Re: sound juicer over-range
For the sake of future searches for this thread, "clipping" is a
better keyword than is "over-range".
And I finally realized that the distortion associated with the
clipping which I am experiencing is very much like sibilance or the
distortion produced by a kazoo.
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I searched for discussions of "digital recording clipping repair". I
found that some people have had limited success with digital repair
techniques if the clipping is less than a few dB (dB = deciBel) -- say
1 dB to 3 dB. But if the clipping is in the neighbourhood of 6 dB or
higher, then the consensus appears to be that repair by digital
editing is all but impossible.
Audacity has a "repair" tool which, with each application, is able to
repair a single -- and very short -- instance of clipping.
Using Audacity, I used the "amplify" effect with a gain of -3.0 dB,
which produced a maximum level of -3 dB in my audiobook files. But
for the several hundred 3-minute tracks of an audiobook, the
capability of command-line batch processing (sox ?) clearly is a
necessity.
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Regrettably, most discussions regarding repair of clipping damage
ignore the possibility of effecting the repair via analogue
processing.
A technique which I think should be effective is to pass
the analogue signal through a high-quality de-esser such as can be
found on some studio-grade (analogue) vocal strips such as those
produced by Rane and by Aphex.
Simple low-pass analogue filtering (using a graphic equalizer or a
parametric equalizer) also should be effective. However, a
high-quality de-esser is to be preferred, inasmuch as -- if it is
adjusted properly -- it comes into play only when sibilance is
present.
RLH
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