How do I remove distorted bass sounds.

Chris H wrote on 6/12/2004, 9:57 PM
I recorded some music played through a PA system and the bass was very loud. Every time the bass plays it is so loud I get distortion. Is there some way to remove this using EQ or any other audio tool? If I can't remove all of it, how do I at least get this audio to sound better? I am using Vegas 4.0. Thanks for any suggestions.

Chris

Comments

farss wrote on 6/12/2004, 11:00 PM
I'm far from an expert but in general if it's distorted then that's very hard to get rid of. Question is do you have clipped peaks, in that case the Clipped Peaks restoration tool in SF MAY help. As I understand it, the clipped low frequency component will contain lots of nasty harmonics and EQing them out is going to affect much of the rest of it.
I'd imagine there maybe other approaches but they may involve a fair bit of work, maybe some magic could be done with multiband dynamics.
MJhig wrote on 6/12/2004, 11:16 PM
If there is serious distortion that's probably going to be the deal breaker. No amount of (in Sound Forge) Clipped Peak Restoration, Penciling, Repair > Replace is going to even make it acceptable.

IF, you can solve the clipping/distortion with one of the above then you can try the Vegas track compressor lowering the gain with a low shelf up to say 450 Hz +/- 100 Hz but this is going to kill any other instrument in this range also most notably the kick if there is one.

You may be able to set the attack up to 40 mS to let the kick attack through in a compressor (preferably a Multi-band with the first band set to about 450 low shelf again) and bringing the threshold down but other instruments in this range are going to be affected again.

MJ
tornadosm wrote on 6/13/2004, 3:01 AM
I use a rocktron basis rack mount pre amp. I have to have it quite low and then it is trial and error. But it works..... I have pluged the bass into the PA and have the same problem. too loud. I am thinkin that any pre amp or dsp will help with the volume b/c you can lower each individual preset. I hope this helps..........
Cold wrote on 6/13/2004, 9:32 AM
Was the distortion analog or digital? Did it happen at the preamp stage or at the converter stage? Analog distortion is much tougher (if not impossible) to fix. Clipped peak restoration in soundforge can do quite a bit to fix digital distortion. You may just have to take this as a hard learned lesson and be more carefull recording next time.
Steve S.