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Topic: Fixing "very loud" music that clicks? (Read 8281 times) previous topic - next topic
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Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

I don't know what this problem is called, but I am sure it is common so I need a bit of help.

I taped my friend's wedding for him and downloaded the tape to my PC. Any time the emcee speaks, the sound gets very staticy, I am assuming because it is too loud. I have tried clip removal, lowering the sound, nothing works. I feel really lousy because I assured my friend I'd give him a great video.

I extracted a WAV of the event and I would like to know what someone can recommend so I can fix this problem. Thanks a million. I am using Windows XP if that helps.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #1 –
Clipping is likely, distortion due to overloading the microphone preamp is also likely. Neither can be 'fixed' but sometimes it is possible to improve results somewhat. Nothing is going to give you what a good recording would have been. You need to work on copies, and use undo liberally, as you experiment for the best product.

Clipping repair is problematic at best. You may need to do peaks individually to get best results in some cases. This can be too tedious and time consuming to be worthwhile when there is enough of the problem.

There were a number of threads on clipping in the past half year. Several people suggested software that, in their view, provides superior results.  Some of those threads were here, some were in this forum
http://www.audioforums.com/forums/

Some distortion, mainly harmonic, can be ameliorated by filtering out some highs. This might also work for some clipping, but I haven't really dealt with clipping, so you have to do the experiments. For distortion "repair" I usually use a Butterworth filter (low pass), 1st to 3rd order. There are quite a few other types of filters. The FFT filter can provide a very complete filtering beyond the cutoff with virtually no effect below it.

The cutoff frequency depends entirely on the segment of audio you are working with. It might be 10kHz, 8kHz, 4kHz. For speech, you can often go quite low and maintain clear comprehension. It may sound different, but it can work. You have to decide what makes an acceptable compromise.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #2 –
If you have the right software, there is a variation of ‘Younglove decrackling’ that can help with some distortion (my experience is mainly with LP transfers). It might even help with some clipping. I don’t have the energy to go into that right now without some assurance that it can actually be useful to you. Instructions would be for using CoolEdit/Audition with the Clickfix and Sonic Foundry NR 2 plug ins. Those later two are probably not necessary, but you would have to work out the parameter values to use Audition’s declicking. Other audio editors are also most likely quite useable, but I could only give general instructions.

Your problem might also be related to the system generating some noise under those conditions. Noise Reduction, properly applied, might be helpful.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #3 –
Yeah, I am not too worried about the sound being strange, as long as the "clipping" is gone. The emcee can sound like he's underwater for all I care, the clipping is very noticable and nasty, so I'd take anything!

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #4 –
Does that “take anything” mean you want recommendations on what software to buy? What is a reasonable amount for you to spend on this project? Do you think you might list what you already have, to see if I, or anyone else, knows it those programs contain useful tools? Were my comments about filters too sparse for you to start some experimentation?

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: AndyH-ha on
Does that “take anything” mean you want recommendations on what software to buy? What is a reasonable amount for you to spend on this project? Do you think you might list what you already have, to see if I, or anyone else, knows it those programs contain useful tools? Were my comments about filters too sparse for you to start some experimentation?


I have Sony Vegas and Sound Forge, Audacity, Cool Edit, and that's about it. If there's something in any of those programs (click/pop restoration didn't do it!) that I may be missing I'd greatly appreciate an opinion.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: DaddyLongLegs on
I taped my friend's wedding for him and downloaded the tape to my PC. Any time the emcee speaks, the sound gets very staticy, I am assuming because it is too loud. I have tried clip removal, lowering the sound, nothing works. I feel really lousy because I assured my friend I'd give him a great video.


You downloaded it to the computer. Downloaded is a much over-used term and doesn't give us any idea about the exact process you used. Was it a digital tape or was it analog? If it was analog then it's called "capture" not download and the problem probably only occured during capture and be easily fixed by re-capturing it with the line-in levels properly adjusted. If it's a digital tape then the clipping has already occured at recording time as Andy has mentioned and is much harder to fix.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: AndyH-ha on
Clipping is likely, distortion due to overloading the microphone preamp is also likely


Andy this sounds worse than just clipping (as in flat tops). The"very loud" clicks OP describes sound like they may be actual phase reversals! Some pre-amps actually phase reverse (from full scale +ive to full scale -ive or visa versa) when the input is overloaded. This is by far the nastiest overload distortion that you can get and something I've personally seen on several soundcard line-in inputs. I'd be very surprised however if any self respecting video camera mic amplifier design would do anything that nasty which kind of makes me suspect that OP actually transfered this from an analog source and got phase reversal overloads on his line-in. Hopefully OP can clarify this.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: DaddyLongLegs on
I don't know what this problem is called, but I am sure it is common so I need a bit of help.

I taped my friend's wedding for him and downloaded the tape to my PC. Any time the emcee speaks, the sound gets very staticy, I am assuming because it is too loud. I have tried clip removal, lowering the sound, nothing works. I feel really lousy because I assured my friend I'd give him a great video.

I extracted a WAV of the event and I would like to know what someone can recommend so I can fix this problem. Thanks a million. I am using Windows XP if that helps.


Can you post a screenshot of how the waveform looks in Cool Edit, or even a sound clip of the audio?

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: 500W on
Quote from: DaddyLongLegs on

I don't know what this problem is called, but I am sure it is common so I need a bit of help.

I taped my friend's wedding for him and downloaded the tape to my PC. Any time the emcee speaks, the sound gets very staticy, I am assuming because it is too loud. I have tried clip removal, lowering the sound, nothing works. I feel really lousy because I assured my friend I'd give him a great video.

