Peaking of live performance and no time machine to go back an re-record!

L

lucycacameron

New member
hello all
I have a recording of a live show involving live music and vocals. The whole sound (and sometimed the vocals on thier own) peak badly at various points. I have little knowledge of Cool Edit and after hours of fiddling am turning to you guys with the knowledge for help. Other than inventing a time machine to go back and re-record is there anything I can try?
Any help appreciatied :)
 
3 things can help:

(1) volume enveloping;
(2) compression; and/or
(3) limiting
In that order.

Is it just peaking, or does it clip at some points? If it's just peaking, that can be smoothed out a lot by using a compressor...or the "Hard Limiter,"...I'd actually probably use both. The compressor first, then the limiter.

Your next question might be "what settings," but that totally depends on the material If the spikes are really bad, you can use volume envelopes in the multitrack in a kind of surgical method...just look for them, dip the envelope down where the big AUDIBLE spikes are, then mix that down...compress it, limit it.

little warning here...if you're using the compressor presets in CEP/AA on the whole mix, stay away from the really extreme ones (like the vocal presets). It might sound smoother to you when you first listen, but after you listen for awhile, it'll sound like garbage.

Good luck
 
when you clip in digitial recording, you are basically overloading the A/D converters. As mentioned compressing will really help a lot. Does anybody know if you can use a compressor as a real time effect in cool edit? i can't remember but i know in sonar you can. Anyways, just try some compression (dynamics processing in cool edit) and also try drawing a volume envelope and lower the volume a bit during those loud spots.
 
"Does anybody know if you can use a compressor as a real time effect in cool edit?"

You can use the Cool Edit compressor as a real-time effect when you're mixing in Cool, but not when you're recording. You need an outboard compressor for that.
 
My reading of this question is that the original recording is already distorted, so compression etc isn't going to help - it's too late. Effects > Noise Reduction > Clip Restoration is probably the only hope.
 
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