XPost: rec.audio.pro   
   From: hankvc@blackhole.lostwells.net   
      
   In article <0001HW.C7DA75CD0017990EF01846D8@news.giganews.com>,   
   Audio Empire   wrote:   
   >   
   >If you have a computer, I suggest the following:   
   >   
   >Download "Audacity" from the internet for your particular computer platform.   
   >Transfer your records to digital using your usual method and save it as a   
   >"WAV" file.  Open the resultant file in Audacity and use that program's   
   >"click filter" and other tools to clean the file up. This takes time, but it   
   >is pretty easy to do and the results are worth it.   
   >   
   If life were just that simple.....   
      
   I have enough computers around here, running every operating system   
   EXCEPT Microsoft Windows.  I've been posting about aspects of this   
   project of mine in various newsgroups.   
      
   The target computers for doing the work are Sun manufacture.  The one   
   I'm using to get things up is an Ultra 20 M2 running Solaris 10 10/09.   
   The hardware is just a high-end version of an AMD64 PC with Nvidia   
   chip set.   
      
   I also have several Sun Sparcs (Ultra 1, 2, 10, 60) and there is some   
   reason to believe the U2 or U60 might be better hardware than a Wintel   
   PC.  I've gone through the exercises needed to get rid of hum and   
   noise in all of my analog devices, but have been advised that PC power   
   supplies are too noisy.  And, thus far, I'm hearing a high noise floor   
   in the PC.  The Ultra 60's are PCI machines, so I should be able to   
   use an add-on 24-bit PCI card with the OSS driver.  I need to run some   
   tests to see if a U60 power supply (which is huge, compared to PC   
   supplies) is quieter.   
      
   I've made some attempts to compile and run both Audacity and Gnome   
   Wave Cleaner (gwc)  on Solaris x86.  I think I'm close to getting gwc   
   functional---there is one bug in how it reads .wav files, and I've had   
   to install Debian 5.0.4 linux ("lenny") on another Sparc box to support   
   the porting effort.  That install did not go at all smoothly.  Yet to go   
   is an install of Debian on PC hardware, which (I'm hoping) will present   
   less problems than the Sparc install did.   
      
   The Audacity build tree is a plumber's nightmare.  I've spent some   
   time with two versions, 1.2.6 and 1.3.11.  Someone on another group   
   supplied me with a 1.2.6 Sparc build, but I'll have to recompile it   
   to use it on my hardware.  Fortunately, most of the support libraries   
   needed are available pre-built from download sites, although I'm doing   
   my own compiles as well.   
      
   Probably should mention here that I'm a 75-year-old retired   
   hardware-software engineer who had enough "careers" over 45 years that   
   I can work hardware and software issues without getting too far off my   
   turf.  I'd expected more and better pro-level audio processing software   
   to be available in the open source world.  Certainly somebody who is   
   trying to earn an income doing pro audio isn't going to be able to   
   devote the time and effort I can to getting a good stable alternative   
   to the Windows stuff---which has plenty of problems of its own.   
      
   Hank   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)