I've been using my hi-fi turntable to transfer vinyl to CD, but it faithfully reproduces all the clicks and crackles of my well-played collection. I've tried the Wave Editor tools in both Roxio (3 through 9) and Nero but they still leave a recording that is decidedly "vintage". John Palmer
There are a lot of programs that will automatically remove clicks and crackles from digitised files. However, the results can be extremely variable, and many people complain they also take some of the life out of recordings. The best you can do is try a few and see what suits your needs best.
At the moment, Acoustica's Spin It Again 2.1 is well-regarded when it comes to delivering good results economically -- it's $34.95 (£17) -- without much effort. An alternative was Steinberg's Clean Plus 5, most recently sold by Pinnacle, but it seems to have been discontinued.
Diamond Cut Audio Restoration Tools (diamondcut.com) are also worth considering, and Diamond Cut Millennium is available online for $55. (The full Diamond Cut 7 costs $159.)
Serious restoration might well involve several passes, and Sonic Foundry's Noise Reduction ($399) includes four separate plug-ins: Noise Reduction, Click and Crackle Removal, Vinyl Restoration and Clipped Peak Restoration. There's also Brian Davies's Click Repair, which is available for $40 Australian (£17), direct from the author (http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/~briand/sound/).
If you want to do the job using free software, Clive Backham has an excellent guide to digitising vinyl that covers the main software options. Backham also wrote Wave Repair to "ease many of the tasks that are required during restoration of music recorded from vinyl records, and which are often difficult using general purpose tools".
Obviously it would be better not to have too many clicks and crackles to start with. Check your stylus and make sure your deck is set up correctly. You should also clean your records. Specialist products include the Disc Doctor's Miracle Record Cleaner (discdoc.com), which may be available in the UK from vinylcare.co.uk, and carbon fibre brushes.
Backchat: Ken Vines says: "Magix Audio Cleaning Lab is a good program for dealing with all sorts of audio input, including vinyl. It's up to version 12, I think, but 10 and 11 (which I use) seem perfectly adequate and have several ways for removing or reducing the effect of clicks and crackles, including individual attention." Brian Gotheridge recommends the same program.
