SOUND FORGE Audio Cleaning Lab can be used to record any sound you can hear on your computer - from internet radio to LPs and tapes which have been connected to the sound card. When recording older material, particularly when it has been stored on vinyl or cassette, it is likely that the sound quality has deteriorated over time. Using this program you can remove any unwanted extraneous noise such as clicks, pops and hisses and generally improve the overall audio experience working with an easy to use interface.

Of course, you don't need to record audio either. You can simply import an existing track of segment of music for processing, before exporting the final track.

Audio Cleaning Lab will remove unwanted sections from a recording, increase the volume of quiet tracks and split longer recording up into multiple sections - in fact, Audio Cleaning Lab can take care of much of this for you automatically. A great level of control is available through the use of a graphic equaliser that can be used to balance out tone, while additional options are available to improve the quality of video sound, reduce the volume of background music on vocal tracks and much more besides.

Don't worry, most of the options are presets which you can select to improve or clean your audio. There are options to reduce tape noise from old cassettes, reduce crackling from your LPs, remove wind noise from recorded voice, and even create your own presets to use later. You can increase the loudness of the track, increase the stereo width, add various special effects and much more.

If you've been looking for a way to digitise your music collection, Audio Cleaning Labs Deluxe may just be the tool you have been looking for. In a few simple steps you can record music to your computer, enhance its sound and then export the results as high-quality MP3s/OGG/FLAC/AAC and other formats that can be played back on a variety of devices.

Review by Chris Wiles.