Noise reduction (was Re: Audio Interface Advice?)

[Joe Castleman]

on January 23, Jay Shaffer wrote:

>Let me recommend Audacity as a sound editor for restoring your old
>78RPMs it has a noise sampling and reduction effect ala Ray Gun and
>it's free.

I have a few cassettes that I recorded to my hard drive.  I was hoping
to clean up the tape hiss and gave Audacity a try.  It cleaned up the
hiss all right, but the softer passages (e.g., fade-outs, audience
noises) were distorted - I'm guessing it affected everything that was at
lower volume than the hiss itself.

The Audacity web site basically says there's no way to get around this
completely, and I just have to take my lumps.  I tried it with my old
copy of CD Spin Doctor, as well as a demo of Ionizer, and neither of
those worked well, either.

Anyone have a strategy for dealing with low-level sounds when attempting
noise reduction?

Thanx in advance,

--Joe C.

----
Joe Castleman       --     gyrofrog at gyrofrog.com
Gyrofrog Communications -- http://www.gyrofrog.com