Removing a click from vocals

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dafeda
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Joined: Fri Aug 08, 2014 12:51 pm

Removing a click from vocals

Post by dafeda » Sat Apr 30, 2016 7:38 am

Hi,

I had a friend of mine come over and do a bit of singing for me.
Here's a clip where you can hear the problem:
https://soundcloud.com/notourdates/prob ... l2/s-KJygw

After some googling I found an article describing how to use Audacity to solve this kind of problem.
I loaded the wav file into Audacity and had a look at the Spectrogram. I think I've identified the problematic region:
Image

The waveform of that region looks ok to my untrained eyes:
Image

I can ask my friend to come over and sing, but I thought this was a good opportunity to try learn how to handle these problems.
Hope someone can help me out.

Thanks.
Last edited by dafeda on Sat Apr 30, 2016 7:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

beatz01
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by beatz01 » Sat Apr 30, 2016 7:40 am

Oh.I misread the headline.











:mrgreen:

dafeda
Posts: 143
Joined: Fri Aug 08, 2014 12:51 pm

Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by dafeda » Sat Apr 30, 2016 8:12 am

LFO8 wrote:Hi dafeda, I do audio restoration work with iZotope RX5. That will certainly do the trick. If you do not have any audio restoration software, you can hand the job over to me.
Hi, I don't have any audio restoration software. Had a look at RX but it's quite expensive.
If I can't fix it myself, I will ask my friend to sing again. I'm just a hobbyist so using professional services like yours really isn't an option at the moment, but thank you for the offer.

I've seen a few videos of people removing clicks such as these by drawing on the waveform. But on those videos, you can clearly see the discontinuity in the waveform. I can't find that on my waveform.

102455
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by 102455 » Sat Apr 30, 2016 9:06 am

dafeda wrote: Here's a clip where you can hear the problem:
Actually, no I can't hear the problem! Maybe it's my old ears, or my PC speakers (Creative T20) but I don't hear an obvious click.

If I can't hear it now, by the time you've got instrumentation around that vocal, I shouldn't think it will be an issue.

dafeda
Posts: 143
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by dafeda » Sat Apr 30, 2016 9:08 am

102455 wrote:
dafeda wrote: Here's a clip where you can hear the problem:
Actually, no I can't hear the problem! Maybe it's my old ears, or my PC speakers (Creative T20) but I don't hear an obvious click.

If I can't hear it now, by the time you've got instrumentation around that vocal, I shouldn't think it will be an issue.
Hm, that's interesting because I hear it quite clearly. It sounds like a mouth noise due to a bit too much saliva :)

102455
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by 102455 » Sat Apr 30, 2016 9:16 am

Listening again, there's a barely perceptible plip around the "wanna" - is that it?

IMO you're being too fussy. It's tiny. You notice it because you know it's there, and you may have played it back 100s of times.

Once the full production is in place, no one's gonna come back to you and complain that there's a miniscule plip in the vocal!

dafeda
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by dafeda » Sat Apr 30, 2016 10:42 am

102455 wrote:Listening again, there's a barely perceptible plip around the "wanna" - is that it?

IMO you're being too fussy. It's tiny. You notice it because you know it's there, and you may have played it back 100s of times.

Once the full production is in place, no one's gonna come back to you and complain that there's a miniscule plip in the vocal!
Yeah that's it and you are probably right in me being too fussy. Would be nice to learn to remove these things though. On the other hand, if I can't find it in the waveform I should shut up and move on :)

Thanks for taking the time to listen, much appreciated!

fishmonkey
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by fishmonkey » Sat Apr 30, 2016 11:23 am

that artifact is very audible on my system. if it was me i would definitely fix it or re-record...

dafeda
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by dafeda » Sat Apr 30, 2016 11:26 am

fishmonkey wrote:that artifact is very audible on my system. if it was me i would definitely fix it or re-record...
Ok good, so I'm not crazy. I will rerecord since I can't figure out how to fix it without dishing out cash.

fishmonkey
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by fishmonkey » Sat Apr 30, 2016 11:50 am

did you try the Audacity Cllck Removal effect?

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/click_removal.html

dafeda
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by dafeda » Sat Apr 30, 2016 11:56 am

fishmonkey wrote:did you try the Audacity Cllck Removal effect?

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/click_removal.html
I did actually, but could not make it work unless I drop the threshold so low it starts to mess up the sound.
Will try to play with it some more, as I haven't used Audacity before so I might be doing something wrong.

fishmonkey
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Re: Removing a click from vocals

Post by fishmonkey » Sat Apr 30, 2016 12:25 pm

the Audacity wiki does say the the click removal is best suited to vinyl record type clicks, so it might not work on your noise. i've never actually tried doing it in Audacity as i have the RX stuff.

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