Topic: Pencil Tool in Wavelab or Audacity

[guitard]

I recently pulled a smoking hot recording - the only flaw is a clapper that was sitting next to me.  She pretty much only clapped between songs, so I think the claps will be easy to work on.

I looked up several threads here that discuss removing claps.  I tried some of the limiter and compression tricks - but didn't like how they affected the audio.

I read in a few threads where people used the pencil tool.  I gave that a shot, and it seems to work.  However... you have to zoom in so far (to where the only thing you see on the entire timeline is a short stretch of audio that's only a fraction of a second in length). 

Then you have to zoom back out, find the next clap, and then zoom, zoom, zoom in - and fix that clap.

Either I'm doing something wrong (very good possibility) or there is a much better way of doing this.

What would be nice is a situation where you can look at 10-20 seconds of audio on the timeline - a length that clearly lets you see several claps at a time - and just quickly zap them one-by-one with the pencil tool (or some other tool that serves the same function).

Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

[Xontar]

Just limit the fucking shit out of it. Easiest way to do this in audacity is to figure out how much you can amplify the non-clapping noise without clipping it (highlight it, open the Amplify effect dialog, the default dB value will tell you), then highlight the portion you want to limit, amplify by that value (allow clipping), and amplify by negative that value to get it back down.

[Gordon]

by claps we are assuming large spikes in the waveform and not screams/applause.  compression works great for screams.applause but not as great for the clap spikes.    I've done the pencil tool and what darby said above, cuting it right out.  lately  I've been using the declicker in wavelab (it's a VST plugin that comes with wavelab).  drop the threshold down as needed, render and watch the spikes go away for the most part.   

[Scooter123]

I use compression and volume reduction, which works well if they are stand alone at the end of the song without music.  Clappers during the track are tough, the clap over the notes, if removed, will also remove music.  Goldwave has the ability to "record" a passage that you want to process, so I "record" the clapping" and then work with it, with very mixed results. 

Bottom Line:  Not easy.  Its tough out there in the field. 

[admkrk]

by claps we are assuming large spikes in the waveform and not screams/applause.  compression works great for screams.applause but not as great for the clap spikes.    I've done the pencil tool and what darby said above, cuting it right out.  lately  I've been using the declicker in wavelab (it's a VST plugin that comes with wavelab).  drop the threshold down as needed, render and watch the spikes go away for the most part.

the declicker works well for me cleaning up vinyl transfers. it should work for the clap spikes as well. it tends to kill a bit of percussion as well tho so be careful with it.

[nathan_g]

I use Audition 3 to clip out a few milliseconds of each clap, usually between 2-4ms. This is VERY tedious but the results are usually very good. This usually works well even when the clapping takes place during the music. While this does take some patience, you'll get a rythym going and it becomes easier as you go.

Check the samples below...not the best example but you'll get the idea. Play them back to back for comparison.

[beatkilla]

I know you use Vegas so there's no need for a different audio editor Vegas can do anything protools can do.I would just split the clapping sections and limit those etc. that way your not affecting your music just the parts inbetween.

[guitard]

Folks - thanks for the advice and suggestions.

In the end - I just started snipping out micro-slices.  Probably a couple thousand by the time I was done.  What a pain in the ass.  But it's done and it sounds a lot better - so I'm happy.