distortion filter

L

Ldogg

Active member
I'm in a time bust for a documentary promotional trailer... to be viewed by private individuals (not big audio formats is what I'm trying to say), and I have a quick question about distortion and filters.

I have a few crucial sound bytes that when originally recorded clipped out a bit. To be very clear, they clipped when being recorded, but they are not at the clipping level in FCP which is what I am editing on.

My question is... Is there a FCP audio filter that I can apply that will knock out the distortion at the highest volumes?

I have been playing with the "high shelf" filter and it seems to help...but certainly takes away a little of the "brilliance" in the subjects voice.

is there a better way to do this?

Thanks...and I'm very new to this so please take it easy on me!!
 
Short answer no. Filters wont have much effect. However I have had some luck with Sound Soap 2, using the crackle/pop remover. What happened was that either your mic or Preamp clipped and now you have some squared off waveforms and you need to round them off so your not getting all the harmonics. For whatever reason SS2 seems to work. It's by BIAS and I believe is AU along with VST, RTAS. It's $99 though often more in the $80 range.
SK
 
Thanks for the advice. I'll order the program tomorrow. I also have Pro tools and sound track pro, but I am not as familiar with how to use them as FCP. Is that process something I can do in protools/STP?
 
Fixing Clipping or distortion

Fixing Clipping or distortion

I'm a Protools guy and work with it alot everyday and have not had the best results when trying to fix clipping. You can use dinr and can get it cheap if you upgrade to 7.1 you get the choise of three plugins of which one is dinr, otherwise its $500 and its not so easy to learn. Peak can be successful with a certain level of distortion and is prett easy to learn. Clipping is hard to cure and the only success I've had curing anything beyond a few clicks is using Sound Track Pro. I had a client that shoots golf and they butchered the audio. They have two narrators and sound effects and some music leadins going on with the background ambient noise. One of the mics had a loose antena wire and caused lots of nosie and clipping to take place. I spent 6hours trying to cure it in peak and protools with no avail. I have sound track pro and said I'll give it a try. After three hours working with effects I discovered that noise gate can cure a large amount of clipping to my surprise. The audio I brought in was recorded with one channel higher than the other. This is what you want, so if both tracks are equal then adjust one down 30% before bringing it into STP, the cleanest track down. The reason for this is Noise Gate with the right settings will rebuild both tracks bringing the higher track down and the low track up and equaling them out. I was amazed that this process seems to work for clipping. These are the setting that I came up with.
Threshold -16B
Reduction -5db
Attack -22ms
Hold -450ms
Release 207ms
Hysteresis -15db
Lookahead 4.8ms
Sidechain Off
High Cut 2300hz
Low Cut 69hz
I hope that this helps you out and that you can enjoy some success with these settings and cure your problem.

:) mt
 
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I'll vouch for DINR as well - probably the best broadband noise reduction plug I've used. Regarding how to use it with Final Cut, check what your audio settings are in final cut - write them down. Make an in to out selection that is just the audio part you need.

Create your protools session with the same audio settings as your FCP project and import the audio file. Use Audiosuite DINR on it to remove as much of the problem as possible (or redraw the waveform if you have to), reconsolidate the audio region as all one peice (make sure it is the same size as the original audio you brought into protools), hit Export As Audio File (Shift+CMD+K) make it an aiff at the same rate/depth as the FCP project and ProTools session, import it back into FCP and snap it into position under the original. Mute the original, and It should match if you've followed the steps.

Good luck!
 
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