Advice for distorted dialog tracks

[drewwebsteraudio]

IZotope RX. It has specific functions to remove clicks, crackles and distortion from clipping. The advanced bundle is pretty pricey, but I'm fairly confident the standard bundle will work for you.

[Alexey Lukin]

Distorted in which way?

[royalxvi]

Originally Posted by Alexey Lukin

Distorted in which way?

Distorted as in recorded to hot on the lav mic. Distorted as in clipping in the dialog track. Its pretty bad. Izotope RX declipping to fix alot of it but some parts cant be repaired with RX declipping. I dont know how to use Spectral Repair. I dont even think that this would be a scenario for Spectral Repair.

Any other advice other than RX Declipper?

[haowai]

Originally Posted by royalxvi

Distorted as in recorded to hot on the lav mic. Distorted as in clipping in the dialog track. Its pretty bad. Izotope RX declipping to fix alot of it but some parts cant be repaired with RX declipping. I dont know how to use Spectral Repair. I dont even think that this would be a scenario for Spectral Repair.

Any other advice other than RX Declipper?

did you try decrackler ? that would help

[its_in_da_mix]

Much as I love my Izotope, I find it works well on digital clipping, and not so well on mic and mic preamp distortion. But if anyone knows different, please tell, I too would love to know!

Is the distortion continuous or only on the peaks?

I'd probably start by trying to edit out the worst bits manually (syllable replacement, if you can find it elsewhere in the dialog, or if you have different takes available.)
Laborious process though, especially if it's all bad....

Too hot on a lav will possibly give most distortion in the lows and low mids - some light eq-ing there might, well, not make it better, but ease the pain on the ears a bit.... :-/ But don't use an overall EQ, do it bit by bit, word by word if need be, and only as much as you think it needs... and then a bit less.

Intelligibility is paramount for dialog, so focus on that. You'll never get beautiful sound out of a distorted lav recording, whatever you do. But if you have a transient designer available, it may help intelligibility.
But be careful: if the distortion is mainly in the mids and high mids, this may actually increase the problem....

Always, ALWAYS check back and compare with the original. You may find that trying to make it better actually makes it worse. :-/

If you could upload a sound example of the problem, it would be helpful...

[Alexey Lukin]

A sound example would be worth a hundred words, but without knowing your specific case the typical repair chain would be: RX Declip > Decrackle > Deconstruct or Spectral Repair on certain frequency-bounded selections.

[seanmccoy]

Originally Posted by its_in_da_mix

Much as I love my Izotope, I find it works well on digital clipping, and not so well on mic and mic preamp distortion. But if anyone knows different, please tell, I too would love to know!

I've actually had some pretty good success clearing up analog distortion with RX. It seems to be a little more consistent with digital clipping, but thanks to RX I now tell clients "maybe" instead of "no way" when they hand me audio distorted at the mic or preamp.

[Whitecat]

Originally Posted by seanmccoy

I've actually had some pretty good success clearing up analog distortion with RX. It seems to be a little more consistent with digital clipping, but thanks to RX I now tell clients "maybe" instead of "no way" when they hand me audio distorted at the mic or preamp.

Agree with this - it varies and depends how bad it is.

I have managed some reasonable fixes in the past.

I attacked a possible job last week that turned out to be absolutely not fixable in any way...

It just depends!

[its_in_da_mix]

Sean and Whitecat: thanks, guys.
Would you mind elaborating a bit? Would that be using the declipper or spectral repair? Or both? Or other?

I recently tried the declipper as damage limitation on a horrible lav recording, but it was still a distortionfest. Grrr. All in the low end spectrum, btw, there were hardly any mids or highs in the recording at all.

But it might have been just me, I've only recently gotten hold of an rx2, and I'm by no means a superuser.
Yet.

And maybe it was just one of the unfixable ones... *sigh*... but they can't blame us for trying....

[seanmccoy]

Yes, it would seem you have one that is so far gone it's beyond saving. Could be there are more problems there than volume overload. Poor mic placement, possibly combined with a malfunctioning mic. In any noise reduction or other cleanup process, there needs to be enough usable audio within the signal to save.

[BIGBANGBUZZ]

Originally Posted by its_in_da_mix

Sean and Whitecat: thanks, guys.
Would you mind elaborating a bit? Would that be using the declipper or spectral repair? Or both? Or other?

I recently tried the declipper as damage limitation on a horrible lav recording, but it was still a distortionfest. Grrr. All in the low end spectrum, btw, there were hardly any mids or highs in the recording at all.

But it might have been just me, I've only recently gotten hold of an rx2, and I'm by no means a superuser.
Yet.

And maybe it was just one of the unfixable ones... *sigh*... but they can't blame us for trying....

De clipper has got my eng crew out of jail a few times both from digital and analog distortion.
It works most of the time but not all the time.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Gearslutz App

[its_in_da_mix]

Originally Posted by seanmccoy

Yes, it would seem you have one that is so far gone it's beyond saving. Could be there are more problems there than volume overload. Poor mic placement, possibly combined with a malfunctioning mic. In any noise reduction or other cleanup process, there needs to be enough usable audio within the signal to save.

Mic wasn't malfunctioning, placement was indeed poor - not the production guy's fault (he was as unhappy about is as I was), costume and camera needs got the advantage (as usual :p), and in an extremely noisy environment. And actor with very poor voice technique. Doesn't help.
And however often we tell them....

Originally Posted by BIGBANGBUZZ

It works most of the time but not all the time.

Yep, I'm slowly but surely learning that.
Darn.