Audio restoration

I'll get straight to the point. Couple of days ago, I bumped into some .mp3 files, extracted music from "Freelancer" to be precise, the thing is,
those files were badly compressed and the sound quality was very poor. Generally I would have just ignored the problem, but in this case,
I couldn't just leave these files in the way they are. The main reason for this is the music itself, it was quite nice.

And suddenly I was struck with this looney thought, maybe there is some way to increase the overall quality by some special decompressing techniques and/or restoration software. In Sound Forge 8.0, I've tried to edit the streams in 32-bit resolution, used some DirectX filters like Smooth/Enhance, but unfortunately, results of my experiments were not that consolatory.

I'm not much of a sound engineer so I don't know all the aspects of sound restoration, this is why I'm posting here. It would be very useful to know the basics. And to do something with those source files in my disposal

Here's a couple of samples to give an idea, with what I am dealing with. They are in "untouched" quality - 80 kbps bitrate, and 22 kHz frequency. Exactly in the way they were in the game.

Most amazing jew boots

Here's an interesting link: http://www.team-gizka.org/2005-04-03.html
At the very bottom, there is an "Music Restoration" article, there is also an archive with samples and a text document.

And it has to be said, results of that restore is quite impressive.
This is proving, that it is possible to get good results even from a very limited source.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

@ Soluzar
That restored sample sounded better in my opinion, though not too significant... at least it's more listenable.
Restoration is all about removing imperfections like hiss, noise and sound anomalies. I understand, that it's not possible to replace the missing data.


@ Spikey
I have listened to those samples, and in comparison, that's definitely an improvement. Though there is some hiss in the remastered version.

Also, could you provide more details about the trick you mentioned?
Better yet, could you try your method on those attached files in the first post?
I'm just curious, what is possible to do.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Thanks for the effort Killy, I really appreciate it. As for the sample... well, let's just say it didn't turned out that well.

Most recently I've been examining more articles on this matter, with more theories than practical suggestions. If I manage to do some progress in this area, I'm sure to post here right away.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I haven't abandoned the thread, I've just decided to take a little break.

Also, here's my current progress with Freelancer restoration. Comments please. Personally I'm really satisfied with results. I will do a little more exploration on working with audio editor's, might even try to do a gamerip. Who knows.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Soluzar

I will admit that there's a bit more stereo in some of these samples. I'll also admit that the Freelancer music is fairly nice, and worth a listen. I just don't think the gains outweigh the losses though. When you're recompressing a lossy MP3 to another lossy MP3, you will lose quality.

Isn't something like this more likely to offer the better quality you're looking for? Are there tracks which exist in the game but are not on the OST?

http://music.msn.com/album/?album=39728626

I have this soundtrack (courtesy of bishop743). The point is, it contains almost all music that is written by Visual Music and James Hannigan, but it totally misses out these bar themes, written by Andrew Sega.

Additional Spam:

Originally Posted by evilboris

To topic starter - what you are trying to do is mathematically impossible to do. All you can do is adding some filters to increase percieved quality, but you cannot restore data lost by lossy compression, in any way.

I'm not trying to return files to they're original state, I'm trying to make the music a bit more listenable. Just for the sake of musical experience (:

Most amazing jew boots

If I to cut it a bit more, there will be not much of a music left. Couple of clicks here and there are okay by me (:

Anyway, it's the way original file was and I really don't want to mess with that.

Most amazing jew boots