Audacity Forum

Hello, I have looked through the distortion portions of the forum as well as I could, and I can't find anything close enough to what I'm experiencing, I am a new user to the advance operations of Audacity and audio editing in general, and am unable to find much to aid me in my troubles. I recently recordeda concert on a digital video camera and the audio was far too loud causing a lot of distortion, I can take care of some of it but the problem is that I am unable to figure out how to remove low frequency distortion, caused by a bass guitar, everytime it plays it is so loud it instantly distorts the recording. Is there even a way to smooth it out??? I have tried using the low and high pass filters ( I have stated it this way because I never do remember which one is which) noise removal, recently started working with the notch filters, and I am about to attempt something with the equilizers. It seems that no matter what I do I am unable to reduce the low end distortion and I am running out of Ideas. I have spent countless hours on this and am at a stand still. If there is anything anyone can think of that I haven't tried I would be more than gratefull to here it.
Pleadingly grateful,
-Magus2500x

There is a plug-in called "ClipFix" that may help
http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/clipfix.zip

I have the zipped folder of ClipFX on my desktop now...but how does it work? do i just unzip it to desktop? or what? Thanks!
And what exactly does it do?

Yes you unzip it and put it in the Audacity Plug-ins folder. It will then appear in the list of effects in Audacity.
To use it you must first make sure that there is some "headroom" - When you fix the clipped audio, the flat tops to the waveform (the clipping distortion) will be raised in a curve, but there needs to be room to do this - you may therefore need to amplify the track by a negative amount (say -3dB) before you use ClipFix. You then select a region of the track that contains the distortion and select ClipFix from the effects menu. If the distortion is the right sort (clipping of the tops off the waveform), then clipfix will make it sound a lot better. (not guaranteed to work because there are many types of distortion, but worth a go).

Volta-X wrote:the bass guitar's main bandwidth is 200Hz-800Hz.

Unfortunately this is not the case if the bass is distorted (clipped) as clipping introduces a lot of (unwanted) high frequencies, and it is these high frequencies that make it sound so unpleasant.

Yes the bass has multiple frequencies out of its own range when it clips like that, i found that out after using the equilizer and low/high pass filters a little more, one thing I am trying but having vague success with is using the invert function to cancel out the sound, I have tried a few things that kindof begin to work however I can't get the bad noise out while keeping the good noise. The next question I have is does anyone know how to eliminate all sound but the distortion/clipping, without changing the pitch or frequency of it. I believe if I could bring that out I could take the left over distortion/clipping that has no other sound with it, invert it, play it side by side with the original track cancelling out the clipping/distortion leaving the good sound still unharmed. If it needs more explaining on what I mean by all means let me know I am having trouble with expressing my thoughts right now, but that is the basic idea, single out the bad noises that arent wanted and cancel them out with inversion. My problem is that I am not sure how to do this.
-Magus2500x

I get the idea of what you want to do, but removing everything apart from the distortion would be no easier than removing the distortion.

I'm not so sure I agree, I am not saying it would necissarily be easy, but instead of looking for all the different frequencies that the distortion would be on, you would instead just try and remove a majority of the frequencies that they aren't on, which I believe, but am not possitive about, should be a little easier than going through one frequency at a time trying to find the bad ones. I am willing to put in the time to do this (and understand it will take a massive amount of time at that) but I need a way to remove frequencies in a set range and am not sure even what to start with on that, if I can figure out how to remove a set of frequencies say between 300-500 mhz for instance, not just filter it, but remove it entirely I believe I can figure out a way to do this. (If I am mistaken on what the filters actually do please inform me because I have been unable to remove the frequencies I believe I set it to remove) There is one thing that is constant in this world with most things, with enough time and money anything is possible, with something such as this there is no need for money because all required elements are present however I am a very patient person so I have no problem taking as long as is necessary to fail at least knowing that there is not a way to do it for myself.
-Magus2500x

I am not quite as literate with terms and have very little knowledge about working with prerecorded sounds, however I do live in a world where I believe everything is possible, even mostly imposible things. As far as the terms you mentioned I am not sure, you would have to dumb down a simple definition of the terms you ment, komenasai but I am a lament as far as that goes, however, You asked the specifics of what the "distortion" was. The distortion is basically the sound, mainly the bass, being too loud around the camera and it left it with a sound similar to tapping the microphone, just imagine the sound waves forcibly striking the microphone and that is the basics of it. There isn't really a distortion per say but that does happen to be the closest terminology that I am aware of that would fit it. The mid to high bass frezuencies are the ones that seem to cause more distortion, and the low do, but only from time to time. By referencing frequencies I don't want to leave confusion, it isn't the frequencies that are the problem, I am just pointing out what you hear when the "distortions" tend to appear in the recording, now that that is out of the way. The main thing I have been trying to do is follow the plot spectrum and remove the pitches that peak but have had minimal effect with it since I cannot tell what peaks tend to be the problem and what aren't, that and it is a basic of the whole recording, or at least 65.5 or so seconds of it, thus the problem I have is to find what I am trying to find in order to get rid of it, I am sure there has to be some way to "find" the distortion at least, but I am not literate enough with editing audio in order to figure my own problems with this one, the cause of the distortion in actual effect is because it was ripped from a digital camera that was far too close to the loud speakers but it was the only way to work with that, We did have another recording there that I was going to splice the audio from that onto the video as I have done in the past with sub par audio, but the microphone used was far to unexceptable. another problem is with other recordings i have a loud hum from the bass guitar however that is another topic that I will do at a later date. For know I am working on trying to get the audio problems that I have with the better recording and take care of it so I know how in the future. Who knows, if this can get figured out on how to help take care of this think how many others that could be helped in the future with this. I don't know specifically what harmonic overtone is however those terms are vaguely familiar because I have a history of music study (only around 10 years of basics but nothing that advanced) Resonation also sounds familiar but i'm not possitive, and I have no clue on howling or oscillation, I would like to know how to sed the compressor but do not for know and as for graphic eq and real time eq yes on our sound board but i can't trully re-record the concert, one more thing is that i would be appreciative if you would discribe what you mean by the output being EQ'd or human's EQing. I have been looking into another program to work side by side with audacity called cool edit pro, only because I know I can split a track bassed on frequencies up to ten different tracks by selecting an audio range.

Ok, after reviewing the definitions of harmonic resonance, oscilation and most of the other terms i wasnt possitive on, I think that you are right it would be imposible to remove one specific from a track without altering the rest of the sound, that is what i intend to do, this may not sound correct but the theory is to take at least two tracks, alter that sound to the point where mainly only the "noise" (I will begin using this term for the problem sound due to no correct term) is audible, then invert the resonance ( believe that is correct anyway) so that the noise left over after the tracks are altered. In theory this would cancel out the same noise in the track, granted there is a possibility of underlying tones and frequencies that aren't apparant possibly interfering with the rest of the sound, however I believe that with some tinkering that would be fixable (at least to the human ear) For now I am waiting till I install the full version of that other program so I can rip the sound into ten different frequency ranges and narrow things down, possibly alter them then re-enter them into audacity and use them for that purpose, thoughts are appreciatted, i don't expect perfect results but with every step I learn a bit more of what I CAN do for it.
-Magus2500x

I think I understand what you mean, rock would be an accurate discription of the music, i would like to clarify the term "fq" is it a shorthand for frequency? I am unfamiliar with it. Also I am not so sure it is the picking because it isn't when the note is struck that the distortion occurs its as the note plays, i believe it might be the resonance but my terms are off. Any help is much appreciated i dont mind if it takes time to get it, I have plenty unfortunately i nor any friends of mine speak japanese however I am able to translate it.