portion of recorded wav has flatted top!!

D

dontouch

New member
Mic pre: TG-2 setting: in+55, out+1.25

mics: schoeps MK4 capsule.


I did some drum tracking using X/Y technique. I spent two days edit but only notice now that every hit of the OHs have these "flatted" top, looks like the wave got chopped off.

Was it because my pre was too hot?

Never happened before!! but then I usually set the mic-in low...

What's going on? Do I need re-track?
 
Flat topped wavs usually mean you've clipped the analog to digital converters.

If your signal is hotter than they can handle, they'll just chop it flat at their threshold.

Re recording is really the only fix. If the clipping is audible you'll never fix it.
 
But the AD never clipped. The red light never came on. I was watching the meter and it was around -6.
could it be the mic-pre inputs was set too high?


Steenamaroo said:
Flat topped wavs usually mean you've clipped the analog to digital converters.

If your signal is hotter than they can handle, they'll just chop it flat at their threshold.

Re recording is really the only fix. If the clipping is audible you'll never fix it.
Click to expand...
 
Where are you metering? If it's in software you could just have a calibration issue.

Either way, -6 is still too hot for tracking. Aim to have your input signals peaking between -18/-12 or so.
 
You most certainly clipped something somewhere, and it was quite likely because of having the mic pre's gain too high. Without having seen or heard it happen it's tough to say exactly where. Digital clipping often has a bit harsher sound to it than analog, but you can never say for sure. It is at least possible that the mic itself distorted, drums can get pretty darn loud and the diaghram can only move so far.

Either way, it's in the file now and you've got to either retrack or try to work with what you've got. Depending on what you're shooting for and how bad it is, it may not be completely unrecoverable. Heck, if you're going for a "contemporary" sound you're probably just going to clip the track down even further anyway. ;)
 
This is the importance of gain staging. If you clipped in the mic pre amp, then had your A-D turned down enough to look right, the signal is still clipped.
 
..the AD never clipped. The red light never came on. I was watching the meter and it was around -6.
Click to expand...
Might be worth a little testing if nothing else to nail down where and how it happened. You've run this same pre and A/D combo before?
For now then- listening carefully, can you catch any degradation? Sometimes there's no real harm done when some clip, but if lots are- then some might be way worse the others.
 
Is the capsule connected properly? I have that same problem with my Apex 460, turn out that one of the wire (black) got disconnected at the 7 pin XLR.
 
I can't tell from your post if you've done work processing the track, but limiting and compression can give those flat-top looking waveforms also. Not sure if you can revert to the original signal if you've somewhere applied compression/limiting and saved the changes to a wav file. Just throwing this out in case.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top