How to Save (and Enjoy) Your Collection of 45s and LPs

By now, most of us have ripped or bought a bunch of cool music for our iPods and other portable media devices. But what about all those great old 45s and LPs you have packed away in storage? I have tons of great “oldies but goodies” and have often wished I could get them on my computer and then on to my Sonos system or iPod, but just never figured out how to do it “right”. I got a turntable, but found my great old records were full of noise and scratches. Of course, they had been that way all along but back in the day I guess I just got used to all the “grunge” along with the music. So when I went to record them, it was back. I had forgotten how bad those old vinyl recordings sounded, so I gave up on this project and put them back in the closet.

A short while ago I was looking on the net, again trying to see what I could do to get decent sound out of my old discs, when I came upon some raves about a new program that critics said did a great job of removing old “surface noise” noise, but not mess with the music. The program getting the raves was Audio Mentor and after much research I decided to give it a try.

The Enhanced Audio guys started out developing very expensive programs for forensics work, like you might see on CSI, and have perfected the art of noise removal and audio “enhancement”. After becoming one of the leaders in that field, they then turned their attention to doing something for people (like me) who wanted a high-tech way to get good sound from old discs.

I took out my classic LPs and 45s…these recordings are important to me and you probably have some that are important to you too. They represent chapters in our lives and rekindle memories of great times. It’s time to archive these recordings; clean up the old noise, and enhance the remainder so it sounds good circa 2007.

Guess what? The program worked! Audio Mentor was designed with simplicity in mind. It’s easy install and it walks you through each step of the process. It will tell you how to hook your turntable or tape deck into your computer’s sound card. It will guide you through checking levels, preparing to record and finally monitor your recording. Then after you’ve recorded the old tunes onto your computer’s hard drive, the program will automatically break album sides into separate tracks, make sure you’ve recorded at the right rate, fix any mistakes you may have made and then guide you into the most important part of the process…cleaning and enhancing those tunes to make them sound as good, or better than the day they were recorded.

Audio Mentor’s noise reduction tool has 3 simple sliders that can be adjusted while you are listening to the music. As the audio plays, you simply move the slider until you hear the noise disappear. Once it sounds the way you want it to, just run the filters you’ve set up and it makes a new copy of the audio without the noise.

You also have the ability to add some neat finishing touches…like fading in or out of a song at a different place, or perhaps trimming any unwanted material. Finally, you can put the songs in any order you choose, and make yourself a brand new CD, an MP3 for your iPod or other MP3 player or even a WMA windows multimedia file for playback on your PC. I was pleasantly pleased at how easy Mentor guides you through the process and you’ll be simply amazed with how happy your ears will be with the results. Here is the best part of all: the price for all of this goodness is only $59. You won’t find a better way to restore your treasured recordings. Check out their site: www.enhancedaudio.com

John Lentz