Re: [ARSCLIST] Cracked Cylinder Record

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 28/07/07, Steven C. Barr(x) wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mike Richter" <mrichter@xxxxxxx>
>> Robert Hodge wrote:
>>> GAD !!
>>> If Cooledit hasn't some form of sensitivity control for setting a
>>> threshold, I see a weekend of agony in your future.
> === 
>> I think you misunderstand the problem. These are not clicks overlying
>> musical material. They neither replace recording nor coincide with
>> it. Each represents the milliseconds of space occupied by that pass
>> over the crack. In other words, they are brief intrusions into the
>> flow of audio. ClickFix (far better than Audition's built-in tool) or
>> any other declicker will fill in the space the click occupies with
>> its best estimate of the missing audio. What's needed is just what is
>> being done manually: excise the intrusion. I know of no software for
>> any audio editor that will do what Terry Smythe needs - except the
>> manual process he hopes to avoid.
>> 
> Would it not be possible...IF "sound-file-improvement" applications
> can provide a visible and editable version of the waveform of the
> pre-fixed original...to manually edit out the clicks NOT by removing
> them...which is what tape-editing does...but replacing what probably
> appears as a short-duration, steep-sided peak by replacing same with a
> smooth continuation "patch" of the waveform?!

When experimenting with the Wave Repair program, I found that the most
effective tool was "smoothing" of the selected section. The selected
section would be marginally longer than the click. 

It is easy to create a macro which repeats the smoothing process several
times on one key stroke. 

> 
> Of course, in the unlikely (but not totally impossible) occasion that
> the crack-driven peak happened to coincide with an actual peak (when I
> think about it, even more unlikely, since drums effectively couldn't
> be...and thus weren't...recorded acoustically...?!). 

They were. You can hear a full drum kit in use on, for example, the 1917
ODJB recordings. However, the lack of upper treble means that a physical
click will sound much sharper than any acoustic recording of percussion.


> I suppose the
> singer could, in theory, have sung a "T sound," which probably also
> produces a similar waveform image...?!

In modern recordings, a muted trumpet has a waveform which is exactly
the same as a series of clicks on vinyl. I had to give up trying to
clean up a Buck Clayton album for this reason. (Fortunately Mosaic
released it in one of their luxury boxes later.)

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx