Recommendations for Al Audio Restoration: Enhancing Low-Bitrate Drum 'n' Bass Sets

[Bow_Wazoo]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on how to restore or "upscale" some old Drum 'n' Bass livestream recordings from 2015.

The files are in aac+ format, and the compression is quite heavy: one file is about 70 MB for a 2-hour set, which puts it at roughly 64 kbps.

Are there any modern Al-driven tools or plugins?
I’ve heard of tools like iZotope RX (spectral recovery) or Adobe Podcast, but I’m wondering if there are newer, music-specific AI models that handle the complex transients of DnB better.
Any tips on specific workflows or software would be greatly appreciated!

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on how to restore or "upscale" some old Drum 'n' Bass livestream recordings from 2015.

The files are in mp3 format, and the compression is quite heavy: one file is about 70 MB for a 2-hour set, which puts it at roughly 80 kbps.

Are there any modern Al-driven tools or plugins?
I’ve heard of tools like iZotope RX (spectral recovery) or Adobe Podcast, but I’m wondering if there are newer, music-specific AI models that handle the complex transients of DnB better.
Any tips on specific workflows or software would be greatly appreciated!

It's an interesting problem. Ignoring AI solutions, I'd say that reversing such high levels of compression is extremely difficult, because what's discarded is content "the brain doesn't need to interpret the sounds". Putting them back requires you to know what's missing.

An AI solution might achieve something if trained heavily on the specific band. It would learn what the bass, percussion instruments normally sound like and replace the missing sonics with what "should normally be there". But it's not really recovering the missing sonics so much as pasting in alternative, similar sonics.

 

[Bow_Wazoo]

I checked the spectrum analysis, and the roll-off starts at 16 kHz. Being 46, that's likely where my hearing hits a hard limit anyway.
Maybe I should take a completely different approach: there’s still Mixcloud Pro or Premium. Perhaps the bitrate is a bit higher there.

Mixcloud

www.mixcloud.com

 

[AndyMorris]

I'm looking for advice on how to restore or "upscale" some old Drum 'n' Bass livestream recordings from 2015.

I'm interested in any solution that comes up but it also raises a philosophical point:

What are we trying to restore to? DnB records hardly have an untreated note in them. DnB DJs, much like Reggae DJs use the sound system, reverb, echo and equalization to make the sound their own, pirate radio (I'm that old) and streaming DJs do the same. And they do it with the bandwidth in mind.

So there is no 'real' sound to be recovered. what you have is the artifact that the DJ put out.

The nearest to a 'real' DnB sound would be listening in a packed club, to a speaker stack the size of a fitted kitchen. Not something one could recreate at home, unless you lived on an island, or maybe Norfolk.

Of course old 78s and old Jamaican pressings are a completely different thing and can be vastly improved. </Irony>

 

[Bow_Wazoo]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on how to restore or "upscale" some old Drum 'n' Bass livestream recordings from 2015.

The files are in aac+ format, and the compression is quite heavy: one file is about 70 MB for a 2-hour set, which puts it at roughly 64 kbps.

Are there any modern Al-driven tools or plugins?
I’ve heard of tools like iZotope RX (spectral recovery) or Adobe Podcast, but I’m wondering if there are newer, music-specific AI models that handle the complex transients of DnB better.
Any tips on specific workflows or software would be greatly appreciated!

As I have just learned, Mixcloud uses AAC+ at 64 kbps by default.