Help Fixing Clipping

[m0nst3r]

My band recently messed around with recording, and the drummer's snare did some serious clipping. There's a nice sounding crackle when it clips, and I was just wondering if there was a way to get rid of it. I tried messing with recording a bit, but I had no success. I'm using Adobe Audition, and if anyone knows a way to get rid of or drastically reduce the crackle/clipping, that'd be a great. I've attached a short clip in order to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Turn down the mic gain on the mics around his kit?

Stick a compressor/limiter in there before the recording stage?

Move the mic away from the drums a bit?

 

[projectMalamute]

Turn down the mic gain on the mics around his kit?

Stick a compressor/limiter in there before the recording stage?

Move the mic away from the drums a bit?

All good things to do, but I think we are talking about trying to repair a track that has already been recorded, no?

You are probably pretty much stuck with this, watch the levels more carefully the next time you track.

If this is a multi-track recording and if the distortion is mostly only on one track(most likely the close mic on the snare) you might be able to do some surgery. First thing would be to just get that track out of the mix, I've done plenty of recordings with just the overheads on a drum kit that came out pretty good.

 

[hunta]

The only real option to fix clipping after the fact, is to do a drum trigger replacement. You can use something like drumagog to do this "automagically" (I've never used it), or there are ways to do it manually as well.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

All good things to do, but I think we are talking about trying to repair a track that has already been recorded, no?

You are probably pretty much stuck with this, watch the levels more carefully the next time you track.

If this is a multi-track recording and if the distortion is mostly only on one track(most likely the close mic on the snare) you might be able to do some surgery. First thing would be to just get that track out of the mix, I've done plenty of recordings with just the overheads on a drum kit that came out pretty good.

Ah right, i missed that

 

[metallinostheos]

Don't know if this will work for you, but it worked for taking out some of the clipping that my bass was doing on a track we had recorded. I imported the .wav file into Audacity and saw the bass track was clipped at the levels recorded. On the left side, there is a -,+ level adjuster. If you take it down some decibles and re-save the wave file, it will take the clipped levels down and put them into regular volume levels.

Like I said, I don't know if it will work for your track, but it's worth a shot.

 

[m0nst3r]

Yea, it doesn't look like it's going to be salvageable. Oh well, live and & learn. Thanks for the suggestions people.

 

[agreatheight]

Hold on, you may be able to reduce / repair the crackle. I am not sure how much different Audition is from Adobe Sound Booth, but Sound Booth will let you remove / heal sounds using spectral display. While I have not used this feature to remove clipping, I have used it to remove all kinds of noises (like chirping birds from a voice over) so it may work. Maybe Audition has this feature as well...

http://www.adobe.com/products/soundbooth/?xNav=MCSB

Check out the feature tour for more.

Good luck!

 

[hunta]

There's no way to repair a drum track with digital clipping without replacing the drum sound using a MIDI drum trigger. If you'd like I can do it for you on one of your tracks just for fun. PM me if you're interested.