Peaky notes, EQ and compressor limitations, uncontrollable

Special Interest Groups Making Music
27

In nearly all cases, none at all.

A few special cases where recording at 96 kHz may be an advantage:

  • Measuring the speed of a bullet or other “scientific” uses where you may need to determine the precise time of a signal pulse.
  • Aligning tracks to achieve “phase cancellation”.
  • Testing the frequency bandwidth of audio equipment.

Also, some distortion effects perform better at higher sample rates, though in this case there is no need to record at a high sample rate, you can just “over sample” (resample to a higher rate, apply the effect, then resample back down to 44.1 kHz).

28

cool beans — big thanks Steve.

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“PEAKY NOTES/DIGITAL CAMERA” UPDATE Aug. 15th, 2016 - HOW TO DEAL WITH PEAKY NOTES by Black Dog Bluez

Recording my own acoustic guitar and vocal performances on one track, in one take, with one of the least expensive recorders, the Tascam DR-05. Then editing with Audacity. Results click here–> https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs

The Lo-Fi Challenge…

Recording with a digital camera, Canon’s S90 — video converted to audio, edited, then re-added back or as audio only:

Okay, first note: Video uploaded online (YouTube; YT, etc.) sounds better unedited!

Considering these circumstances: the camera produces WAV audio, which does well being converted — YT will convert the audio — Exactly how and to what they seem to consider a secret/…because Google/YouTube (CIA?) sucks)…

Comparing that to crafting a nice video on your computer, even utilizing your top notch (Audacity) edited audio (exported lossless!) …combining it with video, pictures, whatever, to only be able to output the audio as ‘lossy’, per the audio quality/format export options of the video making program!

Exception being: if you have a video making program that gives an option of outputting the audio as true lossless, PCM (e.g., WAV, Aiff, etc.)…

ANSWER: ANY VIDEO CONVERTER (AVC) by anvsoft

Here’s “Had To Lose” with audio edited with Audacity then re-added back to the video (as WAV) and exported as WAV with Any Video Converter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILIjjWNXRE

AND HERE’S HOW TO DO IT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-D5VKSyjHA

So, the problem is lossy being converted to some other lossy… which does not sound good!

Anyway, to create the audio only from video, you can extract the audio from a video with Any Video Converter (AVC; freeware)… and then edit with Audacity (NOTE the S90’s videos audio is WAV/mono - Do not edit lossy unless with MP3directcut or MP3gain - programs designed to not degrade lossy sound quality - but even extracting lossy from video that has lossy audio is degrading it. For audio extraction from video it is best only when the video’s audio is lossless (e.g., WAV, AiFF).

My digital camera does not have the editing features the Tascam does though… so editing this extracted (lo-fi!) audio with Audacity becomes more desirable…

AVC outputs to WAV at only 48khz for some reason, and gives no control over the kHz output.

NEXT video experiment will probably be recording with camera and recorder simultaneously to get better sound… or possibly miming for video… a song already recorded?

Black Dog Bluez… (Lost Here … and fighting the insanity!) https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs

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Peaky Notes Update Aug. 17, 2016 for the song “Up From The Gutter” edit # 160817… UPDATE: I pulled this song/failed NEW Update coming soon[maybe]

The edit was with Audacity (freeware) v2.1.1 (not the current 2.1.2). Overall for what I’m doing I like this previous version better… though Audacity 2.1.2 is better …in some areas it is not! Hopefully ‘they’ …are aware.

Recording my own acoustic guitar and vocal performances on one track, in one take, with one of the least expensive recorders, the Tascam DR-05. Then editing with Audacity. Results click here–> https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs

On my page my older songs (bottom) were edited with the recorder only as mentioned in a previous post, which to me sometimes seem okay and sometimes seem would be better edited…

Next songs up the list there are labeled “Canon S90”. These were extracted from my videos using Any Video Converter (then edited with Audacity). They are here as audio only and were also re-added to my videos. I posted info on that in a previous post here. …I’m really impressed with the sound as lo-fi as these are… Rivaling the Tascam’s quality.

“Canon S90 Edits” Info: (No High Pass, EQ or compressor):
PARASITES: De-ess (Spitfish), Limiter, and fixed misc. spots.
HAD TO LOSE: same plus added Reverb/Voc 2.

Under Construction is: — song "Up From The Gutter edit-info.

This post was deleted though not completely due to the following comment/reply.

