As I’ve been recording with my CI, I have accidentally kept the gain a bit high on the input with my condenser. So the recording has some clipping in the waveforms. Nothing excessive, just a few waves here and there hitting zero. Anyone have any tricks for correcting this? I’ve tried lowering the fader in the mixer, cutting the gain under audio processing, and using a low pass on the EQ (but it totally kills the tone of the music). Needless to say, the gain is going DOWN in the future.
Really once the damage is done, it’s done! Just how noticeable is the clipping? There used to be a plugin somewhere (soundforge?) that did a no bad job of recovering clipped files. Maybe some form of spectral editing (Wavelab) could help, or some de clicker restoration type thing? Or if it’s just the odd peak maybe just redraw the thing!!!
Kind of what I’m saying, once the damage is done!!!
I can’t really tell from the screenshots as there is no detail on the edits at that zoom level. Sometimes it’s just better to either redo or to except the damage and live with it. As I said maybe some form of spectral editing as offered in wavelab for example may just help. Bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut though
As another thought, It may be possible to use a steep low pass filter on just the clipped component using off line processing! Use a filter with the steepest cutoff you can find, preferably a linear filter, use the range tool to select the clipped component select the filter in offline mode and use the preview to loop round the clip and set the cutoff point untill it seems any hi freq artifacts (clicks, distortion) are dealt with. then process. You may then need to fit the process bit back into the complete sound for minimal damage. Maybe a cut and very small crossfade or cut and slide. You may have to try this several times to find the optimal point, but if you can get it to work then the EQ points will be the same for the other clips too.
This should round off the flat peak clip in a nicer way without running a severe hi pass EQ over the whole component.
I don’t think that my Cubase version can run in offline mode. If it can I don’t know how. What I’ve been trying so far is using a filter, specifically this one http://freemusicsoftware.org/734, as a plugin to dampen the clip. The problem is that it totally annihilates my sound. I swear, this clipping is barely audible on just a couple of the big waves. It’s hardly worth compromising the quality of my piece to take care of.
I also tried redrawing the wave again. I used the range selection tool to highlight the slim clipping wave, and gained it (by processing) to -2. That allowed me to draw back the clipped wave in a symmetrical form. But it sounded just as bad as when I first started!!
Right now, I’m thinking about downloading audacity, and using their clip correcter feature. I might also trial Wavelab or Soundforge Pro 10. But one thing is for dang sure: I will be turning that bloody gain knob down next time!!
When I say Offline I mean the Audio Processing bit, and just to try applying the filter to the immediately clipped part of the file so as to try and reduce any hi frequency splurge from the squared off wave.
Sorry Split, the filter’s just not working for me. I’ve done a few test recordings today to investigate this issue, and it seems that in the future I’ll need to turn the gain on the condenser input all the way down. I’ll give spectrum editing a try in either Wavelab or Soundforge Pro, but not sure how well this is gonna work since the clipping is audible but not visible when I export from Cubase into Wavelab LE!!! Nothings ever easy to correct these days. A five second mistake takes hours to correct.
BTW, congrats on your new rank of grand senior!! You deserve it brother!!!
That was my first thought, once the damage is done…
Lessons learnt and all that, sounds like you need a Pad, I take it your preamp/interface doesn’t have the ability to pad the input or the microphone doesn’t have a -10 switch or anything like that?
Unfortunately, neither my interface nor my mic has a pad. So first I’m gonna try Audacity’s clipfix. Then spectrum editing. I think that ANY decent clip correction tool should be able to fix this, because sometimes, it’s barely audible!! You would think that Cubase would have something decent to fix minor clipping, but the best treatment is always the same: prevention. But then lazy folks like myself don’t want to re-record after assembling ten different takes into one event!!
Even with gain all the way down, my hardest bang will send the meters up to zero. In the absence of a pad, I might need to use a limiter. But I can’t complain about my CO1 being too sensitive; I’ve found it to be an incredible mic for $65.
I’ll play with it a little more, and get back with you later and let you know what fixed it. Meanwhile, I get to record with the brand new 1.6.2 driver for my CI…
Hey Bane,
Is it just a vocal track that you’re trying to correct? Here’s 2 thoughts.
1 Can’t you just re-record a bar of that section and splice it in?
2 If the part that you’re trying to fix occurs more than once in the track where it’s not clipping, just cut and paste that section into the clipped section.
Right. It’s pretty tough to send the signal peaking without any gain from the CI, so for the time being I won’t worry about a pad. When I’m that desperate, I’ll probably get a microphone with that feature. I don’t know how to build a pad, but after a quick Google I will.
@Suprawill: I’m recording piano and thought of the same things. The problem is, in other takes the clipping is present too. If not, then I didn’t hammer out the chord well enough. Like I said earlier, since it’s such a pain to set up the equipment and record again, I really don’t want to re-record since the damage is so minor. But I will check my other takes again anyway. After all, I do have only 12 more tracks to record. If yall have any other ideas for correcting, please share!!
A five second mistake takes hours to correct. 
Like I said earlier, since it’s such a pain to set up the equipment and record again, I really don’t want to re-record since the damage is so minor. But I will check my other takes again anyway. After all, I do have only 12 more tracks to record. If yall have any other ideas for correcting, please share!!