Enhance badly converted 128kbps mp3 samples

Question

i have very old recordings of songs (from my own bands) for which i don't have the source anymore and which have been badly converted to a bad quality mp3 (128kbps)

I know that's all wrong but i was young and innocent (and the source quality was quite bad too)

I would like to 'clean' them a little, especially trying to remove the very ugly small artefacts we all know coming from bad mp3 quality (you know, the little treble sound that seems turning in the background)

Is there a way to try and remove such artefacts without losing too much of the sound ? EQ ways ? plugins ?

I know it won't be perfect but i would prefer losing quality by removing these ugly sounds rather than keeping a quite good balance but with treble bees turning in the ears ! :)

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Well, you will lose quality - there is no way to gain it back from 128kbps files. A simple filter can roll off your high pitched 'jangles' but because they have elements across multiple frequencies you aren't going to get rid of them all.

So give a low pass filter a try or use a treble reducer (similar effect in this type of scenario) and you might get a slight improvement.