Can Clipping Be Fixed?

[teegee420]

I've always noticed audio clipping to some degree with my captures depending on the nature of the source. I don't have a decent sound card so I figured that was the primary culprit. Thanks to another thread on this forum I learned that the clipping is in fact caused by the default recording volume for my ATI card being too high. I followed the advice and changed the value in the registry and that has fixed the problem entirely.

What I want to know is if it is even possible to fix clipping distortion found in my old captures. I tried using the Clip Restoration effect in Adobe Audition and it didn't do much aside from lowering the volume level. The clipping is still there. Are there any other filters or effects I can use that will minimize the problem? I realize that eliminatiing the clipping entirely isn't likely.

If it makes any difference I also have Goldwave and Steinberg WaveLab.

[lgh529]

Sony Sound Forge has a plugin ($300 - kindof pricey I thought) that does it, but I've never used it, and my guess is that the result would not be perfect. Most utilites to restore clipped signals are just guessing at what the original sine wave patter was.

[scopophilia]

in my experience those types of software don't work (i.e. the clip restoration in cool edit, etc.) too well. since you have the capability to make new captures and do it over, consider yourself lucky, although, i'm sure, not enthused about it.

[au7usa]

Somewhere on the MP3Gain site is a brief explanation of how a lot of software decoders will clip anything over 89.9 decibels. The data is still there and normalizing the file can correct this.

But what if the data is not only beyond the range of the decoder but beyond the range of the partucular format......Its Gone!

Its a guess, but i think sometimes you can fix it, and sometimes you cant.

I think "Clip Restoration" just guesses what the missing data was by comparing data before, and data after the clipping. If the duration is too long, the "fixed" part still wont sound right.

[teegee420]

Pretty much as I suspected. Thanks to everyone nonetheless. I appreciate all the input.

[BJ_M]

you can do it the hard - but best way ... you go through the waveform and find each clipping spot (flat line) and select just that area and apply a smoothing curve to it ... or even redraw it by hand .. first method you can do in soundforge and second method requires a plug in ..


you can also remove spikes this way

[au7usa]

http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/player_clipping.html