Adobe Audition Distorted Audio

Adobe Audition Distorted Audio Editor
Adobe Audition Distorted Audio File
Adobe Audition Audio Editing Software

Hello, I have some interview audio recordings that really need a fix. They were damaged by a faulty Tascam recorder and now I need to fix them in post. NOTE: THESE ARE NOT CLIPPED FILES. I tried diagnostics DeClipper but that was impertinent because they were recorded with perfect levels. Audition allows audio filters to be applied either to the clip or the track. A typical use of a clip filter (which Audition calls “effects.”) might be to remove hum from one clip, without applying that effect to all the other clips in that track. However, in almost all cases, audio effects are applied to the track. 👇This is how to fix distorted audio in Premiere Pro. If you have clipped audio or distorted audio in adobe audition this audio tutorial will show you a quic.

In my experience, there are two statements known to cause riots: the first is categorically state what’s the best non-linear editor, and, second, is to discuss setting audio levels.

Since things are a bit quiet at the moment, let’s boldly sally forth into a discussion of audio levels.

NOTE: I am always happy to learn from readers and correct my mistakes. Feel free to share your comments below. However, name-calling is not allowed.

With the demise of Soundtrack Pro, I am very impressed with the new version of Adobe Audition CS6. I have always loved working with audio, and this program has a lot of nice features that I appreciate a great deal. So, this article shows how to use an effects filter in Adobe Audition CS6 to set levels dynamically.

THE CHALLENGE

For this tutorial, let us assume we have a variety of on-location recordings where we want to retain background and environmental sound. However, like most productions, the talent was recorded low so as to guarantee that there would be no distortion.

Desktop manager android for mac. We want to increase the audio gain of the talent, without destroying the background sound.

There are several ways we can do this:

Raise the volume of the clip by adjusting the yellow audio gain line
Raise the volume of the track by adjusting the track gain
Raise the volume of the clip or track by adding volume keyframes

However, in all of these examples, there is no guarantee that we won’t adjust the audio level too much and cause distortion. Also, it is either impossible or very difficult to respond to moment-by-moment changes in audio.

What we want to do is increase the softer passages while making sure the louder passages don’t distort.

NOTE: Audition also provides filters that allow you to remove background noise. (Here’s a webinar that explains how these noise filters work.) However the reason we went on location in the first place was to record the sound of the environment along with our talent.

SOME BACKGROUND

Audition allows audio filters to be applied either to the clip or the track. A typical use of a clip filter (which Audition calls “effects.”) might be to remove hum from one clip, without applying that effect to all the other clips in that track.

However, in almost all cases, audio effects are applied to the track.

I first wrote about the Limiter filter when covering Soundtrack Pro. (Read that article here.) A similar filter exists in Audition – called the Hard Limiter effect – that should absolutely be part of your regular audio toolkit.

What the Hard Limiter effect does is amplify soft passages more than louder passages and guarantee that the loudest passages of a clip or track stay below the “limit” that you set in the effect. In other words, the Limiter effect makes the overall volume of a clip louder while “guaranteeing” that the audio in that track won’t distort.

TWO EFFECTS TO AVOID

Because Audition has its roots in radio broadcast, several of its filters are designed to improve the levels of audio recorded in a studio. Zip tool for mac. While these filters work, they totally destroy any background sound that’s contained in a clip recorded on location.

These two filters are:

Speech Volume Leveler
Adaptive Noise Reduction

The problem is that these two filters are often part of the gain presets shipped with Audition. For this reason, I strongly recommend against using any presets to fix audio levels where the background sound is important to the mix.

Presets to avoid include:

Clean up and Level Voice Over
DeEss and Limit Female Voice Over
DeEss and Limit Male Voice Over
Radio Announcer Voice
Voice Leveler and Noise Gate

These filters are excellent for studio recordings with no noise, but not to be used for mixing location audio.

A NOTE ON LEVELS IN AUDITION

Audition, like Premiere Pro, Soundtrack Pro, and Final Cut Pro, measures audio using peak (or maximum) values. It displays audio levels using a measuring system called “dBFS” – or “decibels Full Scale.”

Because the system displays peaks, rather than average (or RMS) volume, I set my audio levels set using peak values. Many pro audio engineers prefer to work using average levels, which Audition can calculate, but not display.

NOTE: The most important rule for audio is that your audio levels for the entire mix must not, ever, exceed 0 dB during mixdown, export, or when saving the file. It is not unusual for levels to exceed 0 dB during the mix as you are determining your levels, but excessive levels must be adjusted below 0 dB prior to final output.

When measuring audio levels, always assume the meters are correct and your ears are wrong.

WHERE DO YOU PUT THE LIMITER EFFECT?

On small projects, say less than 10 tracks, you can apply the Limiter effect directly to the track.

