Gear / Technical Help > Post-Processing, Computer / Streaming / Internet Devices & Related Activity
Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
voltronic:
Maybe others know this already, but I just discovered a way to easily reduce the level of close-to-rig clapping without much impact to the surrounding music, making normalization easier and/or the clapping less obtrusive.
I'm a school music teacher, and most of what I record are student concerts. I make edited CDs of every performance so that we can share the concert recordings with our students. The most difficult process for me during mastering has always been dealing with clapping from the audience when I go to normalize the overall level. Since there are frequently people clapping along to the music and/or applauding very close to the mics, the claps are very high in level relative to the music. This leaves little room to raise the overall level without resorting to significant compression, which I try to avoid for acoustic performances. The fact that I'm currently using the built-in omnis on my M10 does not help things (but CA14c's are on the way soon!)
Previously I would manually attenuate the applause between songs and/or edit the loudest claps individually, and then normalize. This accomplished the goal of raising the overall music level, but my edits were always very obvious and unnatural sounding. Today I was reading up on click/pop removal for vinyl transfer, and thought it might apply to this situation. The results were dramatically more natural sounding, and this process takes a fraction of the time. This would have saved me hours editing this year's concerts. :facepalm:
I tried this first in Izotope RX2, then again in Audacity. No suprise that RX2 gave me superior sounding results but you can similar results in Audacity also. Here's my process for both programs:
In Audacity:
1. Select area to remove clapping
2. Effect > Click Removal
3. Start with the following settings and adjust by ear:
Threshold: 200
Max Spike Width: 10
Or if you have RX2:
1. Select area to remove clapping
2. Open DECLICK & DECRACKLE module
3. Set preset to "Vinly record" (which enables the Random Clicks algorithm - you could do the same thing manually but this preset sounded great to me)
4. Preview as normal, and double-check previewing with "output clicks only" to ensure music transients aren't being grabbed by the processing
5. Make sure "output clicks only" is unchecked before processing.
I've linked a folder with audio samples as well as screenshots from Audacity and RX2. File names will tell you what was what as far as processing. The performance is an elementary school jazz band playing the end of "Jump, Jive, and Wail". You'll hear the audience start clapping along to the beat, then it immediately goes into applause. The M10 is on a camera tripod in the front row of the audience, almost dead center about 20' back from the band. And yes, this is in a CafeGymAtorium with loud HVAC. Let me know what you think of the results.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/j92ewqoy2kpu7zd/d6gE5C_hjz
Phil Zone:
That's a great idea, thanks!
Marshall7:
I'll certainly be giving this a try. Thanks.
beeco:
I've been using click removal in Audacity for just this purpose and have been happy with the results. I appreciate the additional guidance on threshold and spike, though. +t!
candor:
--- Quote from: voltronic on June 25, 2013, 04:45:44 PM ---Maybe others know this already, but I just discovered a way to easily reduce the level of close-to-rig clapping without much impact to the surrounding music, making normalization easier and/or the clapping less obtrusive.
snip
Previously I would manually attenuate the applause between songs and/or edit the loudest claps individually, and then normalize. This accomplished the goal of raising the overall music level, but my edits were always very obvious and unnatural sounding. Today I was reading up on click/pop removal for vinyl transfer, and thought it might apply to this situation. The results were dramatically more natural sounding, and this process takes a fraction of the time. This would have saved me hours editing this year's concerts. :facepalm:
I tried this first in Izotope RX2, then again in Audacity. No suprise that RX2 gave me superior sounding results but you can similar results in Audacity also. Here's my process for both programs:
--- End quote ---
I had been doing this in audacity but to get all the claps down to music levels the declick settings I had to use ended up making the applause sound have a pumping effect. After I switched to Adobe Audition I found I got better results by selecting the applause area and applying a hard limit to the section with a db cut which brought the loud claps down but left the rest untouched. This resulted in an easy way to do the same thing and a superior sounding (at least to me) result.
Hopefully this adds another tip to your post-processing bag of tricks :D
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