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Audacity is a community project, created and supported by enthusiasts. There is no “they”, there is only “us”. So if you think that 2.1.2 is less good than 2.1.1 in some ways, then please do say so that “we” can do something about it. We aim to make each release “at least as good” as the previous release - if it’s not, then there’s a problem.

32

Okay, thanks Steve… Finally a “they” less mysterious… Thinking: “Now, what could be the ulterior motive here…?”

Bug Report:
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/fit-selection-eq-bugs-in-case-ya-didnt-know/43284/1

33

UPDATE… this whole post is null/void (deleted) keeping excerpts to retain following comment/context

…Notch Filtering: a 59 hertz peak … assuming it should have been done! Use your plot spectrum at an expanded size to detect these sometime alien invaders.

Alien Peaks: Recorder motor? Outside noise? Part of the song? Solution? No doubt, better recording equipment and better recording space is needed. Because, surely all filtering and noise reduction is best avoided for better equipment and recording space/studio. I assume much of ‘editing’ not only takes away the bad but also some of the good with it and is mostly unable to thoroughly and properly distinguish between the two (i.e., ‘a trade-off’)…

34

Hi BDB
Are you sure that the peak of the alien noise is at 59 Hz, do you have a noise-only sample?

Analysis: Strange enough, spectra for music do not change very much, independent of the song. The roll-off is about 3 to 4 dB per octave.
Modern recordings are certainly crisper than old ones.
Try for a change a multi-band compressor for the ssss-sounds (3 kHz to 7 kHz) but still have a high-shelf boost (at 7 to 8 z) to add some air.
You can also try some tape saturation, harmonic enhancer or exciter (La Petite Excite is excellent, imo).

Robert

35

Thanks Robert, as usual, I was not content with that edit (and have removed it)… and on this next one I decided to leave the 59 hertz peak be! Not wanting to risk… Well and I sampled at silence at end and did not notice any notch-benefit /It may be alien? But inconsistent? Regardless have taken a more minimalist approach and left it, thanks.

BTW the La Petite Excite’s page/and or DL froze my computer (I had to force shut-down)… Something going on there is my guess BE WARE freeware people… Thought I’d try it but am now afraid to open it, and I do like freeware.

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UPDATE; This is an old post (song/edit since removed)/for newest info read/see forward

PEAKY NOTES UPDATE September 8 XVI Featuring the song “The Ladies Man” re-re-re-done.

Work notes:

THE LADIES MAN 24B/[96KHZto 44/16b/]2ch … b L3 fxs eqRIAAinverted/21[filter] L4 L1 162r =0908b

b = RMS balance using WaveStats plug-in (download attached below)
fxs = minimal spot fixes using various (Amp., Adjustable Fade, High Pass…)
L3 = Limiter at -3 /soft
eq = Equalizer (Audacity’s)*
162r = final RMS value of -16.2

  • using the RIAA preset inverted with the filter at 21

Recording my own acoustic guitar and vocal performances on one track, in one take, with one of the least expensive recorders, the Tascam DR-05. Then editing with Audacity.
Results here: update/removed

— Insane, I know… editing one song seemingly endlessly over and over again in some perpetual, virtual, living hell… Squandering all my precious God given time in this Devil’s matrix that I can not seem to find an escape from. So while here, there are things that need editing (more trickery?)! Nature’s perfection left ravaged by man (and woman…). A perfection that is my only template and me it’s miserable admirer from afar. If awake, only to yearn for such indefinable perfection.

No compressor but the Limiter was useful; and Amplification, balancing the RMS left/right… and Equalizer! I also rendered from 96 kHz to 44 (at the start)… Back in July thinking recording at 96 was a good idea… Next I’ll record at 44, and either 16 or 24 bit … (?) — and in a bigger room. The boom in this recording, from the small room recorded in, EQ may have edited out! Audacity lending a big improvement to the original, muddy … lower volume, out of balance, and with harsher peaks root — .


BLACK DOG Raising my cup of sienna leaf tea to you… www.SoundClick.com/RonaldNewman
www.SoundCloud.com/BlackDogSongs
wavestats.ny (2.3 KB)

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This original PEAKY NOTES UPDATE has been cancelled and this is that post reedited/for current status see forward posts. Content deemed relevant remains.

