need help in fixing vocal dist.

W

williamconifer

New member
Greets,

Over the weekend I did my first remote live recording. It was a 10 piece blues band. I used a M-audio Quattro (worked real nice) Sonar 2.2. I ran line outs from the 4 subs on the house board into my mackie for gain control then into my quattro/computer.

Here's my problem, the first 4-5 songs I was working to get the levels right. Everything looked great in Sonar. However I was hearing sharp distortion when the lead vocalist would cut loose. It was a crackle dist. Up there in the freqs. near the sound of white noise. I thought it was the house board (which I was not allowed to touch) but as soon as I pulled back on the trim for that channel in my Mackie it was fine. Hey you live and learn.

Hear's my problem. I really don't know how to doctor up the distortion. I know it's there and that's that but how do you folks minimize it in the mix? I've got boatloads of plugins but this is a tricky thing and I don't know what works well and how to do it. (fyi I got the Timeworks, Waves, TCWorks Native plugs that I use the most)

Any thoughts? I got to get them a rough mix so they can figure what songs they want me to polish.

Thanks
jack
 
If the distortion is on disc, and the band has left you're pretty much SCREWED. No way (in my opinion) to 'fix' a digital distortion. If the distortion bit is really really REALLY short you could try to use the interpolate utility in Soundforge to cover it up (well, perhaps it's present in the almighty SONAR as well). If it's longer I feel sorry for ya: it'll sound ugly whatever you do...

Next time, hook up a limiter (or compressor) between the lead vocalist's mic and the board (or audiocard) to prevent stuff like this. Or just ask the guys to do it again. :)

But that's only my opinion, perhaps the other technerds around here know how to do it.
 
Thanks for your response. I don't have alot of experience with DIgital distortion. What strikes me is that the meters in Sonar were no where near clipping. I thought I was distorting the preamps on my Mackie. Luckily it's really only on 1 track, unfortunately it the vocal track. hehe. It was a live gig so do overs wasnt an option. The first 3 songs are not workable but manipulateing a compressor I was able to cut the harshness in half for 3 more songs. The rest of the set is ok.

What is interpolate? I've never used it.

I was wondering if I could use the Sonic Foundry noise reduction utility, or maybe notch out the offending freqs. De-esser? Any way just wondering if there is a gem of a tip out there for this kind of problem.

Thanks
jack
 
Just remember: digital distortion is the ugliest distortion around, as Moskus would say "digital distortion is baaaaaaaad" :)

My question is: does digital distortion have a frequency at all? Because if it doesn't, eq or de-essers won't help you either. You could alter the volume of the click, but you will hear the click...always. Unless you use interpolate...

Interpolate: it's easier to show it with a pic. Very simple explanation (o, the technerds will hate me for this): it replaces the nasty bit for a 'line'. The good thing is: your ears won't notice the alteration (if it's not too long). Could be your solution!
 

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Pedullist said:
Just remember: digital distortion is the ugliest distortion around, as Moskus would say "digital distortion is baaaaaaaad" :)
Click to expand...
LOL! And yeah, I would... :D
 
Pedullist said:
My question is: does digital distortion have a frequency at all?
Click to expand...
Depends on what you mean by "have a frequency". All sounds if you can hear them, have a frequency or a mix of several. But I haven't analyzed digital distortion, so I don't know... Maybe I'll rig up the Brüel & Kjær-measurer.
 
I just wanted to report on the resolution to my little distortion delima. As you recall I had a live recording where the vocal track for the first 9 songs has distortion in the high freqs. I don't believe it was digital distorion, because the meters in Sonar were very meek and by reducing the trim on my mackie mixer I got it under controll.

As luck would have it my client wanted postproduction done on 3 songs with that distortion. I had to find a way to minimize the distortion. I figured the only way was to find the distorted freqs and cut em out. I had a difficult time achieving this using paragraphic eq (sonic timeworks) so I chose Ozone 2 and it's multiband compressor/limiter. I was able to zoom in on the vocal's high freqs and limit the shit out of them. It worked like a charm. Of course I had to do some major work on the remaining freqs so the vocals still sounded ok. I was told by my client that they were amazed how I was able to improve the sound of the recording. I'm recording the same band on Sunday so this time it better be clean. hehe.

jack
 
Hey, this is good news...and indeed, this is also a good way to cover it up.

Good for you!
 
And of course you could add a little distortion to the entire vocal-track, just to make seem that it was supposed to sound that way... ;)
 
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