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Topic: Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination (Read 18468 times) previous topic - next topic
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Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #25 –
Quote from: AndyH-ha on
Many albums need no noise reduction but more often can be improved (to my tastes, anyway) by NR applied only to the lower frequencies, somewhere around 500Hz and below. Also, a little light NR to the full frequency spectrum sometimes makes the music a little better, perhaps clearer, even though the noise isn't really audible per se.


Yes, I've came to the same conclusion. I usually apply NR only to the lower frequencies, up to about 250 Hz. But it depends greatly from case to case.
If age or weaknes doe prohibyte bloudletting you must use boxing

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #26 –
Quote
Turn on Synchronize Cursor Across Windows (under Options). Open the unprocessed copy of your recording. Now, when you have a suspicious or possibly partially processed click, switch windows to the unprocessed file to see what it was before auto declicking. Sometimes it is very useful to select a section containing whatever was mangled, copy, then paste it into your in-process file, good as new.

Great suggestion!  I would have never thought about cutting and pasting.  I used this yesterday on my second album.  I discovered a short segment where the auto declicker had actually decreased some fast snare drums.  I cut and pasted from the original WAV and presto, repaired file!

Quote
Fortunately it generally it isn't necessary to go to that extreme to get undetectable removal. One can stay in Spectral View and just perform a select on the click as displayed. Generally, it is desirable to be zoomed in to around 100 milliseconds full screen, sometimes closer, for greatest control, but of course that is more effort, so you won't always want to go that far in.

Did you really mean 100 ms?  That's only 1/10 of a second for the entire width of the monitor.  My spectral frequency display looks extremely stretched and blurred when zoomed in that much.

Quote
For the majority of clicks, place the cursor in the center of the brightest part (often dead center in the Spectral View, but not always). However, there are places, especially in vocals, where your repair works better is you select along the outer edges of the click.

Many times you just place a very narrow selection within the actual width of the click?  I'm surprised that there would be any click removal outside the selection.  I thought all processes only took place within actual selected waveform.

Quote
I'm not familiar with the "marquee tool" - it must be something new in Audition.

The marquee tool allows you to draw rectangles around any point of the waveform while in spectral frequency view.  There is also a free form "lasso tool", but I think it is more difficult to control.  Occasionally my clicks have not covered the full height of the spectral frequency display.  I've seen some of AndyH-ha's lower frequency "stubs" and other clicks that start in the high frequencies, but don't quite reach the very lowest frequencies.  For these clicks I have been just "boxing" the visible glitch, instead of using the time selection tool.  It seems to work fine, but I wasn't sure if I should really be using only the time selection tool for the "fill single click" option.

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There are great free demos available of most software though - that makes it easy to find something that suits you. I would strongly advise playing with some other pieces of software before spending hours tweaking Audition.

Yesterday I downloaded ClickFix to give it a try.  I've only attempted a few repairs.  I selected an  in-between tracks segment that was full of discrete clicks in spectral frequency view.  None of the presets, including "33 1/3 Aggressive" or "Auto Aggressive" removed them.  They only faded partially.  In contrast, Audition's "light reduction" setting removed everyone of them.  I was able to get ClickFix to also remove them by adjusting the sliders.  But I'm surprised that the aggressive presets were of no real help.

I also downloaded a demo of the Sound Forge Noise Reduction 2 plugin.  I haven't tried it yet, but I believe it can be used within Audition.  However, so far, I haven't seen it available for separate purchase except on Sony's site at full retail.  I could buy the entire Sonic Forge 9 program elsewhere for less than just the plugin from Sony.  Though, I believe Sonic Forge would still cost around $250, uugghh!

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Congratulations on your first CD. If you enjoy listening to it, then you've done something right!

You know, it really does sound very good!  It was great yesterday listening to it in the car.  It is a fairly obscure album from 1975 that I'm sure is simply not available for purchase on CD. 

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #27 –
Quote from: X-ray Doc on
Did you really mean 100 ms?  That's only 1/10 of a second for the entire width of the monitor.  My spectral frequency display looks extremely stretched and blurred when zoomed in that much.

