Old Radio Effects

[MrFisticuffs]

I'm trying to emulate the sound of an old radio broadcast, and it's been simple enough to make everything sound distant and tinny, but I'd really like to introduce some of the characteristic crackles and pops. I'm not really sure where to start, though. Any suggestions?

[Dafydd]

try downloading speeches by Winston Churchill or something.

[SnappleMan]

Well, what I would do is just use an equilizer to isolate the range 250-4k (or whatever sounds best to you). Then either create some noise by recording an empty room and accentuating the noise using a noise gate (they make that "Keep only the noise" option for this reason), add EQ to that to bring out any pops or hissing you like, and paste the two together.

Some synths also have a noise patch, which will emulate either old radio noise or old vinyl record noise.

[MrFisticuffs]

Perfect. Thanks!

[realpolitik]

or you could use Izotope Vinyl

i just picked it up last night, nifty stuff.

[Navi]

I use Izotope Vinyl in a lot of my stuff. Love that shit.

[SnappleMan]

To heck with that newfangled shit.

[LooPKiD]

or you could use Izotope Vinyl

Exactly what I was planning on sayin'

Lil' late though lol

[Cerrax]

I have a few samples from Music Generator that are just recordings of old vinyl and radio noise. I could send them to you if you'd like.

[Navi]

To heck with that newfangled shit.

imo, the only real way then is to build a car that goes back in time, take a tape recorder and a gun, go back to the 30s, have your track pressed to vinyl, go and take over a radio station, force them to play the record while you record it to tape (which will blow their minds away!), come back through time and voila, there's your AUTHENTIC old radio sound.

[MrFisticuffs]

Hot damn, Izotope Vinyl was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.

Oh man, I am totally in love with this.