Audacity experts here? Have a question

[Melissa]

Hi guys, I've used Audacity  many times to convert mp4s with music to mp3s or mp3s to wav. but nothing else. I have some mp3s of 1930s music obviously recorded on shellac. Mostly the small pops and crackles I love and don't spoil the recording  but I've a few that have a lot of crackle and the vocals are not as clear as I'd like. I've read you can clean up the audio in Audacity but no idea how to do that. Do any of you know how to do this please?

[Keith]

Hello Melissa.

After recording your sounds on Audacity, click on "Effects" on the menu bar and look for "Click removal" and "Noise reduction". 
They are not perfect, but help a lot although the noise reduction process needs a bit of experimenting to find the best result.  You won't be able to remove the crackle (if at all) without losing the clicks, too
As for clarity of vocals:  probably not much you can do about that. 

Hope that helps a bit.
Keith

[Melissa]

Hello Melissa.

After recording your sounds on Audacity, click on "Effects" on the menu bar and look for "Click removal" and "Noise reduction". 
They are not perfect, but help a lot although the noise reduction process needs a bit of experimenting to find the best result.  You won't be able to remove the crackle (if at all) without losing the clicks, too
As for clarity of vocals:  probably not much you can do about that. 

Hope that helps a bit.
Keith

Thanks very much Keith. Well it's the background noise that's overlaying the clarity of the singing on the record so removing that may make a difference. I'll try that in a couple of days and report back how I did!

[Keith]

Removing background noise can be "interesting".  I do advise you to keep a copy of the original file - just in case. 
The trick is to find a bit of the track that has no music - just background noise - and sample that.  It usually takes me a couple attempts to get the best result as there are so many variables to fiddle with!

Good luck.
   Keith