I have been recording some of my vinyl and digital / serato mix through the serato application. My recording settings are set to the highest possible quality and I make sure as much as possible not to red line on my mixes… occasionally though, a track has a super punchy baseline or kick, which causes clipping in the WAV file.
I decided to try to use Audacity to fix my mix. Version 3.0.2. I run a PC / Windows 10.
What is interesting is that when I go to these parts of the mix that are clipping, the wav seems to be broken / corrupted (part of the audio that would be clipping at the top of the wav is appearing at the bottom of the wav… very strange… I have never seen this before, please view image 1).
If i use the Effect > Clip Fix…, no matter how much I play with the settings, it will only lower the amplitude so that the wav doesn’t surpass the 1.0, but does not repair the wav (please view image 2)… so the end result is just a lower volume clipping sound.
As of now, I have to use a two step process to repair one “clip” at a time (first, repair the audio which I sometimes have to do manually as the Repair function does something funky, and then use the fix clip tool if it is still clipping, which most of the time it is) but this is very tedious as it is a six hour mix and several tracks in the mix have this issue.
Any suggestions on how to fix this without doing each one manually?
That’s not “normal” [u]clipping[/u] but if it’s only happening at the highest peaks it might be caused by clipping. In that case it’s a probably a driver defect… That kind of thing can happen with (signed) binary values because the most significant bit is the +/-sign and if you “count” too high you can flip that bit. But, the software is supposed to be smarter than that!
Of course if it is clipping (or caused by clipping) the fix is to lower the volume and re-record. Does your setup have any kind of analog volume/gain knob?
The usual recommendation is to shoot-for peaks between -3 and -6dB, leaving some headroom for unexpected peaks. And, you can actually go lower than that. Records & tapes are fairly predictable but when you are recording live, you generally need more headroom. You’re usually going to amplify after recording anyway. With digital recording low levels are not a problem.
I have been recording some of my vinyl and digital / serato mix through the serato application.
What is the actual thing or device that has analog on one side and digital on the other? The actual digitizer? Whatever that is, you should stop using it.
A proper analog to digital converter should overload by presenting constant maximum digital values until the hot analog signal returns to normal. That’s clipping which looks like someone took a sharp knife and whacked off the extreme tips of the waves.
That’s not what yours does. When yours overloads, it either stops dead and generates no data which can play as silence, or generates actual silence by mistake, or possibly generates garbage data which comes out as silence. As you’re finding, that can turn simple, easy clipping into a nightmare of wave repairs—with, by the way, no guarantee you’re going to get the original sound back.
This defect is pretty unusual, so it’s not likely anybody has programmed an easy repair tool.
Unfortunately, I am unable to re-record the mix as it was a live mix of my DJ set.
What is the actual thing or device that has analog on one side and digital on the other? The actual digitizer? Whatever that is, you should stop using it.
I use a Rane 62 Mixer that has the Serato soundcard built into it. This allows me to live mix vinyl and digital files from my computer. Which is what I was doing for this specific mix. The Serato software allows me to record my mix live. I record WAV 24 Bit.
I have been using this software / mixer for my live DJ sets for a long time, this is the first time I tried recording my set. I am pretty sure the error is due to clipping because when listening to the audio, you can hear the clipping, and it only happens on kicks that I remember being a lot punchier (maybe my gain was a bit higher than normal on my mixer).
Here is an Audioclip taken from the six hour mix where you can hear the clipping. I have also attached images of this specific audio clip and zoomed in to one of the kicks that clip.
Full Audio Clip
Zoomed into Kick that shows “Clipping”
Thank you so much for any further help! Really don’t want to have to do manual repairs on six hours of mix on all the kicks!
Which software… Serato? Audacity I am only pulling in the WAV file recorded with Serato… So maybe Serato is not smart enough for that… if that is the case, is there a way to fix this with Audacity? It seems something that an algorithm should be able to detect and fix automatically.
Yes, of course my mixer has this, but I thought I was recording well below this volume… maybe not. I will lower even more for future mixes… but the crowd wants their punch!
Agreed! the crowd wants their punch though, and I’m used to mixing at these levels… But now that I am recording all my live mixes, I’ll have to get used to having my gains lower and just having the master out be louder to avoid this for future recordings.
I really liked this mix though and would really like to find a solution. It seems like something a computer can fix automatically!
Or there are various automatic vinyl click & pop tools. (The defect is “similar” to a vinyl click.) [u]Wave Corrector[/u] is FREE.
Which software… Serato? Audacity I am only pulling in the WAV file recorded with Serato… So maybe Serato is not smart enough for that…
I was thinking the driver… But I also assumed you were using a simpler setup and recording with Audacity. It’s very odd and you almost never see that. So maybe it’s Serato. If Serato is doing the mixing or applying any digital effects, that could push the levels into clipping and corrupt the data.
A “simple” analog-to-digital converter usually just maxes-out and clips, giving you flat-topped and flat-bottomed waves.
…Most audio processing software (including Audacity) works in floating-point so it has no upper limit and it won’t clip “internally”. So for example, you can boost the bass (or something like that) and Audacity will “show red” for potential clipping but it’s not clipped yet. If you play it at full-digital volume you’ll clip your DAC or if you export as a regular WAV file, the file will clip. (That will be normal clipping, not the inversion you’re seeing.) But if you lower the volume (Amplify with a negative value) before exporting you can avoid clipping.
Your ADC (recording) and DAC (playback) and regular WAV files are all hard-limited to 0dB.
One of those posts has its markups out of order…Looking.
I am pretty sure the error is due to clipping
I don’t think that’s the case. I think your system is overloading and it fails to clip. Instead, it produces that horrendous distortion. Actual clipping would be a piffle compared to what you have.
As in the above posts, you can take the system apart and see which parts or combination of parts is doing that.
I don’t think my system is overloading. My CPU has Intel(R) Core™ i7-6600U CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.81 GHz and 16GB of RAM. Serrato is also quite a light software. The mixer is a high-end performance mixer. Unless you meant something else by overloading?
The audio sample I provided definitely sounds like clipping to me…
Will try it out and let you know… so this means that, thus far, nothing in Audacity will work?
I don’t think it’s a driver issue… driver’s are up to date, everything has always worked fine. I will search the serato forums for some more answers, but so far have found nothing.
Yes, serato is essentially allowing my mixer to be a midi controller for the songs on my laptop… but this “clipping” happens when I play vinyl too, so it is strictly analog at that point and not doing any of the mixing, only recording…
Thank you for the information, I’ll look more into the Serato forums to adjust this for future recordings, but Serato is not an editing software, it only let’s you mix and record… So for this recorded mix I was really hoping to find a solution here in Audacity…
The audio sample I provided definitely sounds like clipping to me…
It’s A LOT WORSE than normal clipping but it does seem to happen on the “loud parts” like regular clipping.
You can try using the same hardware and make a similar “loud” recording in Audacity. If Audacity gives you normal clipping that proves a problem with Serato. If you get the same “weird clipping” in Audacity, you know it’s the hardware or driver.
That’s the “philosophical problem” with any automatic software… It doesn’t know what it’s supposed to sound like (or what the waveform is supposed to look like.)
Still, it’s worth trying Wave Corrector.
Or, you can get to work fixing the defects one-by-one, or just live with it. And, try to prevent it in the future by keeping your digital recording levels under control. You should always leave some headroom.
I was worried it would affect other parts of my recording, but it perfectly detects and fixes only and all the “clips” in one easy go! Which makes sense because the clips look like clicks in the wave… not sure why Audacity’s click removal function didn’t work.
It doesn’t know what it’s supposed to sound like (or what the waveform is supposed to look like.)