However, for larger projects, to conserve CPU cycles, the Limiter effect is often applied to a sub-mix, where all the dialog tracks, for example, are routed to the sub-mix for audio leveling before final output in the mix.

Also, as a general rule, the Limiter filter should not be applied to sound effects, natural background sound, or music. This effect is designed for narration, voice-overs, interview subjects, and all on-camera speech.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Select the track to which you want to apply the filter; this could be a track, submix, or master track. In this example, I’ve selected the track named “Larry;” note the lighter gray color indicating selection.

Click the Effects Rack tab – or select it from Window > Effects Rack – shortcut: Option+0) – to make it active.

Click the Track Effects tab, at the top, to make it active. This applies the effect to the track. (If you wanted to apply the effect to a clip, click the Clip Effects tab to the left.)

From either the Effects menu at the top of the screen, or the right-pointing white arrows to the right of the Effects Rack, select Amplitude and Compression > Hard Limiter.

Two things happen: the Hard Limiter is listed in the Effects Rack and…

The settings for the Limiter are displayed in a floating window on top of your tracks. (Your settings for this filter may look different from mine.)

The specific settings you use can vary, but one that I like is to use Limit to -3dB.

What this does is amplify (Input Boost) the audio gain for the entire clip by 6.0 dB, provided that the maximum level (Maximum Amplitude) never exceeds -3.0 dB.

The only setting you need to adjust is Input Boost. Your goal is to amplify the clip so that it sounds louder, without sounding distorted. The easiest way to adjust this is play your clip and drag the Input Boost slider to adjust the gain. For setting input gain, I like the interface of the Limiter filter in Soundtrack Pro MUCH better as it provided a visual indicator of when the filter was properly adjusted.

So here’s an easy way to set this using Audition.

Click the green power button in the Effects Rack so it goes gray, this turns the filter off without deleting it.

Right-click in the audio meters and set peaks to Static Peaks. This shows you the loudest your peaks are without resetting the peak indicator every few seconds.

Play a representative portion of your clip and watch where the static peaks max out. Since this is a peak, most of your levels will be softer than this. Enter this number into the Input boost.

For example, in this screen shot, my maximum peak is -7 dB. So, I would enter 7 dB into the Input Boost. This gets the effect close to the level I need. At which point, I play the sequence and tweak slightly until my levels sound good. The Maximum Amplitude setting limits the total volume so that it does not get louder than -3 dB.

Adobe audition for mac os x torrent. THE LAW OF THE PAN

This technique works great for mono clips in a mono mix, or stereo clips in a stereo mix. However, there’s a bit of a hitch when setting levels for a mono clip that’s part of a stereo mix. And that’s because when a mono clip is panned into a stereo clip, it’s gain is reduced by 3 dB. Here’s a blog post on Adobe’s website that explains this:

So, the process is the same, but the levels of your clip won’t exceed -6 dB. Weird but true.

SUMMARY

If you are looking to level out the audio gain of a track, without running the risk of distortion, the Hard Limiter is a great choice. The reason I prefer the Hard Limiter effect versus a compressor, is that the Limiter is easier to set up, and provides better control over limiting the maximum volume of a clip.

NOTE: Recently, I created an entire series of video training covering Adobe Audition. This tutorial is an excerpt from that training.

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Using the Effects Rack

The screen shots in these lessons were taken using the Classic workspace, so it’s recommended that you select it. Choose File > Window > Workspace > Classic, and then reset it to the default by choosing Window > Workspace > Reset Classic.

Choose File > Open, navigate to the Lesson04 folder, and open the file Drums110.wav.
Click the Transport Loop button so the drum pattern plays back continuously. Click the Transport Play button to audition the loop, and then click the Transport Stop button.
Click the Effects Rack tab, and drag the panel’s lower splitter bar downward to extend the panel to its full height. You should see 16 “slots,” called inserts; each can hold an individual effect and also includes a power on/off button. A toolbar is located above the inserts, and meters with a second toolbar are below the inserts.
To add an effect to an insert, click the insert’s right arrow and choose an effect from the drop-down menu. For the first effect, choose Reverb > Studio Reverb. Inserting an effect turns its power button to “on” (green) and opens the effect’s graphic user interface. You may need to move the effect’s graphic user interface window to load more effects. For the second effect, similarly choose Delay and Echo > Analog Delay.
Turn off (bypass) the Analog Delay effect by clicking its power button. Press the spacebar to begin playback, and then turn the Studio Reverb insert’s power button on and off to hear how reverb affects the sound.
Click the Rack Effect – Studio Reverb graphic user interface window to bring it to the front. Press the spacebar again to stop playback.
When playback is stopped, you can choose an effect’s preset. Click the Studio Reverb’s Presets drop-down menu, and select Drum Plate (Large). Begin playback.
You’ll hear a more pronounced reverb sound. Note that the effects’ graphic user interface window has an additional power button in the lower-left corner to make it easy to bypass/compare the processed and unprocessed sound.
Click on the Analog Delay effect graphic user interface to bring it to the front, and then turn on its power button.
You’ll hear an echo effect, but it’s not in time with the music.
To make the delay follow the rhythm, double-click in the Delay parameter’s numeric field, type 545 in place of 200, and then press Enter (Return). The echoes are now in time with the music. (Later in this chapter we’ll explain how to choose rhythmically correct delay times.)