RMS balance your stereo tracks using WaveStats plug-in (Download in this thread)

Fix spots (not whole song) using various (e.g., Amplification, Adjustable Fade, Envelope, DeEsser*, High and Low Pass Filter, Repair, Limiter)

  • For de-essing using “Spit-Fish” freeware plug-in

IMPORTANT! Get off the headphones! At least to set the initial levels — which require speakers! Luckily I had a ‘Y’ RCA adapter I found at a thrift store I was using for cassette to digital transfers (a waste of time/unless a rare cassette unavailable elsewhere…) The ‘Y’ a separate left/right to one-stereo connector cable/adapter… to merge my stereo system with my computer … and have decent speakers to edit with. Use the “Tape”, “Video” or “CD” input on older stereos that have no auxiliary, computer or other type inputs.

NOTE: I used full size/range speakers. — I’ve tried desktop speakers in the past which did not seem to reveal the true frequencies or ‘fullness’ of the sound as I assume bigger better speakers do. PICTURE:
speakers2computer.JPG
WHY NO HEADPHONES? I’m not sure… but from my experience headphones inaccurately deliver the sound as it will sound through speakers. It may sound fine with headphones then horribly bass-heavy when listened with speakers… Maybe someone else here can explain this further… why this is? Regardless, it is!

CAN INITIAL LEVELS BE SET BY ANALYSIS READOUTS ALONE? I’m not sure if there are general rules per plot spectrum analysis which for example give a set parameter of where all levels should or should not be. It doesn’t seem logical that such a formula could exist — as I assume every song has it’s own unique balance of frequencies — which again, I’m assuming can only be corrected by ear, if correction is needed or desired.

FiXeS: After the initial settings, when doing ‘fixes’, I was able to use headphones and proceed further with intense deep down editing into the furthest depths of the sound. Further then anyone has ever gone before! … All proprietary, of course.

BLACK DOG Believe in something! Check out Jesus in the ‘New Testament’ — cool dude. https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs

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My thoughts regarding headphones:
Bass sounds are not actually caught by the ears but the bones and the skull. Headphones are thus created that they are comfortable to wear, I think a better bass could be achieved without the soft padding that encircles the outer ear (although some models have a remarkable frequency response).
The wave length of a 20 Hz tone is about 17 cm and fits almost exactly into the head.
The opposite is also true; lay your hand on your forehead (or your bold head, as in my case), sing from low to high and feel the vibrations slowly decrease. Our head is like a big bulb that radiates bass.
Should we use full-head sized mics and headphones? Perhaps… :wink:

39

Very low bass is felt through the body rather than the ears, primarily through feet and torso. Ideally we would have “full-body phones” :wink:

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:grin:
Very true

My previous calculation was wrong, sorry…
20 Hz means a wave length of 17 m not cm.
The consequence is that we can’t “hear” phase information for bass and low-mids. Therefore, it becomes increasingly harder to locate sounds below 2000 Hz.
Does anyone know Douglas Adams book “The last of their kind”.
There’s a bird in New Zealand that woos for a mate with sounds that are so low that they can be heard/felt for many many miles. Unfortunately, the “female of the species” has no idea where the sound is coming from… :wink:
Listen and enjoy: https://youtu.be/_ZG8HBuDjgc?t=32m42s

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Interesting input gentleman, thank you.

I did read a book on editing years back and it did stipulate not to use headphones to edit. Unfortunately it did not give the “why”… So I thought… “What could it hurt?” …and I have had problems ever since … until just recently, taking that in to consideration.

And the type of speakers matter… With my terminology I would conclude ‘you need real speakers’ not desktop or any other kind of facsimile of a real speaker. I’m not sure where to draw the line but from what I’ve read (in this forum I think) is that some of these smaller speakers use certain technology to compensate for their lack of size and true bass. Which surely would complicate things when editing with such — trying to determine what the actual sound you are editing is…

‘Should the bass speaker in your speaker be approximately the size of your head?’ Maybe?

Some headphones use sound altering compensating techniques as well.

ALSO make sure your computer’s sound program does not have any “effects” on when you are editing.

Headphones are good for critical fixes (during editing) like listening for little noises you’d like to eliminate. Of course at the end of editing, after your general sound has been established.

…And of course headphones for monitoring are necessary, when doing over-dub recording. And I assume various other sound-engineering and recording type tasks, in a multi-person studio or group effort.