I set the zoom to approximately 500–1000ms. And zoom in additionally for somewhat trickier parts.
Spectral settings affect the display. For manual declicking I set the FFT size to 256 and use Blackmann windowing function with width set to 40%. It gives (at least to my eyes  ) a nice sharp spectrogram suitable for declicking.
If age or weaknes doe prohibyte bloudletting you must use boxing

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #28 –
Quote from: X-ray Doc on
It is a fairly obscure album from 1975 that I'm sure is simply not available for purchase on CD. 

Mid-70's, eh? That's my era. You'd be surprised how many obscure albums from that period actually *are* available on CD. What album is it?

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #29 –
Quote
Mid-70's, eh? That's my era. You'd be surprised how many obscure albums from that period actually *are* available on CD. What album is it?

OK, I'll accept your challenge.  Not only is it not available on CD, I'll bet you've never even heard of the artist.  He was one of my more rare rock discoveries that was never played on the radio.  I believe I own all of his albums, totaling three.  Are you ready?  (......................long drum roll.....................)

David Werner!

There's a slim chance you heard of his first album called "Whizz Kid".  The one I recorded is his second and actually better called "Imagination Quota".  The third album, also great, is simply called "David Werner".

OK now, be honest!  Did I stump you? 

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #30 –
Quote from: X-ray Doc on
Not only is it not available on CD, I'll bet you've never even heard of the artist....
David Werner!
OK now, be honest!  Did I stump you?

Guilty as charged: never heard of him. I found a brief review on the net of his third album, which describes him as a bit like Bowie, and far too talented to be unknown. So not having heard his stuff is probably my loss.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #31 –
100 milliseconds is quite common during my manual declicking phase, although I never think about or look at those numbers except when I want to write about the process. There are times when I need to be twice as close, and even more, for optimum control. Did you notice my suggesting for Spectral View settings? The particular settings you use have a major impact on what you see.

If you had the energy to read my last post very closely, you should find mention of the fact that selecting only one sample  (which requires about 1 millisecond full screen zoom) is sometimes the route to the best fix, meaning the way to achieve the least adverse impact. While this is quite dependent on the click and the context; I usually know from experience when to do what, but undo is a good thing to be familiarly with.

I don't often go to the extreme of selecting only one sample, as the differences between that and a larger selection are often minor, and there are many instances requiring multiple samples, but I do employ the selection technique I described with cursor placement and arrow key, giving the smallest possible selection for the current zoom level, for 90+% of clicks.

In waveform view, zoom in close enough to be able to select a single sample at the peak of a sharp click. Now zoom out enough to see the context. Apply the ‘fix' and observe how much of the waveform changes. The amount of change is very dependent on the correction parameters; usually the FFT Size 128 settings makes the most modification.

I think the Sonic Foundry plugin may only be available via download from their website. The lower price for the entire package is what I meant in my earlier post. The plug in definitely works from within CoolEdit/Audition but I don't know if the Sound Forge package has something different that cannot be used elsewhere.

Not only is the Sonic Foundry declicking easier than CoolEdit's/Audition's but I also use its NR more often.

cliveb has mention before what he wrote in his last post
I usually apply noise reduction in a level-dependent manner (the higher the level, the lower the amount of noise reduction)

I understand a series of stepped applications, each with a different setting, but if you know a way to apply varying amounts of NR in a single pass, I would appreciate a description. This is a bit like the difference between using calculus to compute the area under a curve vs employing geometry to approximate it with a series of polygon calculations.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #32 –
Quote
In a beginning CoolEdit 2000 tutorial, before every using the tools, I read that Spectral View settings
Windowing Function: Blackman Harris
Resolution: 256 bands
Window Width: 40%
were best for identifying clicks.
Use the Logarithmic Energy plot. The default 120 dB is usually best.
Reverse Color Spectrum Direction should be checked.

