Topic: Help with salvaging a recording

[atxwolfattack]

Luckily i got to see the band play again the next week, but to make a long story short, i went to go see a band, and my recording was way to hot. In speakers you cannot really notice it as much, but with headphones you really can tell.

Basically my question is does anyone have any tips for salvaging a recording that sounds blown out and too hot? If anyone has tricks they know, i can post a sample from that show a few weeks ago and someone can try messing with it if they have any spare time, or you could give me some advice on ways to help make it sound a bit more listenable.

thanks,

Josh

[Church-Audio]

Luckily i got to see the band play again the next week, but to make a long story short, i went to go see a band, and my recording was way to hot. In speakers you cannot really notice it as much, but with headphones you really can tell.

Basically my question is does anyone have any tips for salvaging a recording that sounds blown out and too hot? If anyone has tricks they know, i can post a sample from that show a few weeks ago and someone can try messing with it if they have any spare time, or you could give me some advice on ways to help make it sound a bit more listenable.

thanks,

Josh

Hi Josh if you can maybe post a link to it somewhere, maybe I can help or maybe someone more knowledgeable then I in computer editing can help. Its very hard to know what can be done. A sample will make it easy for some of the experts here to tell, and maybe suggest a few things that might help you out.

Chris

[dorrcoq]

It's easy to raise low levels, but once you've clipped as badly as it sounds like you did, you're pretty well screwed.  My suggestion - listen to it through your speakers and forget the headphones.

[atxwolfattack]

It's easy to raise low levels, but once you've clipped as badly as it sounds like you did, you're pretty well screwed.  My suggestion - listen to it through your speakers and forget the headphones.

yeah, i figured that, thought i might as well ask, here is a sample sectrion from one of the songs, maybe someone can mess with it and see if they know any miracles.

Basically, i learned my lesson, haha, and i won't make the mistake i did again. I taped about 20-25 shows at sxsw last week and i didn't mess up once, so i think i have got it down. The wav files does not look like it is clipping, because what happened is i turned my preamp up too much, but then turend the output volume down, so the signal looked like it was not clipping on my iriver, when it really was, but with a quiet signal. The samples are only like 10-20 seconds long, i can post a longer clip if you'd like.

3 samples....

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=1326CAC929DF3FF2

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=2D977A4F79781806

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=0E31132E51B7DF5A


If anyone can make it sound any better, tell me what you used, and how you did whatever you did, i would appreciate it. Hey, i know there isnt much to do with a bad recording, but i might as well see if it can be helped, right?

[dorrcoq]

Well, you didn't clip, so this should be somewhat fixable!   I put the first sample in Audacity, and checked the amplify option.  It allowed for an 11.3 dB boost, so it does sound somewhat better after you do that.  It's a little short for me to tell exactly how much better, and I was just listening through the computer speakers anyhow.  Try amplifying a whole track, or the whole file, and see how it sounds to you

[atxwolfattack]

Well, you didn't clip, so this should be somewhat fixable!   I put the first sample in Audacity, and checked the amplify option.  It allowed for an 11.3 dB boost, so it does sound somewhat better after you do that.  It's a little short for me to tell exactly how much better, and I was just listening through the computer speakers anyhow.  Try amplifying a whole track, or the whole file, and see how it sounds to you

hmm, i think it does clip or at least it sounds like it. I know the levels were really low, but that was because the church audio preamp i have has an output volume dial, so i turned the clipping signal down before it got to my recorder. I could be wrong, but i thought thats what happened.

I also tried amplifying it, but it doesn't sound much better, at least in headphones. Thanks for helping though. Any other ideas?

Here is a longer clip as well....


http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=5D05C2BD260BA234

[dorrcoq]

I'm pretty inexperienced at editing, hopefully there are others who will give some ideas.  Definitely no clipping on your WAV file, but you must have done something with the preamp to affect the sound negatively.  Maybe Chris will come back and listen to the samples and have some ideas what "his" preamp did.

[Brennan]

I think I can explain it after listening to the samples..

You ran the signal into the preamp (ST-9000 or 9100 I presume?), and it was too hot. It came out of the pre too hot, but you turned the levels down on the recorder (did I hear iRiver?), causing the levels to look ok. It was still distorting from the pre though, just recording to the device at good levels.

That make sense?

[dorrcoq]

That make sense?

yes

[atxwolfattack]

I think I can explain it after listening to the samples..

You ran the signal into the preamp (ST-9000 or 9100 I presume?), and it was too hot. It came out of the pre too hot, but you turned the levels down on the recorder (did I hear iRiver?), causing the levels to look ok. It was still distorting from the pre though, just recording to the device at good levels.

That make sense?

yes, about 99% correct, the STC-9000 has gain switches, i switched it to +30 (stupid mistake), and then it has an output volume nob, so i turned the nob on the preamp down, so it looked on the recorder like it was good levels on the iRiver. So yeah you are pretty much correct. Did you get a chance to mess with the longer clip i posted?

[atxwolfattack]

Luckily i got to see the band play again the next week, but to make a long story short, i went to go see a band, and my recording was way to hot. In speakers you cannot really notice it as much, but with headphones you really can tell.

Basically my question is does anyone have any tips for salvaging a recording that sounds blown out and too hot? If anyone has tricks they know, i can post a sample from that show a few weeks ago and someone can try messing with it if they have any spare time, or you could give me some advice on ways to help make it sound a bit more listenable.

thanks,

Josh

Hi Josh if you can maybe post a link to it somewhere, maybe I can help or maybe someone more knowledgeable then I in computer editing can help. Its very hard to know what can be done. A sample will make it easy for some of the experts here to tell, and maybe suggest a few things that might help you out.

Chris

hey Chris,

did you ever check out the sample i posted? I posted 3 short samples, and then 1 longer one. Just checking to see if you took a couple minutes to mess with it.

thanks.

[Brennan]

yes, about 99% correct, the STC-9000 has gain switches, i switched it to +30 (stupid mistake)....Did you get a chance to mess with the longer clip i posted?

Oh yea, forgot about those gain switches..well, now you know what not to do next time

I'm actually waiting to see if anyone has a remedy for this too, cause I have a recording similar to this I'd like to try to fix lol

[atxwolfattack]

anyone.....

[SmokinJoe]

I did a similar thing recently.  Or at least I got a similar result.  I was running AT853 > an SP battery box > R09, and I had the R09 line input at about 8 (on scale of 0-30), which got me a steady -6b recording.  It's not clipped at the recorder, but  I presume I overloaded the capsules internally.  To me it's just a learning experience.

[Church-Audio]

Luckily i got to see the band play again the next week, but to make a long story short, i went to go see a band, and my recording was way to hot. In speakers you cannot really notice it as much, but with headphones you really can tell.

Basically my question is does anyone have any tips for salvaging a recording that sounds blown out and too hot? If anyone has tricks they know, i can post a sample from that show a few weeks ago and someone can try messing with it if they have any spare time, or you could give me some advice on ways to help make it sound a bit more listenable.

thanks,

Josh

Hi Josh if you can maybe post a link to it somewhere, maybe I can help or maybe someone more knowledgeable then I in computer editing can help. Its very hard to know what can be done. A sample will make it easy for some of the experts here to tell, and maybe suggest a few things that might help you out.

Chris

hey Chris,

did you ever check out the sample i posted? I posted 3 short samples, and then 1 longer one. Just checking to see if you took a couple minutes to mess with it.

thanks.

Hey I am really sorry I have not listened to it. I promise to spend some time on monday.

Chris Church