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PEAKY NOTES UPDATE September 14, 2016

Recording my own acoustic guitar and vocal performances on one track, in one take, with one of the least expensive recorders, the Tascam DR-05. Then editing with Audacity.
Results here: https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs

Test song: “Bananas”

Back to the proverbial drawing board. NO EQ! NO COMPRESSOR! In yet another attempt to Be All - it - Can Be.

Again, Bananas was a quikee, to test… I’m not putting much in the actual song (i.e., practice, fore thought, writing) because I’m stuck on editability at this point.

This was recorded in my bigger room, not cavernous.

Noise Reduction applied due to room hum from unknown (though most likely neighboring air conditioners/Phoenix AZ summer!)

RMS balanced using WaveStats plug-in (Download in this thread)

Fixed spots only (not whole song) using various (e.g., Amplification, Adjustable Fade, Envelope, DeEsser*, High and Low Pass Filter, Repair)

  • For de-essing used “Spit-Fish” freeware plug-in.


    BLACK DOG What would Jesus do?! How would he do things today?! Check out Jesus in the New Testament — cool dude — fighting the good fight. Are you? — Am I? — https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs
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PEAKY NOTES UPDATE September 15, 2016 “Mission: Player Reconnaissance”

I decided to quit my 128k MP3 output to match these players (128k MP3 output)… Which means back to SoundCloud where I can upload WAV and hopefully get a better sound through how ever they’ll mangle it for their player. Why? Because WAV converts to MP3 (or whatever) better than MP3 converts to anything else! Just in case these other sites (ReverbNation, SoundClick etc.) were further converting my 128k MP3’s I was uploading (?)… Which I suspect they do/degrading an already horrible sound quality at 128 kbps even further! …Unless you pay.

Disgusting really, we’ve went from hi-fidelity records one hundred years ago to tinny cheapened hacked to death sounds currently called music. I still expect bad results with SoundCloud’s player/or any free online site… Though credit to SoundCloud for allowing WAV (with a free account), which not knowing the true nature of these site’s-players converting tactics… the WAV in SoundCloud, regardless, sounded much better. Which leads me to believe an unknown conversion happens when uploading lossless to these sites, and as stated, only lossless will convert without being damaged — Thus I must conclude: This is a problem with sites that are only allowing lossless uploads.

Lossless is already a sacrifice, we don’t need further damage on top of that!

The WAV should be converted by the player to 128k MP3 from my inquiries into this… i.e., SoundCloud, ReverbNation, SoundClick… are converted for the player (player only not subsequent downloads/downloads should be what ever you upload).

This was a problem I noticed early on… as I would upload high quality MP3 and wonder why it sounded horrible. FYI converting MP3 to MP3 is damaging, and to date, no lossy can be converted to anything without being damaged. “Lossless”, such as WAV, is different. You can convert to MP3 without damaging. of course it will be lower quality but technically not ‘damaged’. — “Damaged” is my word which seems the most fitting word in my opinion. ‘Damaged audio by any other name would still sound as depleat.’

BLACK DOG Live from The Quag Mire Inn https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs

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UPDATE: This song/edit has since been removed

PEAKY NOTES UPDATE sept 17 2016

To edit or not to edit…

Well so far approach is all different, on last edit (this edit) → ‘gutter’ — I swiped hardly much per the whole song, de-essed at 6 sense (whole song). Noise reduction didn’t sound right, though this song has a lot of outside noise!! Bleeding in/with AC units propelling continuously around here — the grid — nature, remember that! No we are not natural. All we could hope for is a tweet that will lead to another and eventually return us to our prefuedal splendor/I know, you’ll miss your materials, not me! And I imagine it wasn’t easy… but at least it was free!

Janice/Kris once wailed …“just another name for nothing left to lose…” but they didnt have to eat GMO in a quarantined megatropolis of mind blowing proportion… No, they were always one thumb up away from some b-movie biker melodrama, I’ll digress… but It’s all about the size of the dubious thing you keep feeding… stop feeding it.

Back to Audacity

So the GUTTER work was mostly in the finer details — of fully amplifying then observing who is too much!! — That note, this note, using everything except my Smith & Wessonator to renegotiate this spur of live isolation to where it is — and where your not — unless you click here–> https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs

~Elvis shakes his head finally fully realizing how much of a tool he was. — Black Dog

NOTE: SC4’d some parts (not whole song) and noticed max attack (1.5)/200 delay worked great combined with the Geoffmobile tactic to determine threshold —there or less was always enough (oh and even at his recommended 1.4 ratio!). Peak or RMS depending on which one seemed dominate … brought down nicely/quite a few tangents of adrenaline surplus … and never used the limiter once on this song. Inspired by a William Holden movie… “picnic” “drifter”… one of a few cool creations to come out of that Hollywood mind re-arranging machine.

