Fixing Overblown Audio

rodypolis

rodypolis

New member
Hey guys! I recently filmed a live show, but our mic was too close to the speakers and at some parts the audio is so loud it's distorting a lot. Is there any way I could fix that/make it better in post?

I use Sony Vegas Pro 10 and I know it has a lot of sound tools, but I'm not a sound person so I don't know the first thing that most of these tools do. What am I looking for? And how would I fix the distortion? Thanks!
 
Without hearing it, my first guess is that you're going to be out of luck fixing it.
You can try Sound Forge and its Clipped Peak Restoration tool but don't hold your breath as it may be too distorted to fix.
iZotope RX2 has a similar tool and is cheaper than Sound Forge.
I have both of these so if you can post a short clip (30 sec. or so) somewhere, I can see if either of them will help.
In the future, bring along a portable audio recorder like a Zoom H4, talk to the sound guys at the show and see if you can plug it into their audio board.
Record it with a mic as well but use this for ambience.

Mike
 
Have you added a volume envelope to the track and simply reduced the volume of the overloud bits? I find that fixes (or at least hides) quite a bit of over-loud distortion. But if the sound signal is truly distorted (rather than just too strong), then your options are limited - rs170a's suggestions are good.
 
If it proves unfixable, can you get your hands on some prerecorded tracks or albums and do some tricky mixing with crowd sounds and use that to replace the bad tracks?
 
TERRA Operative said:
If it proves unfixable, can you get your hands on some prerecorded tracks or albums and do some tricky mixing with crowd sounds and use that to replace the bad tracks?
Click to expand...

The biggest drawback to doing that (I've tried it so I speak from some experience) is that most musicians never keep the same timing on stage that they do in a recording studio so you'll always be compensating for the drift, often on a line by line basis :(

Mike
 
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