Magix Audio Cleaning Lab is quite a peculiar piece of software. It performs admirably in its intended role of recording vinyl, cassettes and other antiquated musical media to PC, cleaning them up and burning them to CD. However, it's equally well suited to the more substantial role of preparing your own music productions and video soundtracks for public consumption.
The main Cleaning and Mastering tools, which remove unwanted noises and optimise those you do want, are largely unchanged since the previous version (reviewed in What's New, Shopper February 2005), as are the excellent audio CD-authoring features. The effects perform respectably when used in moderation, although it's a shame that their order is fixed and that the volume metering doesn't clearly show when the output is distorting. The new addition to the mastering effects suite is Tape Simulation, which adds small amounts of harmonic distortion to give warmth and sizzle to recordings.
The most impressive new feature in version 10 is Spectral Cleaning. While the existing cleaning tools remove background noise and the characteristic crackles of vinyl, Spectral Cleaning removes prominent bumps, coughs, rattles and other unwanted acoustic noises that can creep into recordings. This isn't much use when transferring vinyl to CD, but for music and video production it can be fantastically useful.
The Spectral Cleaning window shows a graphical representation of the audio, with time and frequency on two axes and colour indicating volume. This makes it easy to identify unwanted sounds, and simply drawing a box around them makes them practically disappear. This feature is easy to use, but the underlying processing is phenomenally complex. Removing a loud sound while leaving the quieter sounds behind it intact is extremely difficult and, although cleaned areas sometimes sound a little odd, the fact that it works as well as it does is quite amazing. Comparable products that provide this function alone cost thousands of pounds. Still, it would be even better if it displayed frequency logarithmically rather than linearly, as lower frequencies are bunched up at the bottom. As it works destructively on the original file, it's also easy to make mistakes you can't rectify later. We recommend that you make a copy of any audio file before you apply Spectral Cleaning to it.
Other new features include the ability to export to DVD, either in the DVD Video format or in four-channel surround sound in DVD Audio format. This allows you to fit up to six hours of audio on a single disc, and while this is rather unorthodox as a distribution medium, it could be useful for sound installations.
Audio Cleaning Lab remains well suited to its primary role of cleaning vinyl, tapes and other old recordings and burning them to CD, but it seems that Magix can't help but pack the software with features that are far more sophisticated than this relatively straightforward task requires. The result is an indispensable suite of tools for musicians and video producers at an amazingly affordable price.
AUDIO RESTORATION Requires Windows 98 SE/Me/2000/XP, 450MHz processor, 64MB RAMAuthor: Ben Pitt
Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 10 Deluxe