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I think that Hollywood produced a lot of great films and not but a few.
Of course, there is a lot of trash amongst this stuff. One can certainly not appreciate the “Best Film of the Year” selections of the academy (Oscar).
From an artistic point of view, the supporting actor roles fit better as they are often played by newcomers and are elected for the performance sake and not the “This one is so popular, we should give him a price after all”.
You’ve mentioned Elvis and it is certainly a tragic fact that his real passion lied in acting and not in music actually. However, he had always bad directors, bad script writers and so on. Nothing that gave him a personal leap towards better acting (I think the B&W films started out promising).
Apropos black and white, one can’t put all the Hollywood production put into one or another category.
In each and every creation of art (or commerce) originating from there are some hidden gems and even if it is only one single picture ore one single line of the sound track.
The question is how much one can tolerate for the sake of this flighty moment…
(In jazz improvisation, they say, a solo stands or falls with the last note played).
Perhaps, you can also find a gem in my last project (in progress):

I would download it, the direct playback hangs on my system. It seems that SoundCloud has problems with rendering *.ogg [streaming file] to the actual output–which is probably re-encoded to mp3 and back to PCM…)

Best
Robert

PS
Do you have another (nick) name than Black Dog that I could use for salutation? It’s seems a bit weird–just as if you were calling me V.U.P. Lounge…

46

Great song Robert… and I appreciate the thoughts shared.

The Movie Industry and related (Art often inspiring art)

Yes, the “black and white films”… … Though, where did the movie potential peak? Probably somewhere in there… The B & W era.

Was it organic in the beginning? Or was it realized and co-opted… or rather ‘militarized’ from the onset? I think it has always been controlled, I mean it’s obvious — What movie has ever shared any ground-breaking truth?.. “Planet Of The Apes” comes to mind… with it’s original plot of mankind the dumb savage controlled by a select group, represented as apes, of a few different types ~~~ look around .

These mediums (e.g., movies, television, music, and others) have always been kept ‘at bay’, as “entertainment”. “Bread and circuses” if you will. From Shakespeare to the current. — All underlying elitist propaganda, ‘culture creation’, ‘programming’… with little to no brilliance seeping through the cracks. Though there occasionally is some, as you suggested … but overall a lot of talent wasted, and a lot of potential altered, for an ulterior agenda, with controlling ape-like moguls having the ultimate say. ~ Not to mention the ability to grope their all-to-eager to please dupes.

The internet, a blip on their radar screen… The internet, for now, allowing just about anything to be revealed… but who’s going to believe it? The truth … with generation after generation so thoroughly ‘dumbed’ down, i.e., ‘programmed’. ~ ‘As the internet is slowly reined in’… (The net cast, slowly reining in mankind… A virtual world wide web… ~ Who can escape it?)

“…Damn, dirty apes…”

Anyway, back to Audacity. Your “soundcloud.com/vuplounge/welcome…” song sounded great! https://soundcloud.com/vuplounge/welcom … -1/s-MQQbu

To what extent was Audacity used?

It did take a while for it to play… maybe you should export it to a more user friendly format… ? e.g., wave? (as I grow ever more put off by lossy).

Is .ogg a lossless format? I tried to download your song but it was showing as an HTML document, so I did not… It also shows as “private”. Should it be downloadable?

You (Robert) wrote:

“Do you have another (nick) name than Black Dog that I could use for salutation? It’s seems a bit weird–just as if you were calling me V.U.P. Lounge…”

‘BD’? ‘BDB’?

Crazy, I know, everyone afraid to reveal their true identity these days. Though, what is the true identity apart from a given strawman to be exploited? Ahh, to have such… I am more a dog than my own man in this grand illusion of enslavement we live. — If men were more honest they’d realize how true this is. I am a ‘black’ dog here, in the sense of a ‘black’ sheep. — To answer your inquiry, I prefer “Black Dog” at this point. I’ve yet to settle on a variation of this, which would be advantageous for exclusivity, and better ‘search engine’ results. E.g., “Black Dog Johnson”, John “Black Dog” Johnson…

— Black Dog https://soundcloud.com/blackdogsongs