Repairing pops in just one channel

Discussion forum for Amadeus users

Moderator: Martin Hairer

Post Reply
User avatar
Tristan
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:44 am
Location: location, location
Contact:

Repairing pops in just one channel

Post by Tristan »

I'm removing cracks and pops from a recording of an LP. I'm doing it the slow way, finding each crack manually and using the "r" key, because as amazing as the Repair Centre window is, it doesn't catch all glitches, and doing it manually also allows me to select smaller regions to minimize the interpolation damage.

Here's the question: I hone in on a crack and want to repair it in the left channel only (the audio is fine in the other channel). Is there a way to do this without activating the Repair Centre?

If you select a region in just one channel, the "r" key and the "Interpolate" menu item nonetheless act on both channels (counterintuitive - if it's not selected, seems like it shouldn't be affected). From what I can tell, the "t" and "b" shortcuts don't seem to work unless the Repair Centre is open AND is the most-recently-clicked-on window.

0db
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:26 pm
Location: San Francisco

Repairing pops in just one channel

Post by 0db »

Hello Tristan-

Unfortunately it is much more difficult to correct single-channel glitches using Amadeus Pro than using the older Amadeus II version. I cannot justify purchasing Pro until this situation is corrected, which Martin has promised to do in a future release.

I agree with your appraisal regarding manual vs "automated" correction, and the older version works very intuitively and well for this sort of editing.

Perhaps if you were to ask Martin he might let you have a copy of the older version at a minimal price, given that you have already pruchased the Pro version.

Regards
Dan Banchero

User avatar
Tristan
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:44 am
Location: location, location
Contact:

Post by Tristan »

I own Amadeus II too, so for comparison's sake, I restored a recording of another scratchy LP using its Repair Centre. There are pros and cons to both Amadeus II and Amadeus Pro as far as the Repair Centre is concerned. Both get the job done. Both ultimately require a combination of automatic search and manual selection.

What struck me the most while reliving the Amadeus II experience was just how many miscellaneous improvements have been made throughout Amadeus Pro. All those little changes really add up to a better workflow overall in the Pro version.

Back to the Repair Centre. Amadeus II seems to have a couple advantages:

Amadeus II doesn't care whether you last clicked on the sound window or on the Repair Centre window. For example, you can always undo (control-Z) the last repair while the Repair Centre is active.

Amadeus II lets you manually select a glitch in just one channel and repair it in just that channel using "r." Straightforward.

On the other hand...

Amadeus Pro lets you use "t" and "b" (for top and bottom) to repair a selection in one channel. (But if you click in the main sound window to adjust the selection, "t," "b" and "n" stop working.)

And my favorite thing: Amadeus Pro ends its searches for cracks with the message "No more crack found." Bonus points for unintentional humor. :D

Unless I've missed it, both Amadeus II and Amadeus Pro are missing what could be a very useful feature: a button or a key shortcut that lets you find the previous glitch. Too often, I'm clicking along through all the false positives (next... next... next...) and then I realize I've just gone by a glitch. Too late! No automatic way to backtrack and find it.

Glitch repair is inevitably a tedious process; even the best algorithms won't remove the usefulness of manual supervision. A couple improvements to Amadeus Pro's Repair Centre workflow (and the crack detection algorithm) would be welcome, but it's amazing what one can do with it already.

User avatar
Martin Hairer
Site Admin
Posts: 1975
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:49 am
Contact:

Repairing pops in just one channel

Post by Martin Hairer »

Back to the Repair Centre. Amadeus II seems to have a couple
advantages:

Amadeus II doesn't care whether you last clicked on the sound window
or on the Repair Centre window. For example, you can always undo
(control-Z) the last repair while the Repair Centre is active.

Amadeus II lets you manually select a glitch in just one channel and
repair it in just that channel using "r." Straightforward.
Both were long-standing bugs and I just got around to finally fix
them. The version at

http://www.hairersoft.com/Downloads/AmadeusPro.zip

fixes them. It also makes the 't' and 'b' active in the main window
regardless of whether the repair center is open or not.
And my favorite thing: Amadeus Pro ends its searches for cracks
with the message "No more crack found." Bonus points for
unintentional humor. :D
Oops, I should probably fix that ;-) Regards,

Martin

HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/


_______________________________________________
Amadeus forum mailing list
Unsubscribe / change settings at http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/forum_list

User avatar
Tristan
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:44 am
Location: location, location
Contact:

Post by Tristan »

Christmas has come early! Martin, you have no idea how much time you just saved this monkey. Thank you. I've tried out the fixed version and it's great.

