audio restoration help needed

rs170a wrote on 5/22/2015, 8:35 AM

I recorded a banquet last week and, for whatever reason, one speaker's voice clips a fair bit. The level on him was ok which makes this very frustrating. I have iZotope RX4 as well as Sound Forge Pro 11 and Adobe Audition at my disposal. I've tried running it through all of them in an attempt to reduce the clipping but I must be doing something wrong as nothing I try reduces the "crunchiness" of the voice.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Here's a link to a sample file

Mike

Comments

Grazie wrote on 5/22/2015, 9:01 AM

On the case Mike!

Grazie

rs170a wrote on 5/22/2015, 9:02 AM

Thanks Grazie. Good luck!!

Mike

Grazie wrote on 5/22/2015, 9:13 AM

Mike? I'm being stoopid . . how do I download it?

G

rs170a wrote on 5/22/2015, 9:14 AM

Grazie, try a "right click - save link as" and see if that works.

Mike

Grazie wrote on 5/22/2015, 9:16 AM

Uh-huh . . . . That did it.

G

larry-peter wrote on 5/22/2015, 9:33 AM

I didn't have much time before I started my work day, but I wanted to see what you had.
The clipping seems to originate from an earlier part of the audio chain - as you said the camera recording is not clipped. It's broadband in that the components are quite present from around 600Hz through 15kHz.

I only have RX1, and its tools aren't helping much with this.

Although I generally avoid Sound Forge's "smooth/enhance" like the plague, it works fairly well as a quick fix for this type of distortion that I hear from wireless systems at times. Apply it only to the phrases that exhibit the distortion. Here's what I got with a quick pass with smooth set to 4.

clipping2.wav

Another pass of EQ to restore a bit of sibilance would probably help make it usable.

Edit: My use of "phrases" may be misleading. I only applied it to the syllables where the distortion was present, plus a 2db gain to make up the volume loss.

Grazie wrote on 5/22/2015, 9:45 AM

Oh my . .. That is intense Distortion. I can't see clipping. I can only see and hear Distortion.

G

Grazie wrote on 5/22/2015, 9:46 AM

That's pretty good Atom! - I can see a bunch of Harmonics.

G

rraud wrote on 5/22/2015, 10:11 AM

Input stage distortion, so the typical 'clipped peak' type restore won't work well.

Grazie wrote on 5/22/2015, 10:23 AM

I think this is "getting" there.

There's that Harmonic, and I can redux some more of that "distortion".

Grazie

larry-peter wrote on 5/22/2015, 10:43 AM

That's sounding much improved. Other than the last word, the distortion isn't too objectionable and is retaining the intelligibility better than my attempt.

rs170a wrote on 5/22/2015, 10:47 AM

All I can is WOW!! This is a great community with very helpful and knowledgeable users willing to share their expertise.

Grazie, your fix is a lot better than anything I've been able to do.
Can you share your settings with me somehow? I have to process an 8 1/2 min. segment and I don't want you to have to do all my work :)

Semi off topic, is there a way to pause playback in RX like we can in Vegas? I've gone through the manual and online help and can't find a keystroke for it. Thanks.

Edit: found what I wanted under "Transport - Playhead Returns on Stop". Disable this and I have what I wanted.

Mike

Grazie wrote on 5/22/2015, 10:52 AM

You have MAIL!

G

rs170a wrote on 5/22/2015, 10:56 AM

Got it and replied. Thanks!!

Mike