AndyH-ha, I tried these settings but didn't like them.  I wanted to make sure that we were looking at similar displays.  Here is a screen capture of the start of a record with clicks using the above settings.  Under "spectral controls" there were a few other settings left at default:  Saturation 75, Gamma 2 and Transparency 40.  (Reverse and Logarithmic are not defaults in Audition 2.0.)



Here is a screen capture of the display I've been using.  The settings are as follows:

Windowing Function: Blackman Harris
Resolution: 512 bands
Window Width: 100%
Range: 132 dB
Linear plot
Not reversed
Saturation: 75
Gamma: 1.4
Transparency: 40



Am I using the wrong display?  I know that for different monitors or lighting situations, these settings are personal preference.  But the reverse and logarithmic settings look confusing to me.  If you have the time, I'd love to see a screen shot of your preferred spectral frequency display for identifying clicks.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #33 –
Quote
If you had the energy to read my last post very closely, you should find mention of the fact that selecting only one sample (which requires about 1 millisecond full screen zoom) is sometimes the route to the best fix, meaning the way to achieve the least adverse impact.

I did read that, but I couldn't believe what I was reading.    I have zoomed in to the "sample level" for fun, but I don't think I could recognize a click this magnified.

Quote
but I do employ the selection technique I described with cursor placement and arrow key, giving the smallest possible selection for the current zoom level, for 90+% of clicks.

I tried this, but must not understand how to do it.  Do you have to hold your mouse button while hitting the arrow key to affect a drag?  If I just clicked and then pressed the left arrow, it didn't seem to create a selection, just the initial click point.  I tried "fill single click" but got the message that I needed to select something.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #34 –
Quote from: AndyH-ha on
cliveb has mention before what he wrote in his last post
I usually apply noise reduction in a level-dependent manner (the higher the level, the lower the amount of noise reduction)

I understand a series of stepped applications, each with a different setting, but if you know a way to apply varying amounts of NR in a single pass, I would appreciate a description. This is a bit like the difference between using calculus to compute the area under a curve vs employing geometry to approximate it with a series of polygon calculations.

If you're using a typical audio editor such as CoolEdit, then I only know of the "stepped" approach. After I decided that a level-dependent application is appropriate, I added it as an option in Wave Repair. (As I've mentioned on a number of previous occasions, the intention of my software is to simplify the typical editing procedures used when resoring LP recordings. When I find something that works well, I make it as easy as possible in Wave Repair if I can).

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #35 –
Good deal about the WaveRepair NR. Noise reduction is one of several things I've often wanted to be able to apply on a curve.

Spectral View
The difference in appearance between 256 and 512 bands is not large at lower zoom, but the larger number of bands stretches individual transient events over a longer duration, contributing to your blurry picture at 100 milliseconds. Just a little experimentation also show me that the screen refresh isn't quite as good at 512 but
(1) you may well have a newer and more powerful computer/video system that handles scrolling better
(2) I've read some comments about Audition 2's Spectral View being generated in a new way, relative to prior programs versions, that lets the program render it much faster.

100% Windowing blends together some close clicks that show as separate, but very near, disruptions when using 40%. Less low frequency detail is visible. This also makes the screen content less distinct at close zoom.

Your settings may work well for you but, as I already wrote, more precise selection can often lead to less destructive changes. It all depends on the context and the click itself. You can view the differences more easily by zooming in to 100 milliseconds near some clicks and changing settings.

A range of 132dB rather than 120dB only means that fainter, i.e. smaller, things will show up more clearly. Turn it up to 200dB for a real gasp as what a mess of noise you have. Showing smaller, and thus less important, clicks and noise is sometimes very useful but, in general, I view it as just a distraction that I don't want to be remained about.

Your preferred screen seem to have the same basic color scheme and general appearance as mine. Is there a lot of green and dark blue when you select something? To really see if there is any difference worth noting, except as I described above about Resolution and Window Width, we would need the same bit of the same recording on screen. Changes to Saturation, Gamma, and Transparency are not available in my version, so I can't say if I would prefer any different values.

I don't at all understand your first screen shot. If that the result of making the plot logarithmic? Must be due to a significant program  change. If I change mine to a linear plot, a great deal of detail vanishes, making the view mainly black and white. Possibly I could get used to it for grosser declicking, since only the larger clicks even show up, but that isn't an appealing prospect.

