Customer Reviews

Magix Audio Cleaning Lab

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Magix Cleaning Lab is software that I would call amazing. I have restored many songs I thought would never see the digital light of day. Now they are played in my car with vibrant sound! Essentially one has the option of cleaning music in four ways.
1. De-click (to remove those click sounds from old records)
2. De-crackle (same source as above)
3. De-noise (from cassette noise, hissing, etc)
4. De-hiss (tape hiss among other types of hiss)

Among these one can choose varying levels of correction. Some recordings require stronger levels, others weaker. As the original recording quality worsens, the ability of the cleaner worsens too. Sometimes the cleaner, when used at stronger levels, creates a different type of sound than before. For instance, the original sound might contain a tambourine, but once cleaned strongly, it sounds more synthesized. The program has a "wizard" that will take you through the cleaning process in the best order. Using the wizard, you can hear the original and preview it cleaned. At the end you get to hear the original and the perfectly cleaned songs. The difference is amazing.

Now, after you have cleaned it, you can feel just like a top-level audio engineer, who has the audio in graphic form right in front of him. There are four sound effects, all which can be utilized while the track is playing. They are

1. Stereo FX (Here you can adjust the level of stereo surround, or bring it to mono. You can change the volume of individual channels too).
2. Compressor (strengthen the sound and make instruments come in clearer, increase the gain, etc)
3. Equalizer (Change the sound with the graphic equalizer, presets included)
4. Direct X controls (add on any Direct X effects)
5. Normalize Object Volume (this is not on the display, but can be done by right clicking on the sound graphic and selecting this option. This makes quieter songs louder.)

I have used the sound effects not only for records, but also for digital recordings. After sending them through Cleaning Lab, they sound much clearer and fresher than before. Typically I export the songs that I clean to MP3 format, at 160 kbit/s or higher, and set the option to "high quality," (this is done on the "export audio" window, by clicking "format settings") to get the crispest sound.

Okay, now for the negatives. It won't burn on my CD burner. It just won't recognize external CD-RW units. It will recognize most internal ones though. Also, in order to export your cleaned recordings to MP3 format, you must pay for an upgrade (wavs, MPEGS, WMA files are free). I paid 9.99 US dollars, and it allowed me to export to MP3 on all the Magix products I own. I haven't used every recording feature. Typically I record each song individually using the audio-in jack. If you record this way (from the headphone jack on your stereo system into your line-in jack on your computer), you will need an inexpensive cable. Also, Magix offers a patch for this product, so download it before you use Cleaning Lab. Overall I am very impressed, and honestly have a lot of fun restoring old songs, and enhancing newer ones! I definitely suggest this product.

I have long wanted to transfer some old tapes and LP's to CD, but finding decent software was hard. I could have taken the obvious path and bought Easy CD Creator, but I have Windows XP and refused to buy their package until it was XP compatible. (As of this writing, Roxio still requires that you buy the old edition and download a free updater that is none too easy to use.) I think Nero has some sound processing, but I refused to buy that product until their InCD component (equivalent to Roxio's DirectCD) was available for XP.

I use packet-writing software like DirectCD to do my backups. Since neither Roxio nor Ahead were finished for XP, I bought SimpliCD from Oak Technology. I use it mostly for its packet writing, but its other CD burning features are quite nice as well. I recommend it, and it's cheaper than either Easy CD Creator or Nero.

Back on subject...I was still lacking software to do recording and audio processing prior to burning. SimpliCD doesn't have that. I spent countless hours researching products on the web. I downloaded those that seemed reasonable in price, effectiveness, and simplicity. I did sample recordings and fixed some difficult audio. Some products were okay, but none were great. Diamond Cut 32 proved itself capable, but wasn't the easiest thing to use. Audio Cleaning Lab had a plausible demo, although to limited to tell if it would really do the job. I finally bought a copy and am glad I did.

Neither the web site nor the box promise that the software will run on Windows XP, although I read some owner comments on the web that sounded like it would work. I figured it wouldn't be able to burn CDs for three reasons: Windows XP wasn't supported, my CD writer wasn't listed on their web site as supported, their support forum says that it won't work with DirectCD or other packet-writing CD software installed. Okay, I would export the sound files and burn them with SimpliCD.

To my surprise, ACL burns CD's on my system perfectly! I guess the SimpliCD software does not conflict in the same way DirectCD or InCD do, and the XP and hardware compatibility problems didn't exist.

