I have a bunch of old time radio show in mp3 format. some of these have a muffled sound to them?

Question

Is there any program I can download (free would be better) that i can use an equelizer or something to repair the sound a resave it to burn to cd

Answer 1

I have used "Magix Audio Cleaning Lab" for years and really like it. It isn't free though. It currently retails for $39.95 and you can find it for 7-10 dollars less than that. You might be able to find an older version (like my version 3.0) at an online auction for just a few bucks. It has an equalizer, declicker, decrackler, denoiser, dehisser, stereo effects, an audio compressor, and lots more. It even has a recorder that will record anything you can hear through your speakers. That's really handy when you find shows online that are not in MP3 format. You also can edit the audio files by cutting out sections, combining files, etc.

Now for the bad news! Many of the Old Radio Show files are extremely difficult or impossible to repair. The software will remove very bad "hissing", for example, but it creates a very annoying echo in its place. In general, most of the files you'll find on cds or online that can be repaired have already been repaired by someone else. There are, of course, some exceptions.

Minor hissing or clicking can be removed in many cases but keep in mind that when you remove hissing, you are also removing some of the good audio, typically the higher frequencies. If the problems with the audio are too bad, you have to remove so much to get rid of them that you also lose all of the speech and music.

So have fun but don't expect miracles when trying to salvage the really bad files.