SOLIPSIUMAlpha

SOLIPSIUM Super resolution audio engine

Old radio

Clean up an old radio broadcast recording.

Drop the broadcast here, from a disc transfer, a tape or a downloaded MP3. Solipsium measures its crackle, hiss, hum and narrow band first.

Drop a broadcast recording here

Solipsium checks it in your browser for clipping, hum and noise, without uploading it. It can then repair the first 20 seconds for you to hear, with no account.

WAV, MP3, M4A, MP4 and more, up to five minutes for the check.

Choose a recording

Where it came from

Each copy brings its own faults.

An old show reached you through several copies. Each one left a mark.

A transcription disc.

Shows were often kept on discs, which crackle. “Clicks and crackle were found, in the pauses too, so each click is redrawn from the sound around it and the rest is untouched.”

A tape copy.

A copy on tape adds hiss, a steady floor. A steady floor within 26 dB of the voice gets Full-band speech cleanup, a speech model that keeps the voice's full range and lowers what surrounds it. The result reads: “A steady noise floor was found, so it is removed.”

An AM station.

A show taken off the air from an AM station can stop near 5 kHz. Under about 5.4 kHz, with nothing else found, the treble is rebuilt: “Little sound was found above 4 kHz, like a phone line. The treble is rebuilt from the sound below it, which is kept as it was. What is added is inferred.”

A small MP3.

A copy passed around as a low-bitrate MP3 lost its treble to the encoder. The check shows where the sound stops; sound that stops between about 5.4 and 8.3 kHz is kept as it is: “The treble is thin, but real sound reaches above a phone line, so it is kept as it is. The treble rebuilder is used only on phone lines.”

Order of work

Find the cleanest copy, then repair it.

The repair starts from the file you give it.

  1. Look for a better source.

    The same show often exists in several copies. The audio spectrum check shows which one reaches highest.

  2. Hear 20 seconds.

    Drop the copy above. The try lists a reason for each step it took.

  3. Repair the episode.

    With a free account, the editor repairs the whole episode, up to 30 minutes at a time.

Questions

About old broadcasts.

Will it take out the music and the sound effects?

Solipsium's free try is built for speech, and its cleanup may remove music along with the noise. Where held musical tones sit under the noise, cleanup stays gentle and lowers the noise by at most 6 dB.

Can the crackle and the hiss both go?

Crackle repair runs before any cleanup, so a recording with both can get both, each when it is measured. The try lists which ran.

Is the rebuilt treble the original broadcast?

No. It is predicted from the sound below it and labelled inferred.

A whole series?

One episode a project, up to 30 minutes and 1 GB each. A team that restores many can read about the pilots on Solipsium for teams.

Is my recording uploaded?

Not for the check, which runs in your browser. Pressing Repair the first 20 seconds sends those 20 seconds; when your browser could not open the file, or it runs over five minutes, the file itself goes to Solipsium's server, so the try is offered for it only up to 25 MB. Solipsium keeps only the first 20 seconds and deletes them within an hour. If you are signed in, a file you drop or choose is uploaded to your account and opens in the editor instead. The privacy notice has the rest.

Free audio tools

Related free tools.

For discs, tapes and MP3s.

The whole episode.

Make a free account and drop the same file into the editor to repair all of it, up to 30 minutes at a time.

Repair the whole episode

Free account, no card.