That brings me to the core of the program: getting sound ready for a CD. ACL is just head and shoulders above everything else I looked at. It takes in sound by either recording or loading .wav, .mp3, .wma, or other audio. You can them assemble those pieces on the master track. You can then cut up the pieces into sub-objects and work on them individually. You can place track markers (automatic track recognition is the best I've used), reorder cuts, do cross fades, trim cuts, etc. You can give each track a name which is shown on the sound wave for convenient reference.

None of this actually affects the original files, nor does it create new audio files! It only creates a set of instructions that are used to play back the original material as specified.

You can then apply the various sound processing tools to remove defects and do various types of enhancements. These are as effective as any others I tried. The processing can be applied to individual snippets you have marked or to the entire assembly.

When the project is perfect, you can burn it to CD. The names of the tracks you gave are even burned as CD text. Or you can export the project to .wav, .mp3, or .wma files. If you've named the tracks, the files will have the names you gave instead of just numbers as most products do. (Note that the product include a license to produce only 20 MP3 files. If you want to make a lot of MP3's, you'll have to buy a license for another $20 or something.) Then you can burn those files with other software, if you prefer.

I found the user interface visually appealing and very easy to use with a little practice. This thing is great.

This package has two very significant strengths: 1) very effective noise reduction for its price; 2) extremely thoughtful features that greatly speed the restoration/CD mastering process. I had searched high and low for a product with these features and was surprised when I found this just a couple of days after its commercial release. First of all, the noise reduction is much better than any of the shareware and many of the commercial alternatives you will find. The only thing better that I have used is Sonic Foundry Noise Reduction, which is excellent but costs $300. Second, the operation is set up in the form of a project (much like Sonic Foundry's Vegas Audio/Video) where you apply effects in a nondestructive environment. The program affords a great deal of flexibility in the way you can apply the effects to all or portions of a track (using the same "object" concept as Sonic Foundry). It also has extensive track management features. You can move segments of a single wave file that you have defined as distinct tracks as though they were really separate files when you lay out your CD. Real-time simultaneous monitoring of most effects and one direct-x plug in is possible. When I first started a restoration project my primary concern was quality. However, I quickly realized that with a sizable project there is a practical limit to how much you can optimize. This software provides a very efficient means to play with different parameters, save your settings, export to CD, audition. You can then go back and change any parameter without having to start over the whole process. It is extremely efficient. The only negatives are an annoying user interface that won't maximize to fill your screen and several misspelled words in the documentation that came through the translation from the language in which it was originally written. Also, it appears that it was not developed as a "Windows" program and does not seem to use standard "Windows" interface code. That said, it has been very stable and I haven't yet detected any bugs. All in all, Magix has filled a huge void in this category. I would like to try Steinberg's Clean! package but they don't make a demo available and they provide very little product information on their website. What I have read about its noise reduction leads me to believe that it probably is not more effective than this package.

When I purchased my new computer one of the main objectives I had was to convert my album collection to cd's. As a result I purchased a powerful machine and selected XP for my operating system. My system came with Easy CD Creator and I found that to be a good program for burning cd's. However I read the reviews on the Roxio Easy CD Creator Platinum Editon 5.0 which would allow me to transfer albums to cd's and found that everybody who had XP could not operate that software and so I began look elsewhere.

What I found was Magix's Audio Cleaning Lab(ACL). Almost every review here at Amazon.com indicated the software did a good job of cleaning and improving the sound and that it was user friendly. The one big drawback that I got from the reviews was that ACL did not work if Direct CD was installed on the computer. However some people did seem to be able to run the software and burn cd's while others could not.

I was able to purchase ACL for [a small amount] and figured I'd give it a shot. The software was user friendly and after playing around with the various controls I was able to improve the sound of my albums. However I could not burn a cd. I e-mailed Magix and they sent me prompt e-mails back with sugguestion and patches to download. I had already removed Easy CD Creator from my computer and so I could not figure why I was still not able to burn cd's? I sent an e-mail requesting a direct line to speak to a tech at Magix and to my surprise I received a direct number to a techs desk. I had to pay for the long distance call but it was worth it. This way I didn't have to spend endless minutes waiting on hold for a rep to answer my call as I seem to do with most tech support lines. The tech offered several suggestions and I tried them all with no success.

It seems to me that the Roxio CD Easy Creator and other various software products that use Direct CD are preloaded on most of the newer pc's that are built today. Thus if Magix wants to do well and increase their sales they are going to have to get around this whole Direct CD issue. It dosen't matter how user friendly or good the program is if in the end you can't burn the cd's. As a reuslt I am now considering purchasing Easy CD Creator Platinum 5.3 which is supposed to be XP friendly. I'll wait to see the reviews before I purchase it.