Keep this audio file open as you continue.

Removing, editing, replacing, and moving an effect

Rather than present a structured exercise, try the various bulleted options that follow to see how they work. After each action, choose Edit > Undo [name of action], or press Ctrl+Z (Command+Z) to restore the project to its previous state:

To remove a single effect, click the name in the effects’ insert and press the Delete key, or click the insert’s right arrow to choose Remove Effect from the drop-down menu.
To remove all effects in the rack, right-click (Control-click) anywhere on an effect’s insert, and then choose Remove All Effects.
To remove some effects in the rack, Ctrl-click (Command-click) in each effect insert containing an effect you want to remove. Then right-click (Control-click) anywhere in any selected effect’s insert, and choose Remove Selected Effects.
To edit an effect when the effects window is hidden or you closed it, double-click the effect’s insert, click the insert’s right arrow, and then choose Edit Effect from the drop-down menu, or right-click (Control-click) anywhere in an effect’s insert and choose Edit Selected Effect. Any of these actions bring the effects window to the front and open it if it was closed.
To replace an effect with a different effect, click the insert’s right arrow and choose a different effect from the drop-down menu.
To move an effect to a different insert, click the name in the effect’s insert and drag to the desired destination insert. If an effect already exists in that insert, the existing effect will be pushed down to the next higher-numbered insert.

Bypassing all or some effects

You can bypass individual effects, groups of effects, or all effects in the Effects Rack by doing any of the following:

The power button in the lower-left corner of the Effects Rack’s panel bypasses all enabled rack effects. When powered back on, only effects that had been enabled prior to bypassing are turned back on. Bypassed effects remain bypassed regardless of the “all effects” power button setting.
An alternate way to do the preceding bullet item is to right-click (Control-click) on any effect’s insert and choose Toggle Power State of Effects Rack.
To bypass some effects, Ctrl-click (Command-click) on each effect’s insert you want to bypass, right-click (Control-click) on any of these inserts, and then choose Toggle Power State of Selected Effects.

“Gain-staging” effects

Sometimes inserting multiple effects in series causes certain frequencies to “add up” and produce levels that may exceed the available headroom. For example, a filter that emphasizes the midrange could create distortion by increasing levels above acceptable limits.

To set levels, in the lower part of the Effects panel use the Input and Output level controls (with associated meters). These controls can reduce or increase levels as needed.

Close the project without saving so you can start fresh. Choose File > Open, navigate to the Lesson04 folder, and open the file Drums110.wav. Do not start playback yet.
In any effect’s insert, click the right arrow, choose Filter and EQ > Parametric Equalizer from the drop-down menu.
When the Parametric EQ window opens, click the small box labeled 3 in the EQ graph and drag it to the top of the graph. Close the Parametric EQ window because it’s no longer necessary to have it open and take up space.
Caution: Turn your monitoring levels way down, and then press the spacebar to initiate playback. The excessive levels will trigger the Output meter’s red overload indicators to the meter’s right.
Turn up the monitoring level enough so you can hear the distortion this causes. The Input and Output level controls default to +0dB gain, which means neither the signal coming into the Effects Rack, nor the signal leaving it, is amplified or attenuated. However, the massive EQ boost is overloading the output.
Reduce the Input level until the peaks no longer trigger the red distortion indicators after the meters have been reset (see the following tip). It’s generally good practice to keep the Output control at +0dB and compensate for the excessive levels by trimming the Input level. This will likely require reducing the Input to -35dB or so.

Keep this project open for the next lesson.

Altering the effect’s wet/dry mix

An unprocessed signal is called dry, whereas one to which effects have been applied is called wet. Sometimes you want a blend of the wet and dry sounds rather than all of one or the other.

With the previous project still open and the levels set properly to avoid distortion, click the Mix slider below the meters and drag left.
Drag the slider to the right to increase the amount of wet, filtered sound, and drag to the left to increase the amount of dry, unprocessed sound.

Applying effects

Inserting an effect doesn’t change the file but instead plays the original file back through the effect. This is called a nondestructive process using a real-time effect, because the original file remains unaltered.