Repairing Severe Clipping

[leigh]

I'm mixing a live concert where there was no time for a sound check. The drum OH track clipped on the start of the first piece:



MP3: http://minormodemusic.com/misc/2-DrOH.mp3

I have RX 6 Advanced and would appreciate suggestions on how to fix this.

Thanks.

**Leigh

[stubbsonic]

I'd just cut & paste a couple different ride cymbals from a couple beats later.

[Phil O]

Doesn't RX have a de-clip plugin? I'd play with that and see what it's made of for starters. Also, some creative automation of level and EQ at the hits might give you a sound that's forgiving. Stubb's solution may be your best bet but getting it to sound seamless might be an issue, because of the bleed I'm hearing from other instruments. Only way to know is try it.

Phil

[mikehalloran]

Declip does not perform miracles but I would give it a try as well as Spectral Repair.

You might send a few seconds to Izotope to see if they can be more specific.

[bayswater]

Declip does not perform miracles but I would give it a try as well as Spectral Repair.

You might send a few seconds to Izotope to see if they can be more specific.

I have some lite version of RX I got free or cheap because I had some other of their products. I applied a Declip to a live recording with a lot of overloads, and I'd say the result was a miracle. I don't know how it figured out what to replace a long series of "1's" with but it made a pretty good guess.

[Sean Kenny]

Firstly, I would try riding out the clip using trim automation to smooth it out

Sure the clip will still be there, but can you actually hear it? Modern day converters can be quite forgiving

If not then you're done.

Second, try pasting other rides over but I would apply a hp filter to the pasted rides to avoid any 'nasties' from the low frequency bleed from other instruments.

On my monitors (which are pretty tasty) it doesn't sound that nasty here i.e. I think you may get away with the first option.

Cheers

Sean

[leigh]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

The clipping was too severe for RX to fix. I ended up cutting out the offending few seconds of the drum track and replacing it with a corresponding section cut from the voice track with some compression to bring it up enough. I put the clip on a second track. It's a busy enough piece that all this worked well enough.

**Leigh