One last side note. When you clean an audio file with ACL the original audio file is unchanged on your computer ACL has a separate file that contains the changes you are making to the original audio file. I found that I can take the original unaltered audio file and transfer it to my Windows Media Player(WMP) and then burn that audio file to a cd. The only problem with this is that there are no separate tracks. In other words an entire album will play under one track. In order to create separate tracks you would need to record each individual song as a separate audio file. This obviously is a slow process and even if you have the patience to do this the material will not be cleaned.

First of all, I will affirm the complaint of several other reviewers: Audio Cleaning Lab was NOT able to burn CDs with my system. Nevertheless, this software is able to do something relatively few others can -- rip LPs, cassettes, etc. and clean the audio to the point that they almost sound like a new CD. If you already have a program that can burn audio CDs from .wav files or MP3s, then use that (if not, you can get one for almost nothing these days). Use Audio Cleaning Lab to rip, edit, clean, and mix your .wav's/MP3s, and you're set. For the price, I still think it's worth buying, even if it doesn't actually burn CDs on your system.

Once you get the hang of it, though, the program is powerful. Be prepared to waste several CD's and a lot of time practicing.
Some pitfalls of this program:
1. Difficult to install. The program insists on installing DirectX 6.2, even when you have a later version of DirectX. This causes the program to lock up. Once it locks up, you must reboot, then the program will not run nor will it uninstall. (The secret to uninstalling is to delete the magix.ini file, and then delete the installation folder. Your registry is still messed up, though). Be wary of using an uninstaller in the background too. It doesn't like them.
2. Difficult program to learn and the manual is difficult to understand. The awkward wording suggests the book was written in German than translated into English.
3. Limited MP3 support - the program allows only 20 MP3 uses. After than, you must pay an additional fee to export your files to MP3.
4. It will not burn CD's when Easy CD Creator is installed, although all the other functions will work. For some reason, It doesn't like EasyCD Creator. It works properly with Nero 5.5.

Those people who are allegedly having problems with Adaptec, apparently haven't really called MAGIX for a solution. After I bought the "Audio Cleaning Lab", but before I installed it, I read the negative reviews, called MAGIX ... and talked to their tech support people about the alleged problems as discussed in these reviews. They said that negative reviews could come from 2 groups of people: #1) people with CD burners that are so new that no pertinent drivers have been written for them (...) and group #2) the group who coincidentally have the presence of a "Direct CD" program running in the background (this can be seen by pulling up the list of programs in the cntl+alt+del listing), and if so, then terminate it. Adaptec is just ONE program of MANY that uses "Direct CD." I have not had any of these problems since installing and using the program. This is not a "Buyer Beware" issue." This is a "User, Know your system" issue. This program is a good system and I highly recommend it to anyone for transferring tapes to CDs!!!

I've tried several programs to "clean up" CD's that were recorded from scratchy vinyl and the Audio Cleaning Lab works the best. I use it on my Lap Top Computer to restore and clean audio files. Using the product to burn CD's is not a problem for me as it is for some of the other people who have reviewed this product - and I also have Easy CD Creator 5 installed. Just to let everybody know, there is a limit to how much cleaning the product will do for you - the worse shape the original source, the harder it is to clean the material. Overall, I've enjoyed working with this product. Highly recommended for the price!

Works as advertised. I had previously tried Spin Doctor on Easy CD Creator and was truly unimpressed. Audio Cleaning Lab works perfectly, recognizes track markers and is very easy to use. The de-clicking utility took out all of the clicks and scratches in the vinyl recordings and left the music completely unchanged. It burned CD's with my CD burner perfectly. This is a terrific program.

Although I quickly found that Magix Audio Cleaning Lab (ACL) wouldn't write to my CDRW drive, an e-mail to tech support resolved the problem. In two days, I got back a bilingual English/German response and patch that got me writing to my drive.

But in the meantime I had bought the top-selling program and tried using it. I quickly became frustrated with that other program's inability to do both end of LP detection and track-splitting at the same time (it could do either, but not do both at the same time).

The patch to ACL worked. ACL does a good job of finding the splits between songs on an LP, except on records with quiet musical passages. ACL also detects the end of the LP side. And ACL does both at the same time. ACL also gives pretty good visual feedback while recording, showing recording levels. That other top seller gives only a generic animation while recording.

All in all, between the top seller and ACL, I prefer ACL for ripping LPs.