Extreme Distortion Removal

[THX1136]

With the advent of AI based processing tools I was wondering if anyone knows of a relatively 'inexpensive' app (ie. not Izotope) that deals with extreme distortion? I'm not talking about simple clipping distortion. I'm talking about a live recording where the levels were set so high that the input to the machine was overdriven along with probable clipping from too hot of levels internally going to tape. Amazingly one can still hear some of what's there, but it is so distorted as to be unlistenable for the average person. I thought to try the trick of increasing the recorded levels into heavier clipping and de-clip it, but no dice. The distortion 'within' the waveforms is still there (like jaggies that are in the middle of the upward/downward swing of a sine wave). Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[TalismanRich]

I recently ran into a situation where the input was so grossly overdriven that it introduced negative peaks into the signal. The wave forms looked like this. The spikes with the red arrows are the distortions introduced.

I don't know of any software tools that would remove such aberrations, but there might be one. I guess you could painstakingly manually redraw the wave forms, but you might have thousands that need to be done. It wouldn't be worth it unless it was something that was highly valuable.

 

[THX1136]

Thanks for your reply! The shot you included is exactly what I was talking about. I recognize that type of waveform quite well. I actually did redraw waveforms by hand several years back (2009??) when I started restoring my mono copy of Sgt. Pepper. It took about 35 min. to do 1 second of audio. Fortunately my son found some private project freeware that was new around that time which did a great job. It was called Disc Repair if I remember right.

Again, thanks for your input!

 

[TalismanRich]

I did a bit of searching and found something called Acon Digital that has a Declip function. I downloaded the demo (it intermittently mutes) and tested it on the file. No go! Here is the original vs the processed file. You can see the dips in the exact same places. All it seemed to do was lower the level. I tried two or three different settings but none cleared up the distortions. It appears that it works somewhat on the flat topped peaks.



If you do find something that works, please post your results. I'm sure that someone else has had the exact same problem.