Easily Remove Clipping From Music

[Bakerman]

Audacity clipping indicator isn't wrong, just exaggerated. Zoom in on the red spots and you will see that the clips in Pimpins and Decafs songs are only for a fraction of a second. Solid red is bad, BUT it could be the mid or high levels that are clipped. Thats the thing with audacity, it kind of hard to tell what frequency is clipped at any given point in a song.

In the description i kinda gave a short 411 that the clipping this method leaves in is above 1khz

[Blackedout]

I was really hoping you would do a comparison of the track you modified vs the original on audacity. Thanks for taking the time out to show us audacity a little. Even if you didn't get rid of the clipping in the track, I learned a little about audacity.

[Decaf]

im proud... you guys are learning well

dc offset is what "show clipping" is showing

the method in the video is wrong and should not be used and you are incorrect quite a bit in terminology and concept (no offense, you've been mislead likely by another person). you are simply lowering the amplitude of the wave. if you are only using amplify/gain/equalization you are ONLY manipulating the amplitude of the wave. no distortion is being removed, its exactly the same as turning down the gain on amp or volume on headunit, the waveforms shape remains same/similar while retaining the sound before editing.

audacity will turn red no matter what frequency goes beyond the "0db" point. 16000hz, or 20hz, it doesn't matter it will turn red. it does not point out LARGE FLAT BASS LINES which are whats going to ruin your sub/amp.

To view that you either need to zoom in on audacity 13-14X or watch the song on WindowsMediaPlayer Oscope. Go to now playing window and right click visualizations, bars and scope, scope. When u play a song u want it to look like smooth waves, no triangular or sloped with a steep vertical drop off waves. You should not be able to see horizontal flat spots with your naked eye. (for bass heavy rap music. genres like rock and dubstep PURPOSELY use distortion to get a sound and often the entire song will be red)

a song can be horrible squared off and not be red in audacity, this is because "show clipping" is only showing whats beyond 0db, not whats flat and horribly distorted but quieter. so again, you can use that option, but its only telling you whats beyond 0db, not whats squared and distorted.

For those who still have no idea what I'm talking about, which is ok, play a song via WMP using the oscope and go to View, then Enhancements, then Graphic Equalizer. go to the first bar (31hz) and raise it 6db, now carefully raise it to +12db and see how horribly flat it gets and listen to how terrible the quality gets... thats what bass boost and turning your gain up too high does. sadly, a song can look like that before it ever goes into your cd player and thats why for high powered daily systems you need to know what music you are playing to save equipment and your car

[OrionStang]

Some of us are learning, some just don't listen. Thanks for being a good teacher Mr. Decaf lol.

[Azagtoth502]

The man has spoken.

[Decaf]

This is why Decaf and Pimpin were so picky about songs they would do. There are a lot heavy hitters that would be awesome Decaf'ed, but he won't touch them because he increases bass, not lower it to "hide" clipping.

Exactly.

Example: I love Young Jeezy's "Sittin Low" but cannot fix it. So I just play the original at lower volumes and its FINE to do that.

To help decipher, pimpn91 has always been about creating music and really altering it a lot more than me. I've focused on gaining a large collection of reliably loud songs... I'm a bit more formulaic

I don't always increase bass, that's a misnomer but I understand why. I've found plenty of songs that only needed new intros-outros/slowed/eq'd/fade in-out and that's it. no boost no amplify.

Damn...I'm pretty sure I stated in either the video or description that it doesn't completely rid of all clipping. This will be the last time I try to make a how to in order to help people out.

thanks for the effort/time put forth. only way to learn is to state a theory and test it til it becomes law. mistakes are better anyways because you learn more than being right all the time, ya know.

Could I use this to level out all my songs to the same level, so one song isn't louder then another at the same settings?

no, all songs are different and will always be that way. the best option is to have a full tilt volume number for quieter songs and when u play a louder song just turn the volume down a little for safety

This is why Decaf and Pimpin were so picky about songs they would do. There are a lot heavy hitters that would be awesome Decaf'ed, but he won't touch them because he increases bass, not lower it to "hide" clipping.

Soo is audacity's clippin indicator wrong? B/c some of big pimpins stuff shows up red... And I know he would'nt put out no bs for all of us to fuck our stuff up.

clipping can mean many things. You can clip a synth, you can clip a sample, you can clip a song, you can clip ur headunit, you can clip your amp. I stress that a in audacity a little red is fine and normal in all music genres but large flat bass lines are detrimental. you cannot find rock music that wont turn red... so the reality is we've been listening to clipping all this time and few realize it because its so hard to distinguish on the mids/highs, but luckily its easy to see with the lows

This is why Decaf and Pimpin were so picky about songs they would do. There are a lot heavy hitters that would be awesome Decaf'ed, but he won't touch them because he increases bass, not lower it to "hide" clipping.

Soo is audacity's clippin indicator wrong? B/c some of big pimpins stuff shows up red... And I know he would'nt put out no bs for all of us to fuck our stuff up.

IDk...I've wondered the same b/c I've noticed that too. I think its just nearly impossible, especially when you are amplifying tracks like Decaf and Pimpin, to remove every last bit of clipping.

you can run a limiter and just lower the amplitude of anything to -.1db if the red bothers people. the amp will see the same signal whether you play it red or get rid of the red, it will just be quieter when there is no red.

hearing mids/highs distorting can be an easy indication that the bass might be. or if you've ever worn headphones and felt like the speaker was jumping out of the can on kicks drums then you know what heavy flat bass lines sound like.

I'm starting to always check it with WMP on scope. Some songs showed red on audacity and then I scoped it and didn't see anything bad.

the first thing i do when i get music is run it through WMP, if it passes it then goes to audacity.

most of the time if you dont see large flat spots and it looks very like clean bass lines you should be fine, but always err on the side of caution and dont go full tilt with new songs til you know how ur system handles them

this method has been around since 09 iirc that i know of, some kid on this site found out the EqualizationSeparation method but used HPF/LPF (which is the same thing). we all commented and discussed how/if it worked. there are guys on other forums that swear by the EqSep method, but i think it degrades quality especially at crossover/eq point, it creates large spikes that keep you from making the rest of the song louder and worst of all, distortion is still present from original clipping.

when u clip you introduce higher order harmonics of the fundamental frequency and those notes remain which is why you can get rid of the red but it will still sound like shit. this is what the DD-1 detects, higher order harmonic distortion. if anything other than the fundamental of 1000hz and 40hz is detected the clipping light turns on

[bassrace]

Thanks Decaf for the info man.

[RooTxBeeR]

I still can't picture what is being said about WMP Scope Visulization, So if I play a song and there is a horizontal spot, that bass clipping? I have used that Scope a short number of times, and don't understand what's being said, I seen the line get wavy across the screen, and there are lines going up and down, but never seen horizontal.

[Decaf]

I still can't picture what is being said about WMP Scope Visulization, So if I play a song and there is a horizontal spot, that bass clipping? I have used that Scope a short number of times, and don't understand what's being said, I seen the line get wavy across the screen, and there are lines going up and down, but never seen horizontal.

this is a new song by Jeezy, SupaFreak with a 6db bass boost and a 9db bass boost to get the song to clip

+6db

+9db

this is a song i DID NOT modify, Brother Ali "Pay Them Back"

notice not only the smaller horizontal spots but also not the steep droppoffs between notes, that is not ideal

[RooTxBeeR]

Thank you very much decaf! So much! I have listened to quite a few songs now since I read this post in search of what you where talking about, I guess my stuff is clip free! Only downside, is this shit moves so fast it can be hard for me to notice. Again, thank you I now know what exactly to look for when i check.