPs to CD details 6 potential solutions to Mark's problem, including all the steps required to take the source record and convert it to a CD or digital audio file. One of the best new solutions for converting old records and cassettes to digital formats is Spin It Again. The application offers a wizard driven interface for capturing cassettes and records, including automatically splitting tracks and fixing any pops and scratches in the audio.

Depending on what other audio recording needs you might have, there are several good solutions for eliminating pops, cassette tape hiss, and scratches from digital recordings.

If you can still find it, the cheapest solution with built in Pop and Hiss removal is Plus! Analog Recorder, which is part of the Digital Media Plus! Pack from MS. The pop and scratch removal, licensed from Syntrillium Software before they sold out to Adobe, is awesome. My only complaint about Plus! Analog recorder is a lack of options for saving your project. Each record or cassette must be processed in one session because there is no way to save part way through the process or re-open the project once you are finished. Amazon typically offers the most competitive price on Plus! Digital Media Edition.

Easy Media Creator from Roxio has a Sound Editor app with solid noise reduction features. As I detailed in a review of Easy Media Creator, it also comes with video and photo editing, along with numerous other features.

Adobe Audition is my personal favorite all purpose audio editing app. Tons of built in effects and support for audio looping make it highly versatile. Audition uses the same noise removal features found in Microsoft's Plus! Analog Recorder. Audition ties in to Adobe Premiere for editing movie audio. The new 1.5 version includes a new pitch correcting tool for fixing out of tune audio and a vocal extraction tool great for creating your own karaoke music. Audition is also one of the more expensive audio editing solutions, because of its large feature set.

Converting Vinyl LPs to CD covers the process of cleaning up recordings using Plus! Analog Recorder, Adobe Audition, Cakewalk Pyro, Sound Forge XP, Cool Edit, or Audacity.