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Author Topic: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way  (Read 56403 times)

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stevetoney

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #30 on: July 12, 2013, 11:04:12 AM »
^  LOL.  I have a taper dream that involves me owning a venue that books bands that everybody wants to see so much that they'd put on muzzles and mittens upon entering the venue.  I like the mitten method of clap attenuation.

Mittens?  Great idea for every taper's gear bag.....if we all carried them, breaking them out could soon become the universal sign to "stop f#%king clapping so loud"........

Worth a try..

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stevetoney

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #31 on: July 12, 2013, 11:08:43 AM »
Tone, I made the attachments so as to avoid a long winded description of what the tool does, hoping the graphical representation would provide the "thousand words" business...

I understand about the screen shots.  It's just that these special tools just aren't very intuitive and I've tried to figure out how best to use them, but haven't been successful.  So, the extra detailed response that you provided is REALLY appreciated.  I know it takes time to write. 

I've got a recent recording with some really obnoxious clapping going on.  I'll bring that up and then re-visit your explanation.  If I have any more questions, I'll come back to this thread.  Thanks again man!

Offline nardo

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #32 on: July 14, 2013, 01:58:15 AM »
Thanks to this thread I now also use the click removal in Audacity. I highlight the section that contains the clapping, for this show I'm working on right now I set threshold 200 and spike width 30. This got most of the clicks, the ones that were still there I used the "Repair" effect on (for that you have to zoom in all the way, it only works on a few samples).

Offline bluntforcetrauma

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #33 on: July 14, 2013, 10:49:50 AM »
If you look at the waveforms in your editing software, the clapping sections are distinctive.  High narrow peaks - usually louder than the surrounding music or other recording.  It can take a bit of trial and error, but I usually start with the hard limit at or below the peak level level of surrounding program.  This way the loud claps are attenuated but the rest of the applause sounds pretty natural.  I find this takes me much less time than highlighting and adjusting each clap individually and I've often got claps that all don't respond to the same click removal settings.  If the overall applause is still too loud, the envelope tool is your friend.

This is why I use a limiter in general; once I figured out the loudest part I want to remain untouched, I shave off everything above that. I like that for clapping for two reasons; they don't have much sustain energy and part of what I find so offensive with them is the transient more so than the sound.

Your results will be based off of two things; you're ability to figure out that break-even point where you're not adversely harming the content you want to keep and second, the quality of your limiter plugin (they aren't all equal... Some can dig deeper without noticeable sonic impairment).

IMHO, noise reduction is never going to be the best choice for something like clapping because a noise reduction algorithm it's looking for steady-state noise to cancel (ex. HVAC drone, hiss, etc.) as opposed to intermittent random noise like clapping, etc.  That said, I've never been satisfied with Audacity's noise reduction - it always has given me the phasey "underwater" sound you experienced, or it sucked out percussive transients from the music.  BUT - the noise reduction in iZotope RX quite frankly is spectacular.  It really is able to cancel the background noise without harming the actual music, at least to my ears.  This is no help for claps or stand hits though.

I concur with all of this.

100ms is a long release for a hard limiter, especially on applause.  I'd try 1ms or less.

Good digital limiters are lookahead such that they effectively have no attack time--the attack will be applied in advance of the peak.

QFT. beat me to it.

How would one generally use a limiter?  it makes sense to use limiter the way you put it, you find the loudest part you want to remain untouched, then shave every thing off above that?  I understand the statement, but what would be a step by step instruction to get the result that is made in the statement?
I use PEAK which has Squeez limiters, but possibly maybe most limiters are close to being the same?
thanks for the help

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Offline ButchAlmberg

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #35 on: October 25, 2015, 09:59:23 PM »
I just taped Warren Haynes @ Jannus Live and never realized how much I despise clappers. I'm convinced this one woman knew exactly what she was doing, too. This thread is just what I was looking for.
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ilduclo

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #36 on: October 26, 2015, 09:42:14 AM »
not sure if I've posted in this particular thread or not, but the envelope ampilfy works great for this. I start at 100%, drop relatively quickly to 60% (usually) carry a flat 60% across the bottom of the envelope and then sharply back up to 100%, spline the curves (asymtotic). This gets a natural sounding 40% reduction in the applause. I have also combined this in a "reverse fashion" by amplifying quiet music using the envelope amplify function going from 100% up to 160%, then again back to 100 sharply. Combining these 2 has really worked well for me for a nice sounding recording of quiet music that was "enthusiastically appreciated" by the audience.

here's a screen shot of the applause lowering envelope, note the basis is 100% at the top, so the envelope goes lower than that below the top



and here's the 160% amplify upward. Note that the basis is 200% at the top and 100% in the middle, so the envelope amplifies when above the center



Of course, it goes without saying that the flat section in the middle where we are slope=0% should be "played with" until it sounds best to you. I use the 40% down and 60% up as what works for me and as sort of a maximum, above and below which I can really hear the amplification


and, of course, save your unedited files.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2015, 09:45:10 AM by ilduclo »

Offline hoserama

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #37 on: October 29, 2015, 12:03:33 AM »
If you're going to do that in Audition (that looks like Audition), just load it into the multitrack editor and automate the volume via envelop editing there. Non-destructive editing and then just export when you have the settings you want.
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ilduclo

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #38 on: October 30, 2015, 11:46:15 AM »
that's actually a soviet version of cool edit pro. I have those stored as presets, so it's pretty easy to do them, I don't generate those curves each time!

