Audacity Forum

Gale Andrews wrote:Click Repair does have a steep learning curve (IMO) if you want to get the absolute best out of it, even though it gives good results without too much effort.

As a user of both Audacity and ClickRepair I'd have the temerity to say that Audacity has the steeper learning curve of the two ...

@Shaky, I prefer softer settings for ClickRepair - I mostly use De-click set at 30 (rather than Brian's default 50 which I find removes to much "music") - and I always use the "Reverse" setting on to avoid false positives - I also usually have "Pitch Protection set to "on".

WC

waxcylinder wrote:@Shaky, I prefer softer settings for ClickRepair - I mostly use De-click set at 30 (rather than Brian's default 50 which I find removes to much "music") - and I always use the "Reverse" setting on to avoid false positives - I also usually have "Pitch Protection set to "on".

Yup, I use an informal sliding scale around those levels, going to about 45 for material with really heavy static. Works a treat, although I must admit I have bought the lite version of Wavelab, which comes with a cut down version of the Sonnox Oxford Restore plugins, and I then invariably run the the declicker in my first VST slot at very low settings just to be on the safe side.

BTW, thanks for the original ClickRepair tip -- am delighted with my overall process now!

Shaky wrote:BTW, thanks for the original ClickRepair tip -- am delighted with my overall process now!

Thanks really go to Koz for it was he who pointed me in the direction of Click Repair in the first place IIRC.

waxcylinder wrote:

Gale Andrews wrote:Click Repair does have a steep learning curve (IMO) if you want to get the absolute best out of it, even though it gives good results without too much effort.

As a user of both Audacity and ClickRepair I'd have the temerity to say that Audacity has the steeper learning curve of the two ...

It probably depends on the individual's motivation to learn. I already have Goldwave which is far better than current Audacity at Click Removal (and better at Noise Removal to a lesser extent), so I really don't need to wrack my brain with ClickRepair. I should add that a "for life" Goldwave licence is now much more expensive than ClickRepair.

I think your description below that non-default settings may be optimal, and your description of "Reverse" and "Pitch Protection" prove my point. ClickRepair is not a novice's tool. We shouldn't recommend only Click Repair. We shouldn't recommend a single solution to anything.

waxcylinder wrote:I prefer softer settings for ClickRepair - I mostly use De-click set at 30 (rather than Brian's default 50 which I find removes to much "music") - and I always use the "Reverse" setting on to avoid false positives - I also usually have "Pitch Protection set to "on".

Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:More testing below on Windows 7 64-bit. Also moved this to the Windows board.

<snip>

So after all that, I don't see any bad Audacity behaviour in any of this. Obviously I don't know exactly what you did.

Gale

Thanks for the follow-up! I never thought it was Audacity's issue, just assumed it was how the Izotope installer handled it - OR - my ignorance. Either way I appreciate you taking the time to figure all this out. I love understanding "WHY" something works or doesn't.

Thanks again, you're amazing!

Shaky wrote:

Unlikely wrote:. . .I want the declick and decrackle, and maybe the noise reduction, which are amazing tools for my usage.

Don, just a quick word of advice. I have tried all the outlandishly expensive options like Izotope RX, Sonnox Oxford, Sony Soundforge but in the end wish I would have taken the advice on offer on this board much earlier to try the simply outstanding ClickRepair software:
http://www.clickrepair.net/

This is in my view easily the best solution out there, for really very, very little money indeed.

Shaky,

Thanks I appreciate the pointer.

I actually did purchase a license to ClickRepair, and worked with it for at least six weeks before exploring RX3. After working with the Izotope for a week, I respectfully disagree. I'm processing audiobooks, and with no music in the background, everything is exposed if someone has the ears to hear it.

Frankly they are in a different league for doing voice processing. Maybe if I was transferring vinyl to digital format, then ClickRepair would be enough.

If I could have gotten away with ClickRepair, I would stay there because it's far less expensive (and I already licensed it.) I really wanted to make CR work, since I didn't want to invest the money for RX3.

I think CR is a great program, but iZotope is far more flexible and if someone is doing professional level work, the best choice for my money. Even though it's $40 for CR and $300 for RX3, RX3 is a great value. (But I didn't see that until AFTER I had purchased CR, and worked with it a while.)