Zooming In
In Spectral View it is hard to identify many things when zoomed in enough to select individual samples. When I need that kind of selection, I locate the item of interest at a lower zoom, place the cursor, and zoom in by clicking on the zoom button (or by using cursor keys, depending on my mood). I change to waveform view either before or after the zoom. Some clicks are still easy to identify in waveform view at that high zoom, but others change too slowly for enough of them to actually appear on screen at one time -- you kind of have to go on faith because you placed your cursor before you zoomed in so close.

100 milliseconds is truly useful for good control, especially for significant clicks in the middle of some vocals (varies a lot by singer) and some instruments (brass, in particular). You may need to go in to 10 milliseconds in order to get only the click and not greatly effect the transient of the rapidly repeating waveform. You might note that I also wrote that the 100 millisecond screen wasn't generally necessary. 300 milliseconds full screen is often close enough to be very useful. By the time the screen width gets out to 900 milliseconds, it is harder to easily place the cursor exactly where I want it without fiddling (unless I need to select a region rather than a single event), and it is not possible to make really small selections.

Cursor Key Selection
To select with arrow keys, click the mouse button to set the cursor position. Left arrow selects towards the left, right arrow moves the cursor right. Shift left arrow moves the cursor left and shift right arrow selects towards the right. You can enlarge the selection by continuing to move the cursor with the arrow keys. It is quite difficult to get the same degree of control by dragging the mouse.

If you can't select this way, chalk up another change for the program. Does the cursor move? Surely they wouldn't eliminate basic cursor key control. Perhaps they made it more logical by always requiring the shift key be down (or some other key?) in order to select, and the arrow key alone now always just moves the cursor. The variation in functioning between going right and going left in my version always seemed rather peculiar.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #36 –
X-Ray,

Re: Andy's settings - I think you've put the log scale into effect on the wrong thing. He is plotting log intensity. You're plotting log frequency. You don't want to do that - it'll make the clicks harder to spot.

For click spotting, I would use 128 bands, whatever dB range makes the clicks stand out (e.g. 100dB), and don't reverse the colour spectrum. I get green plots with bright green clicks.

For general audio analysis I use something completely different. 512-1024 bands (to see the frequencies / notes clearly) with 140dB range (to see the background noise clearly).


FWIW, after the automatic declicking I've described, I can't see many clicks. This isn't the case with other declickers. What you see has some correlation with what you hear. YMMV.

Cheers,
David.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #37 –
I've done quite a bit of audio cleanup of vinyl (300+ lps).  Even so, this discussion has reached technical levels I didn't think possible :-).

For what it's worth here is my experience:

I used CoolEdit 2000 with the audio cleanup plugin.  I played with the different presets as well as the auto detect capability.  I found that the "medium level" was a, well, happy medium for me. 

I created some scripts within CE2K and was able to automatic it where I could feed it a big batch of wav files and it would chew on them overnight.

In my experience, I found 2 types of music (actually instruments) that would regularly result in noticibly distorted audio:
- saxaphone, for instance Spyro Gyra or David Sanborn. 
- synthesizer, for instance Peter Baumann's "Romance '76" or Edgar Froese's "Solo 1974-1979".  Some Vangelis caused problems too.  A more well known example would be Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (especially the low frequency passages in On the Run).  I never converted DSOTM, but it contains synth passages like those that I've seen cause problems.

I think the sonic nature and frequency range of these instruments would trip up the algorithm and cause much of the content to be filtered thinking it was clicks.  The results would sound like audio playing through a bad electrical connection (e.g. a tape deck connected to a receiver using patch cables with corroded connectors).  When I first experienced it, my first step was to check my electrical connected between my stereo and PC.  The resulting audio would lack punch.  It was so bad, I would revert to the original unprocessed version and burn that to CD.

Anyway, that's my experience.  I had a lot of fun with it, especially developing my batch procedure.  Though I didn't go into the level of detail you guys are getting into.

