I’ve had some success with more obvious ones but there are two or three slight clicks where I can’t locate any obvious defect in the waveform.
I can locate the general area when zoomed out but the more I zoom in whilst playing back the quicker waveform flies by so that doesn’t really help narrow it down. So then I slow down the playback speed but at slower speeds I can’t hear the click
Zooming in horizontally and vertically and manually scrolling the general area doesn’t show up any obvious defect in the waveform and also involves what seems like a few miles of wavy lines at that magnification.
That can be tough… Have you tried Click Removal effect over a section that’s big enough to include the defect?
For cleaning-up vinyl records, I use a program called [u]Wave Repair[/u] ($30 USD after free trial).
It has a spectral view that shows the frequency spectrum over time (unlike the Audacity where spectral view which shows the spectrum of your selection)). A vinyl click will usually show-up as a white line.* (The clicks & pops don’t always stand-out, and your clicks may not be so obvious.) You can zoom-in on the click in spectral view, and then switch to the normal waveform view.
CORRECTION - As Trebor says, Audacity’s Spectrogram from the drop-down track menu will show the same thing as Wave Repair. (Analyze - Plot Spectrum won’t help.)
There is also a feature called “Play Around”, which skips-over your selection. So if you can still hear the click, it’s not in your selection. Sometimes you can select a longer section with the click and then start zooming-in and moving your selction around while using Play Around to find the click.
Once you’ve found the click, there are several repair methods (besides re-drawing the waveform), and you don’t have to see the defect to repair it.
Wave Repair is not perfect but it does a perfect job on most clicks & pops. It’s designed for vinyl records, but I’ve used it on other sources when there is a short-duration defect.
\
Now that I think about it there are some color selection options, so the line may not be white but it should be contrasting.
At last! Got the little blighters. Using the spectrogram makes life a lot easier
Thanks very much everybody for your help.,
After locating the clicks I used a variety of draw tool, brush tool (alt+click) and repair to smooth out the waveforms. I used the draw pencil to roughly smooth out the glitches with long sweeps using the edge of my laptop touchpad as a kind of rulerand then the brush to smooth out any of my freehand wobbles or misalignments. Just using the brush tool alone can be RSI inducing,
One of the clicks was actually made up of three different red lines, another was more of a less distinct spread out red splodge so I used Repair for that one. The area was far too wide for the number of samples Repair would accept so I highlighted a section - repaired - highlighted the next section - repaired and so on.
Very pleased with the outcome.
p,s Is there a shortcut or facility to automatically flatten out a waveform line between two points or induce a curve instead of a spike?
p.p.s Why does the zoom have to be so high before the draw tool can be used?
Because often (even after also vertically zooming) the shape of the waveform is lost and the glitch - which is obvious at slightly lesser zoom levels - can no longer readily be seen
To address a problem you had about two-thirds of the way up the thread, no the blue waves do not have to “fly by.” I set Auto Update the Display when I’m recording to make sure I’m getting a proper performance, but I turn that off immediately when editing. I’ll put the view exactly where I want it, thanks. I don’t need any help.
Like DVDdoug I also use a piece of third party software. Like you I used to use the spectrogram view with the draw tool and latterly the Repair effect. - but than Koz pointed me in the direction of Brian Davies’ ClickRepair (for which I am eternally grateful to him [Koz and Brian that is], as it has saved me huge amounts of time and produced excellent results with my LP transfers).
koz wrote:
To address a problem you had about two-thirds of the way up the thread, no the blue waves do not have to “fly by.” I set Auto Update the Display when I’m recording to make sure I’m getting a proper performance, but I turn that off immediately when editing. I’ll put the view exactly where I want it, thanks. I don’t need any help.
Audacity > Edit > Preferences > Tracks > [_] Update Display… (de-select)
Koz
’
Thanks I didn’t know about that, I’ll try that next time.
Trebor wrote:
A low-pass filter will smooth the waveform , you may have to use repair on the ends of the section where a low-pass equalization has been applied …
Thanks for the screenshot I’ll try that as well.
Tapehead wrote:
p,s Is there a shortcut or facility to automatically flatten out a waveform line between two points or induce a curve instead of a spike?
steve wrote:
If that is for repairing small clicks, then there is the “Repair Tool” > Audacity Manual
Tapehead wrote:
p.p.s Why does the zoom have to be so high before the draw tool can be used?
steve wrote:
Because the Draw tool acts on individual samples.
I’m guessing that you have a “feature request” in mind for it to do something when zoomed out?
Thaqnks steve, I used the Repair tool and you know me I like to facilitate ease of use for duffers in Audacity so yes I think it would make good feature request if you’d be so kind
waxycylinder wrote:
Like DVDdoug I also use a piece of third party software. Like you I used to use the spectrogram view with the draw tool and latterly the Repair effect. - but than Koz pointed me in the direction of Brian Davies’ ClickRepair (for which I am eternally grateful to him [Koz and Brian that is], as it has saved me huge amounts of time and produced excellent results with my LP transfers).
See this sticky thread: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1994
WC
That will be my next port of call if I find lots more clicks because it is time consuming this way, but I’m getting quicker and so far on the old recordings i’ve examined I don’t think I have too far to go.
I have some old recording that the waveform just changes inexplicably. Say, 2 to 4 waves that look like they’ve gone thru a low pass filter such that they are different than the preceeding and following waveforms. The shape of the waveforms generally aren’t different, they are just “smoother”. At full speed the result is a “click” At lower speeds there is generally no indication there is a problem.
I quickly got frustrated with the Spectrogram view. Because yes, it shows the area that needs to be repaired, but there is no way of facilitating that repair in waveform view.
My primary question: Is there a tool for painting or brushing in spectrogram view. Or do all repairs have to be made in waveform view?
Note that you could Edit > Duplicate the track, and look at one track in a spectrogram view, and the other track in a waveform view, and use Draw Tool on the waveform track (if you are zoomed in sufficiently).
Or you can use Repair on a track in a spectrogram or waveform view (if the selection does not exceed 128 samples).
And the easiest way to see how many samples are selected is to go to the Audacity Selection Toolbar (normally at the bottom of the Audacity window unless you have moved it and:
change the time display units to hh:mm:ss + samples
in the middle time display box click on the radio button for Length rather than the default End
Thank you for your help Gale. I did learn some things. But, personally I haven’t found spectrogram view real helpful. Not trying to dissuade anyone from using it though. Everyone needs to use whatever tools they find helps them achieve desirable results.
My solution was to go back and clean the vinyl. And then clean it again for good measure, before re-recording the tracks. Had to repair all the legitimate clicks again, but this got rid of the “ghostly” bumps and thumps that I couldn’t solve.
Sorry for mudding-up this good thread with my bs. But maybe this will serve as a reminder for some that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
