If they truly are clicks, the noise reduction has a click removal plugin that is almost perfect in its ability to remove clicks. However, the "click" has to be of very short duration for the algorithms to work.

VINYL TIP:
Before I got Noise Reduction I rescued a few vinyl albums with Sound Forge.
Zoom way in on the click, select it and mute it. If it's short enough (most are) no one can hear the break. You can also do it for one channel only.
Tor

Thanks Torsie,

I'm trying everything now.

I've re-re- tried Clipped Peak Restoration; Click 'n Crackle; Vinyl Restoration. I've had a modicum of success.

I've even tried resampling bass, treble and high sections and re-created in a single WAV. This has meant laying down each of the resampled tracks. As a result, I appear to be getting cleaner "depth" than the original . . . .

Is it better than the original? Marginal.

Well, I've learnt a lot from this experience. Biggest thing has been to do it correct first off - yeah?

Hey Guys, thanks for all the support and suggestions - give yourselves a round of applause!

Grazie

Grazie,
You mentioned something about making a slideshow. Do you have good audio of this band at all? And good video, but they are not the same stretch?
Well, lay some good audio on your timeline and drop bits of video around. slow it down, manipulate it in all possible and impossible ways, but make some bits of it look like it's in sync. Go wild, boy.
Tor

Oh YES we do WILD!

This is exactly what I envisage I will need to do. I think I alluded to this futher up this thread - mind you my memory is not what it was . . my memory is not what it was . . . . However, being a Community Event I can also PiP some of the inteviews and have the youngsters, as it were, "backing" this sequence, against what the interviews are saying. - yeah? Oh yes, Torsie, there are a lot of options. I can partially "mute" off the bad bits of audio, but still have them moving within the video AND have the talking heads working.

In short I do have other options . . .

Grazie

You've seen On the Waterfront, I'm sure? Just when Marlon Brando is giving away the secret, a big train goes by - no one hears anything. This community event, by the way - was it far from Heatrow?
Tor

<Enter second brain cell>
Have you thought about copying one verse (or part thereof) and use it to replace the bad part? Works wonderfully, unless they're playing Bolero. That kind of thing is easier to do in Sound Forge, but I've done it in Vegas too.
Tor Manipula

Torsie - Your second brain cell is MASSIVE!!!

Well, first off, you've given me a grand permission . . yeah? I'd been so tied-down to the technology that I lost sight of the "other" possibilities. THANK YOU!

Gawd, i wish you were sitting next to me, we would be having oodles of fun on this on. And yes, OTWF fav movie - yeah? Now that I'm outta techie mode the World's my oyster!!!

Near Heathrow? About 15 miles away - yeah?

We have about 120 different languages in our area I'm gonna get as many as I can translated to the word I'm needing and use this as a rolling ROle of Honour type of thing while the movie is playing. Hoooooo o o .. . so much fun!

Cheers,

Grazie

Grazie, I have no idea if this can help your distortion problems...however:

For any kind of music, I have a standard mix I use to improve my onboard mic on a TRV900:

First, I take the audio track, convert to mono (using a free filter rather than an intermediate render), do a low-pass cut and a high-pass cut, then compress it at about 3:1. I'm basically trying to extract the vocals into a center channel. I may have to turn down the input and/or output gain to keep it from being too hot, i.e., I want to keep the compressor always active and outputting below 0db.

Then I take the original audio track to a second track, to which I boost the highs and lows, compress it at about 1.5:1, widen it (sometimes), and add a little reverb (bright plate, short delay, long decay, and 20-30db reduced; I want to *feel* it without *hearing* it). This gives me the "surround".

Note: I generally film outdoor video, which is why I need to add reverb. If you're indoors, you may already have enough (or too much).

Note: For music I use the auto setting on my TRV900 (how unprofessional, I know, but the price of digital clipping is so severe I cannot take the risk; I'm too busy filming to keep on eye on the audio meter :-)

Then I mix the two resultant tracks into a final track. I have to play with the balance between the two depending.

The result is always vastly superior, IME. It brings the vocals to the center and makes them clear, and I can get a great feel from the subtle reverb.

As far as this relates to your problem, well it probably doesn't: Distortion is going to be apparent no matter what. However, you might try this mix just to see how it sounds. If it gives an improvement, perhaps that will motivate you to try harder to remove the distortion :-)

Does anyone have any comments about the relative merits of combining compression and clipped peak restoration? Specifically, which one should be done before the other? I'd guess you'd always want to do the clipped peak restoration first, but I have no first hand experience.

Same goes for converting to mono and then attempting clipped peak restoration. You'd just have to try it and see.

Also, has anyone studied the waveform portion of the "gravel" sound resulting from clipping? I wonder if this is concentrated in a narrow part of the frequency or if its uniform. If the former, you might be able to selectively keyframe a parametric eq in the worst parts.

RichMacDonald - This is a superb approach. It has merit both interms of the physics and maybe in the final result - a workable solution.

Your comment regarding the "narrow" part ot the frequency and the gravel sounds is a very worthwhile piece of investigation - hmmm.. c'mon you sound Doctors? Have any suggestions?

Grazie