Removing Distortion in Post

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
Hi all,

I placed a lav mic on a musicians collar not realizing that he would place his accordion over it while playing. The performance was without a break so couldn't change placement.. The audio is distorted, probably from the physical contact of the accordion on the mic (I don't believe it was clipping).

Is there any way to fix this? I tried a declipper in Audition and it helped a bit but it's still there: https://we.tl/LyrVMHWJuB

Thoughts? Thanks
 
I ran your sample through Izotope RX 6 I did a pass of declip, adaptive phase rotation, gain, and then another pass of declip. The voice was distorted but the accordion was pretty clean which tells me the voice was over modulated on the recording. Not necessarily from the mic being touched but from the mic being too close to the mouth and the gain up too high. Looking at the waveform in RX the tops and bottoms of the vocal's waves were squared off. I'll try to upload the cleaned up version.
 
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and here are before and after screenshots so you can see how the waveform was changed.
 

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EVeryone does things their own way but I would always advise recording lower rather than hotter. . .if it's TOO low when all is said and done, a little hiss/noise in the signal from being brought up to proper levels in post still usually sounds better than overmodulation.
 
Josh Bass said:
EVeryone does things their own way but I would always advise recording lower rather than hotter. . .if it's TOO low when all is said and done, a little hiss/noise in the signal from being brought up to proper levels in post still usually sounds better than overmodulation.
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+1

Audio Clipping / Over-modulation is kind of the equivalent of blowing out your whites ( highlight clipping ) when shooting video.

In both cases it's better to record at a lower level to prevent clipping, and then you can then adjust things in post to make corrections.
 
Kudos to Bernie for being a most awesome guy! Taking the time to do work that is expensive to do. Taking a hit from an NFL player can keep Bernie down!
 
davefisk said:
Kudos to Bernie for being a most awesome guy! Taking the time to do work that is expensive to do. Taking a hit from an NFL player can keep Bernie down!
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Thanks Dave!
Football season is almost upon us but I can guarantee I will not make that mistake again. I was at that stadium for X Games recently and the EMT who examined me was on duty at the skatepark. He remembered me! Had lots of comments about watching out from my colleagues.....
As I mentioned above I like taking on these challenges because it helps me become a better user of the software.
 
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