Customer Reviews

Audio Cleaning Lab 3.0

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

 

 

Magix Cleaning Lab 3.0 is great software. I have restored many songs I thought would never see the digital light of day. Now they are played with vibrant sound! Essentially one has the option of cleaning music in four ways.
1. De-click (to remove 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, 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 multiple 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. Brilliance/EQ (Change the sound with a graphic equalizer, and preset equalizer settings)
3. Multi-Max (Increase the loudness, presence, of a file, and it acts as a limiter)
4. Direct X controls (add on any Direct X effect)
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.)
6. Acoustics-Simulator (new to 3.0, this gives the music echo and reverb, to make it sound like its been recorded in a hall, cathedral, tunnel, etc)

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. I also noticed that using the acoustics simulator often causes a cracking sound to appear on the recording because when adding its effects, it makes the music much louder. 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 about 15 US dollars. Finally, the help files are sometimes not translated too well from their German originals.

I haven't used every recording feature. Usually I record each song individually using the audio-in jack. If you record this way (from the headphone jack on your stereo to your computer line-in jack), you will need a cheap cable. Magix periodically offers patches for products, so check their web site from time to time to ensure best performance.

Version 3.0 does not seem to me to offer a huge number of features over the previous version. The interface is slightly easier to navigate, and there are certainly more features and more cleaning/mastering options. Overall I am very impressed with 3.0, but not much more than the previous version. I have a lot of fun restoring old songs, and enhancing newer ones! I definitely suggest this product.

I have used Audio Cleaning Lab 3.0 on two projects so far: to clean and digitally master a noisy, twenty-year-old recording of an interview with my great aunt; and to transfer an album (also twenty years old) from cassette to CD. My verdict: Audio Cleaning Lab is an excellent tool, albeit with a few quirks and one notable flaw.

The quality of the original interview recording -- made on a cheap, portable cassette recorder -- was awful. Some of it was virtually inaudible. Although Audio Cleaning Lab couldn't polish it enough to make it sound like a studio-quality recording, it did eliminate considerable hiss and hum, allowing barely audible portions to become understandable. It also turned the flat mono into a more-expansive sounding stereo signal. The final recording did exhibit a subtle electronic quality, but overall it was much improved.

The album, from an off-beat group called Daniel Amos, was a label-produced cassette. Of course, twenty years ago most recording companies used some of the cheapest-quality cassettes available for this purpose, so sound quality and durability were not the best. Even so, I eliminated virtually all tape hiss and brightened the somewhat flat sound quality. The result is a high-quality digital recording comparable to a present-day, commercially produced compact disc.

There are a few quirks with Audio Cleaning Lab: produced by a German company, occasionally the English instructions are curiously worded, though almost always readily understandable. Some of the tools, such as the cutting tool, are a little difficult to work with.

And the biggest flaw: its CD-burning functionality is incompatible with Adaptec/Roxio's DirectCD and other packet-writing applications, which are installed on many systems with CD burners. The workaround: either uninstall DirectCD or create all files as WAVs and then master them to CD in another application, such as Roxio's Easy CD Creator. Not a very satisfactory workaround.

All in all, an excellent application with some room for improvement -- and room for a patch that will allow it to burn CDs _without_ uninstalling packet-writing software.

Audio Cleaning Lab does a good, but basic, job of recording and cleaning up old LPs (the reason I bought it). If you're willing to accept the builtin wizards recommendations for the cleaning functions, it's also quite easy and intuitive.

Editing, on the other hand, was less intuitive and at times tedious. The two most basic editing functions - cropping at either end and fade in/out - are OK, but manually touching up a cut is not.

The quality of the files produced seems good.

Now for the bad... despite being plastered all over the ads and the box that MP3s can be read AND WRITTEN, you can only save 20 files before you're forced to pay for an upgrade. Of course, you can save as .WAVs and use the free utility CDEx to do the conversions, this is inconvenient and I'm suspicious you may lose a little quality. I find this behavior despicable and can NOT recommend software by a company that treats its customers like this.

This works as advertised. I had tried the product that came with Easy CD creator and was really disappointed. All of the scratches and clicks were easily removed from old vinyl recordings with Audio Cleaning Lab without losing any noticeable quality from the recording. Numerous features as described for enhancing the quality of the recording. I would recommend the full version (carried by Amazon) rather than the e version, downloadable at Magix web site, since the e version doesn't include their "wizards" and some other useful features that the boxed version contains. Great product!!!

To go into great detail, about how this product works, would take up a lot of space, and time. Besides you would have to hear the differnce for your selp. But anyway, this product does work. It doesn't "Digitally remaster" the songs, but it does take out tape hiss, and pops and crackles heard on records, in most cases it would be better to by the remastered cd, if it is inprint. Takes a little bit of time to master it, and all of the other effects, and etc.. that it has. But it is worth the money. Good editing tool to cut songs, splice together, or fade in or out. You can als raise or lower the volume of the songs to match the other songs on your cd. Some of theses can be done by you or the program. There are many other uses that this program can do. WORTH THE MONEY, and one of the better music programs out.

Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 3.0 is a great follow up to the 2001 original version. All the same great features are still there plus some new ones. One new feature that stands out is the new MULTI-MAX 3-BAND COMPRESSOR. This is great for "punching up" dull sounding recordings. All in all, a very worth while product that is very easy to use. Great software for the price - get it!

It was the perfect companion for saving my old records in the digital age. Very easy to use and fully automated. The mastered CD sounds better than the original vinyl! I love it!

I used this product as a cleaner, not as a burner (yet). And as a cleaner, I used it manually only (no wizard yet).

In the respect of cleaning, the results are really amazing. I recorded old songs from vynil disks played on a non-amplified turn-table.

After normalizing the volume (which in fact magnified it several times), all the noise was increased tremendously and quality degraded badly. However, by using the cleaning tools in Audio Cleaning Lab 3.0, I was able to bring the songs to a good quality. Audio Cleaning Lab 3.0 saved me money freeing me from buying an amplifier!

I observed though that the program fares better with music than with voice. When cleaning voice recordings the program provides quite mediocre performance.

For music however, I think it is an excellent cleaner for the money.

I'm surprised that [it] would advertise this product as being able to encode MP3.

In fact the program will encode MP3 for 20 times. After that, the purchaser must spend $14.95 to unlock the encoding capability.

[It] should mention this additional charge to prospective purchasers.

most mp3 cleaning software you will find the limitation on converting too mp3 format is common, as I have a simular software on my computer. the customers purchasing mp3 software need to get a convertion software first, can be found on a shareware file site.