Using audacity (can’t afford soundforge!), it does have some way of identifying clipping. also interesting to see how much dynamic range / recording quality has improved in the last 20 years (though most of my recent stuff is all digital)

This is a decent plugin for getting rid of clicks and pops on vinyl transfers (and much more). Obviously won’t help your SNR when you record but it will let you make the most of your headroom once it’s on the machine.

@General Lighting 474805 wrote:

lol I’ve found that too (also its a nightmare getting enough headroom but stopping surface noise etc clipping the audio, any suggestions to avoid this?)

Wave’s have some very good restoration vst’s … I mainly use the anti noise one for samples with alot of background noise in. It can totally remove it so you can’t hear an ounce of noise but at this level you loose some of the sound … it’s not noticeable unless you listen to both versions back to back. (this is with really badly effected samples .. so probably not as harsh on the original sound if it’s only lite noise … ). They have a crackle remover etc. as well, never tried that though, but if it’s as good as the noise remover then it’s worth looking into.

Audacity is a great program for recording, I’ve used it for years. Unfortunately it doesn’t stretch much further then that.