I extracted a WAV of the event and I would like to know what someone can recommend so I can fix this problem. Thanks a million. I am using Windows XP if that helps.


Can you post a screenshot of how the waveform looks in Cool Edit, or even a sound clip of the audio?


Thanks! Here is an actual sound clip from the video. Again this problem only happens when the emcee is screaming into the microphone. It does not show up with loud music or even when people scream right into my microphone.

http://members.aol.com/filesftp/wedding.wav

The tape is a digital tape and was downloaded digitally. The problem is on the tape.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #10 –
The problem looks to me as if there was distortion in the analogue realm and then that clipped badly going A to D, but I don’t have a lot of experience with that to draw on.

While it isn’t really intended for this kind of problem, this result is from one pass of the most basic manual click removal using CoolEdit. I’m sure it can be refined, but my schedule is very full for the next six hours and I have to run as soon as possible.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=56825

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #11 –
Leaving was delayed. There is now another sample with the first one. I tried this with one pass of CoolEdit auto declicking (using a preset I developed years ago). I also high and low pass filtered to make some general improvements (to my hearing). This still leaves a segment starting about 00:04.360 with some "static" for manual intervention, but is overall less effort than the first try,especially if you have very much of this to do.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: AndyH-ha on
Leaving was delayed. There is now another sample with the first one. I tried this with one pass of CoolEdit auto declicking (using a preset I developed years ago). I also high and low pass filtered to make some general improvements (to my hearing). This still leaves a segment starting about 00:04.360 with some "static" for manual intervention, but is overall less effort than the first try,especially if you have very much of this to do.


The second one sounds fantastic. I happen to have Cool Edit. I tried basic "declicking" but it didn't help at all. Is there any other recommendation you can give me? Luckily this guy's loud mouth isn't much of the video

Thanks again man.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #13 –
Quote
The second one sounds fantastic. I happen to have Cool Edit. I tried basic "declicking" but it didn't help at all. Is there any other recommendation you can give me? Luckily this guy's loud mouth isn't much of the video


Agree, I thought AndyH-ha's was a nice job.

This may be a little less subtle, but see what you think.

In Cool Edit under
effects > filters > scientific filters:



Just a brief experiment (may be too harsh) but it gets rid of the distortion.

That's my two-penny's worth.

Rachel.
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #14 –
If you find the results satisfactory, my use of CoolEdit should be easy to duplicate. It does not directly address the clipping, it only tries to ameliorate the symptoms. I did not try alternate settings for anything, I just used my first guess, so you may well be able to do better by experimenting a little. At least first try these operations on the same sample to be sure you get the same result.

First I applied a high pass filter to reduce some of the unpleasant hard boominess. Some of that was probably from clipping ,some from other causes. I used the FFT filter but the Scientific Filter will also do a satisfactory job. Probably other choices are also easy enough to set up, such as the parametric EQ.

You can modify the FFT high pass preset to match what I used by double clicking on the control points (not the end points). Enter the cutoff into "frequency," Click on OK. I used 200Hz for both. Set the FFT size to 24000 for maximum precision. Experiment all you want if you don't like that result.

Using a high pass filter this way, on only part of your file, can make for a definite and unpleasant transition into and/or out of that part. This can be avoided by adjusting the selection boundaries. They are best placed into a section with little or no significant audio: a short pause or a low level second with little happening somewhere close to the beginning (same for the ending). After this selection is made, do Edit/Zero Crossings/Adjust Selection Outward (or inward, or do each side separately, as seems most appropriate). Then apply the filter to that selection.

Next I ran  Click/Pop Eliminator.
sensitivity      10      
discrimination   20      
max threshold   -16.1   20
avg threshold   -33.1   20
min threshold   -74.9   20
second level verification         
pulse train verification         
link channels         
smooth light crackle   X         
detect big pops         
multiple passes   8
Correction:   
FFT size      8      
pop oversamples   2      
run size      1

I would not use these settings for very many projects. This is definitely a special case.

Finally I ran a Scientific low pass filter
Butterworth
cutoff      6000Hz
order      1
no gain

If you look where I indicated audible static still exists, in Spectral view you will see vertical ‘bars' occurring over about 50 millisecond duration. The problem sound here can be reduced with Fill Single Click applied individually to each of those vertical areas -- if you want to bother.

Zoom in close enough to easily see and work with the individual clicks. Do the selection by putting the cursor in the center of one, then pressing the left arrow key to make a small selection in the middle of the ‘bar.' Apply Fill single Click with
FFT size      128      
pop oversamples   20      
run size      25

Other values may work as well or better, but I almost never bother with experimenting anymore. Those parameter values are one of the two sets I use most often. Once applied to the first click, F3 will apply it again as long as you haven't done some other transform since the last Fill Single Click (I have several ‘Favorites' key stroke combinations set up for this tool so that I never have to go into the dialogue).

If the bar is still rather bright (quite a bit of yellow in the lower frequencies (assuming default colors)), just apply again without changing the selection.

When you are done with all the clicks in this immediate area, the amplitude will be significantly reduced over that section. Some improvement can be made by selecting the entire duration you just manually declicked and Amplifying by a few dB. Adjust to zero crossings after you make the selection, before applying Amplify.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #15 –
Thank you so much for your help.

I managed to figure out everything except the first step and everything came out great. Saved my ass from having to tell my friend his video sounds like ass.

Thanks again! You guys are great.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #16 –
Pointing out the particular part(s) of the first step instructions that were unclear might help me refine my communication next time.

Fixing "very loud" music that clicks?

Reply #17 –
Use Nero WaveEditor 3 -> declipper.