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Hi, a general question: I have a heavily compressed stereo audio 24bit wav file which needs de-compression. Any tips? Worthy VSTs? Thnx, F

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To assist, what audio tools do you have available?

What O/S do you use?

This information will assist in making pragmatic recommendations that are usable.


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Hi VideoTrack.

Win10 pro x64. i have wavelab 9.5, some Waves plugins, and a few from Izotope, bought about 2 years ago.
Also some Melda stuff i never really used sofar ..

The file contains a very loud Cajun accordion triggering the compression of an Olympus LS11 live recording,
been messing with it a bit, but cannot find a decently enough working.
PS I have a load of plugins like ones from Focusrite bought a long time ago, and some Fab stuff too ...

Was looking fro some general advice more or less.

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Hmmmm, I'm not really sure without listening to the audio of the offending item.

However, my first thoughts are perhaps using a parametric equaliser to like the PG music 5-Band Eq, or the Sonitus fx equaliser, or perhaps something like a Compressor/Gate.

I think some experimentation will be required.

Also, thinking outside the square, maybe you can consider increasing the dynamic range of the other instruments as an alternate option.


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Something like Izotope RX7 Declipping might work but it is expensive (unless of course you have it). I understand that Audacity might also be able to do the job.

Which ever way you go there’s a fair chance it won’t sound how you want it.

Just a thought

Edit: Here is a video of a chap declipping using Audacity. https://youtu.be/KM5shJycg9k

I trust this is what you are doing. Dropping the level of a track that is too hot after compression or limiting. If not please ignore my response.

Tony

Last edited by Teunis; 02/26/20 03:01 AM.

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hi

You could try clip fix in Audacity.

Mike


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Tony said “there’s a fair chance it won’t sound how you want it”. He’s right.

You can’t get the original recording and start again? Or was it recorded with extreme compression?

This happened to me in a recording studio. We quickly realized I should just play it again.


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Matt's correct. The fix is to redo the recording if possible. Compression to an audio file is just like sugar in a cake mix once too much has been added.


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well, re-recording is not possible .... been trying some VST stuff, some mentioned above.
I wonder why with all this superb and expensive stuff around there's no 'eureka' labeled proper tool for this business it seems.
Why the OP question. On the Steinberg Wavelab forum i had no replies so far. Thanks all, BIAB helpers.

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The issue if it was already compressed and then set to hot is really that the signal is squashed. Using another Limiter or Compressor to reduce the signal will only squash it further making the softer parts louder in relationship to the loud parts which is probably not what you’re looking for.

To just reduce the volume by normalisation or turning it down via an amplification process will still leave the squashed signal. Therefore you need a fudge of some sort. The video I attached earlier demonstrates a fudge but it will still not be perfect. Declipping tools carry out the fudge but it still requires a fair bit of work to get it close to right.

That is how I understand it. If the top of a wave has been flattened that data has gone and it needs to be recreated. It also needs to have the correct relationship to the rest of the wave to sound perfect.

Tony

Last edited by Teunis; 02/26/20 08:17 PM.

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