I am in the process of converting my video tape library (created with early Studio versions going back as far as 1990 or so). They were output to SVHS tapes and the originals were kept in a drawer, only copies were played.  I am using Dazzle to recapture them and the recaptured video quality is better than I expected.

However, the sound track of the recaptured video sounds pretty bad.  These tapes were originally recorded with a Sony Super VHS recorder using it’s ‘sound mix’ feature which created two sound tracks and permitted lowering or raising the volume of the original sound track and of the background music as required.  I am using a JVC tape player for playback (an old one which has a sound-mix setting) and the sound of the playback is good.

Dazzle captures the two soundtrack into one and the playback is quite distorted in segments which were originally recorded at a higher volume than the rest of the tract.  My knowledge of sound editing is very limited but I am reasonable certain that there is a program which can modify the sound track of a captured MP4 file  in a way similar to how MP3gain modifies MP3 soundtracks.  Should you know of such product or plug-in, please post it on this thread.

Ted

Ted - imo most likely the distortion is already present at the time of playback in the VCR, and as such there is not much you can do to it AFTER having captured it - its a question of garbage in garbage out when distortion is present.

What you need to do is to somehow find a playback device with larger off-tape dynamic range (or then at least the same as the recording deck you originally used).

Alternatively - most stereo decks record a mono version of the audio present on the linear audio track on the tape in addition to the stereo tracks - perhaps you can switch to rather using that audio track on the VCR if its less distorted due to limited dynamic range, and then use one of the hiss cleanup filters/plug-ins to clean up the audio in Studio after you captured it .................I would rather have hiss present than have to listen to "clear" and obvious distortion.

You might give this a try.

Using a free program such as Audacity, you can connect your vcr directly to the line input of your sound card and record the two channel audio using Audacity. You could then manage the track as you see fit, save it out as a WAV file and bring it into one of the audio tracks of Studio. You might have a synchronization problem, but perhaps you can overcome that once you get the start aligned. Try it with a 5 or 10 minute segment and see what you get.

Don