Having explored some of the abilities to repair dropouts, clicks, crackles, and background noises, I'm blown away by what I can handle with RX3. If I could do it again, I'd have gone directly to RX3 and saved the $40. Live and learn.

I'm also impressed with the Izotope visualization tools. They give me additional insights into what I'm hearing, but that's another side issue. It's the quality of the audio repairs, AND the items it can fix that I wasn't able to deal with via CR that impress me the most.

The ability to touch up something while in Audacity is a huge win via the plugins, I don't have to leave Audacity unless I want to batch process some things (which I do...)

Your milage may vary, depends on what you are processing, your workflow and the ears someone has to hear the differences.

One size rarely fits all.

Unlikely wrote:Your milage may vary, depends on what you are processing, your workflow and the ears someone has to hear the differences.

Indeed so!

I wasn't aware you were working on cleaning up audio books, and can see that my firm experience that Izotope leaves significant audio artefacts wouldn't be as much of an issue as with music in that the baseline is in effect silence.

However, with vinyl transfers I stand by my opinion 100% - backed up by extensive A/B testing - that ClickRepair is vastly superior to any other commercial restoration software regardless of price. I merely wanted to convey my experience that price wasn't necessarily correlated with performance in that department.

Good luck!

Unlikely wrote:The ability to touch up something while in Audacity is a huge win via the plugins, I don't have to leave Audacity unless I want to batch process some things (which I do...)

Don't you find the loss of the audio at the end of the selection a nuisance?

What batch processing do you want to do? Audacity has Chains , and in fact if you ran RX in a Chain it would be more convenient because you could run the pre-effect and post-effect offset correction for RX as part of the Chain.


Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:I should add that a "for life" Goldwave licence is now much more expensive than ClickRepair.

On the other hand, ClickRepair and DeNoise have separate licenses for at total of $70. So if you want denoise ability, Goldwave at $59 which has declick and noise reduction ability is still cheaper.


Gale

Gale Andrews wrote:

Unlikely wrote:The ability to touch up something while in Audacity is a huge win via the plugins, I don't have to leave Audacity unless I want to batch process some things (which I do...)

Don't you find the loss of the audio at the end of the selection a nuisance?

What batch processing do you want to do? Audacity has Chains , and in fact if you ran RX in a Chain it would be more convenient because you could run the pre-effect and post-effect offset correction for RX as part of the Chain.


Gale

Yes, I find the end loss a nuisance, but since I use the Chris compressor as part of my workflow, I'm always cutting off the beginnings/ends anyway and replacing both ends with roomtone (silence) that I've saved in the past. (For audiobooks, each file has a specific silence pad requirement... so I have those saved and use them for each chapter of the books.)

I also process with another plug-in for EQ (I like the KarmaFX 31 band EQ from this plug-in pack: http://karmafx.net/?id=1) and sometimes a light De-Esser too (depends on my narrator) If I want the de-Esser, I use the LISP version (http://sleepytimedsp.com/software/lisp/).

Those don't work for me via Chains, and I haven't even figured out how to do Noise Reduction via chains, unless I already have the noise profile set (I can't figure out how to have it take my current selection to get an updated noise profile, then select the whole file to apply the noise reduction.) I do use lots of custom keyboard shortcuts, to pop up my most used tools.

The 64 bit RX3 version is over 3 times faster than the plug-in versions, and it's easy to select all the files I want to process as a batch. I don't know if it's a memory thing (I have 16 GB on this box) but the stand alone version uses more of the cores I have on my machine. (The plugin drives them to around 45%, the stand alone drives them closer to 95%, not sure why, but it's much faster.)

All and all, I find the RX3 a great toolbox, but your mileage may vary. I'd rather stay in Audacity if it made sense, but I find it overall much faster to bounce back and forth.

PS: I respectfully disagree with the other user about artifacts and sound quality. I'm really using RX3 because I find it far superior in terms of the results.

I love automating anything possible, but so far Chains haven't been very helpful for me because they don't see my plugins AND so far they also don't allow me to change the selection from what I can tell. I've done lots of programming in the past, but the Chains simply are too simple for the few cases I've tried to automate.

All input welcomed, if I'm missing something please let me know. I'm always learning, and I'm blown away at how good Audacity is, even if I have minor details I'd like to see enhanced.
Don