Cheers.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #38 –
Quote
I don't at all understand your first screen shot. If that the result of making the plot logarithmic? Must be due to a significant program change. If I change mine to a linear plot, a great deal of detail vanishes, making the view mainly black and white. Possibly I could get used to it for grosser declicking, since only the larger clicks even show up, but that isn't an appealing prospect.

The main weirdness of that first screen shot results from "reversing" the color spectrum.  Audition 2.0 defaults to yellow>red>purple, with yellow being the highest amplitude frequencies and purple the lowest.  When I click the "reverse" button it shows all those very low amplitude frequencies as bright yellow.

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Re: Andy's settings - I think you've put the log scale into effect on the wrong thing. He is plotting log intensity. You're plotting log frequency. You don't want to do that - it'll make the clicks harder to spot.

You're absolutely right.  You can tell in the first screen shot that by clicking the "logarithmic" button, it changed the vertical scale to logarithmic frequency.  My second screen shot shows "linear" frequency.  Perhaps Audition 2.0 has changed.  I cannot find anywhere to make the color spectrum logarithmic.  I assume that is what you're suggesting.  Also, my default color scheme for spectral frequency display goes from yellow to purple.  I cannot really appreciate any green color at all, though it may be there.  The only time I clearly see green is in waveform display which is set on green.

Quote
If you can't select this way, chalk up another change for the program. Does the cursor move? Surely they wouldn't eliminate basic cursor key control.

OK, I've finally figured it out.  Thanks for the method.  Left click places the cursor.  Right or Left arrow keys will move the cursor a tiny amount.  Shift-Arrow selects a tiny amount, either right or left.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #39 –
Quote
In my experience, I found 2 types of music (actually instruments) that would regularly result in noticibly distorted audio:
- saxaphone, for instance Spyro Gyra or David Sanborn.
- synthesizer, for instance Peter Baumann's "Romance '76" or Edgar Froese's "Solo 1974-1979". Some Vangelis caused problems too.

Thanks for this warning.  I actually do own a lot of jazz/new age on vinyl such as Spryro Gyra, David Sanborn, Dotsero, Images, The Rippingtons, Bob James, Earl Klugh, etc.  I also own lots of music with synthesizers.  I'll be very careful when applying any sort of clean up on these albums.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #40 –
Quote from: X-ray Doc on
Quote
In my experience, I found 2 types of music (actually instruments) that would regularly result in noticibly distorted audio:
- saxaphone, for instance Spyro Gyra or David Sanborn.
- synthesizer, for instance Peter Baumann's "Romance '76" or Edgar Froese's "Solo 1974-1979". Some Vangelis caused problems too.

Thanks for this warning.  I actually do own a lot of jazz/new age on vinyl such as Spryro Gyra, David Sanborn, Dotsero, Images, The Rippingtons, Bob James, Earl Klugh, etc.  I also own lots of music with synthesizers.  I'll be very careful when applying any sort of clean up on these albums.

I'll confirm this warning. Auto declickers tend to trash brass and reed instruments (so sax perhaps is a double whammy, being both brass AND reed), and "raspy" synth patches. If you take a look at the shape of the waveform transient for these kind of instruments, it's very similar to the "instant-up, gradual fade" shape of a typical LP click.

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #41 –
Quote
I cannot really appreciate any green color at all,
When you select a portion of your Spectral View screen, the color stays the same?

Since I have no place of my own for images, I used the third post here
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....mp;#entry511037

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #42 –
Quote from: AndyH-ha on
When you select a portion of your Spectral View screen, the color stays the same?

Audition 2 offers transparent selection in the Spectral View. Although you can check 'Invert' in the Spectral controls and have the display as in your picture.
If age or weaknes doe prohibyte bloudletting you must use boxing

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #43 –
My default is for the spectral colors to stay unchanged, with a faint, transparent selection window over them.  As eevan stated, "invert selection" makes it look like your screen (though I didn't understand that setting until now.  Thanks eevan.)

Audition 2.0 Click/Pop Elimination

Reply #44 –
some details are easier to see when inverted.