Question on this. The envelope works great for end of song clapping,  but what hard limiting values should be used for clapping during songs, like when people clap at the end of a good solo? I used to have a couple of presets that worked ok, but I lost them when migrating from one pc to another.  My hard limit has the following adjustable attributes

limit max amplitude to ____db
boost input by ________db
look ahead time _________ms (5....20) ------comes out of the box at 7 ms
release time _________ms (40...200)----comes out of the box at 100 ms


I'd like to be able to set it to achieve the same 40% reduction in clapping volume as I've done with the envelope

all suggestions would be MASSIVELY appreciated. I need to do this to something I recorded last night! :'( ??? :'( ??? :'(


Offline voltronic

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #39 on: October 30, 2015, 12:41:25 PM »
^ I don't have cool edit, but try the suggestions I posted for Audacity at the beginning of the thread for this type of thing.  Or use the Hard Limiter with a Residue level of 0.7 as a starting point.
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Offline voltronic

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #40 on: October 30, 2015, 08:59:42 PM »
Revisiting... The trouble with envelope attenuation is that, while you know you can knock down the peak claps with it by what ever percentage, you also lower the well behaved clappers close by and the room in general.  When you go to far, it sounds like the room has been moved well away from the action and you don't get a natural sounding reaction to the show.  These are live recordings after all.* That's why I've more or less gone to dynamic processing for most of my repairs.  It keeps the good local applause and limits the exuberant one or two at the same time...  YMMV

Yes that's a good point.  I tried envelopes once for this purpose but quickly abandoned them for the reasons you mentioned.  Now I use a combination of declicking for periodic claps and/or limiting for continuous washes of applause to reduce the loudest applause to that of the highest peaks, and the results are much more natural.

* I have prepared "studio" versions of live shows where I've cut the house out all together and cross faded the gaps.  They're alright if that's all you can salvage.

I did this once for a choral concert I performed in at the request of our conductor.  I recorded the dress rehearsal run in the afternoon and then was able to leave my setup exactly in place to record the concert that night.  The audience was exceptionally quiet and well behaved, and didn't jump in with applause immediately after the last cutoff.  This gave me two takes of the concert that sounded close enough where I could make "studio" comp edits.  I had plenty of clean hall tone to insert between tracks so the background was pretty seamless throughout the CD.  Not sure I'd ever do something like that again, but it worked out surprisingly well.
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ilduclo

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #41 on: October 31, 2015, 09:28:50 AM »
Revisiting... The trouble with envelope attenuation is that, while you know you can knock down the peak claps with it by what ever percentage, you also lower the well behaved clappers close by and the room in general.  When you go to far, it sounds like the room has been moved well away from the action and you don't get a natural sounding reaction to the show.   

yes, the operative words are "go too far",  to me moderate amounts are 30 to 40%. I know of no other way to do this with a natural sound. I am hard limiting the "in the song" clapping I was talking about earlier by reduction of approx 5 db. Seems to be working. and I changed the default timing per the recco to the lowest 40 ms setting......sounding great

Offline dyneq

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #42 on: February 14, 2016, 05:50:20 PM »
Bumping to share my experience. Last night, I recorded video for a friends' band performance in a small room at a brewery (Sonic Studios omnis > Nikon D3300 > Quicktime mov file). I had a good spot for both video and sound, but at times people would raise their hands up to my head's level and clap right next to the mics (I was seated on a tall stool most of the time).

I tried the OP's method in Amadeus Pro and I'm happy with the result. Amadeus Pro has its own vinyl audio repair tool but it works much like the rest in that you zoom in on the loud 'click' and select only that area to repair. In some cases, it was more prominent in one channel, so I experimented with only repairing one channel but I ended up preferring to repair both channels because it sounds more natural.

Amadeus Pro has a nice feature where it can find the maximum sample for the selected area. So my workflow goes like this:

1. Select all
2. Analyze menu > Find Maximum (or Command + Option + P)
3. Preview the peak to make sure it's a clap and not music (usually obvious from the waveform)
4. Select only the peak (both channels sounds more natural)
5. Press 'r' to repair.
6. Rinse, lather, repeat until I hit music
7. Normalize

If you have a ton of claps, then this would be too tedious of a process. I only found about 20 claps that were louder than the loudest music sound, so it went pretty quickly and sounds natural to my ears.


ilduclo

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #43 on: February 18, 2016, 06:24:30 PM »
I've found applying limiting or compression to only the applause sections -- rather than the file in its entirety -- works quite well.  There's often a quiet(er) musical moment at the end of songs, but before applause...and after applause, but before the start of songs.  This allows me to compress the applause down to the level of the music at the time the applause starts, which is often -- but not always -- lower than much of the rest of the music.  $0.02

For example, you might have a file with applause peaking at -3 dB, music peaking at -9 dB, but the music immediately before and after a section of applause only peaks at -15 dB.  In this case, apply compression / limiting to the applause section only, knocking it down to -15 dB.  Whereas if you apply compression / limiting to the entire file, the lowest you could knock down the applause would be -9 dB.

thanks, it works!

Offline fandelive

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Re: Attenuating clapping in live recordings - the easy way
« Reply #44 on: June 12, 2016, 06:08:03 AM »
Here's another method I recently came up with, when declicker doesn't work : Removing Pops and Clicks In Adobe Audition CS6 (Voice Over).

Not exactly the easy way but this will work in some harder to resolve cases.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2016, 06:24:59 AM by fandelive »
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