Seized by the spirit of Christmas and lord knows what lunacy, I've decided to digitize my parents' entire LP collection and load up an iPod for them as a gift. My folks never listen to their record player anymore, so their collection of favorite music from the 60s, 70s and 80s was just sitting there tragically gathering dust... 'til I snuck it all out of their house (thanks to my sister for providing distraction during that heist) and bought a record player to hook into my Mac. The bonus part for me is now I get to take a voyeuristic trip through their musical past, plus relive bits of my own early childhood spent listening to Neil Diamond and Fleetwood Mac.

As fun as this project is, it's time-consuming. Each LP has to be recorded, split into separate tracks, cleaned up, tagged and saved as MP3s. Amadeus Pro has been letting me do all this flawlessly and quite efficiently considering all that's involved. But I'm such a perfectionist with audio -- I can't help but try to remove all the snaps, crackles and pops that I can do anything about.

So to make a long story short, these little improvements in the sound repair workflow will be adding up to a lot of saved time and sanity in the days to come as I whittle away at this pile of albums.

BTW... I for one will miss the "no more crack" message. :D It gets me every time.

0db
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:26 pm
Location: San Francisco

Pro v1.2

Post by 0db »

Hello to both Tristan and Martin:

I just downloaded v1.2 to try the Pro version again, and I am wondering how to select a section of either the left (top) or right (bottom) channel and play just that, without hearing the unselected channel. I must be missing something here, because I can't seem to do this.

In Amadeus II, one just selected a section of either the upper, lower, or both channels and played it (and only it).

I can't imagine how one could edit just the left or right channel if both are being played back simultaneously.

I am probably doing something stupid, yet again.

Dan

Sonic Purity
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:58 pm
Location: Pasadena, California, U.S.A.

Post by Sonic Purity »

Tristan wrote:Seized by the spirit of Christmas and lord knows what lunacy, I've decided to digitize my parents' entire LP collection…

As fun as this project is, it's time-consuming…. Amadeus Pro has been letting me do all this flawlessly and quite efficiently considering all that's involved. But I'm such a perfectionist with audio -- I can't help but try to remove all the snaps, crackles and pops that I can do anything about.
Not to in any way diminish the wonderful work Martin has done (and continues to do) with the Repair Center (or Centre in AMII), we perfectionists with audio need all possible repair tools. So i want to re-mention something i learned about in months or years old posts on this very forum: ClickRepair. Freakin' brilliant software that is a wonderful adjunct to Amadeus (II or Pro).

This program, which runs separately, does mindbendingly good things when it comes to cleaning up clicks, pops, crackles, and so forth. What used to take me one full day or longer in Amadeus (mostly manual oversight of the Repair Centre) now takes anywhere from 10 min. to 1 hour, with ClickRepair taking its automated whack and then some slight manual cleanup in Amadeus. (This represents one LP project for my level of perfectionism, starting with a messed-up LP, already digitized.) I'm still on the ClickRepair learning curve, yet it already is saving me days of work.

Hope it is OK to re-mention ClickRepair… i thought Tristian especially really needed to be aware of its existence.
Tristan wrote:BTW... I for one will miss the "no more crack" message. :D It gets me every time.
Older versions of Amadeus II had “No more crack found!”, which i too loved… made me think the Drug Enforcement Agency just finished rooting around my house.

))Sonic((
Is also digitizing LPs for his parents… but to CD and only 4 of them.

User avatar
Tristan
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:44 am
Location: location, location
Contact:

Post by Tristan »

Sonic, THANK YOU 8) for pointing out ClickRepair -- I will give it a whirl and will add it to my arsenal if it works as well as it looks like it does.

Dan, now I really see why you've chosen to stick with Amadeus II. A quick way to audition one channel of a stereo track is still missing in the Pro version. I guess your only way around this at the moment would be to temporarily Split the stereo track, and mute each track as needed.

The omission of this feature is obviously a right pain for users like you. But here's the weird thing. NOT having the option of single-channel playback -- or rather, not having it dangling within easy accidental reach whenever moving the playback head -- has been a blessing for my work. Why? Firstly, I never needed the option: even when editing a problem area solely in the left or right channel, I always prefer to hear the whole context whenever I press the space bar. And Amadeus II made it too easy to accidentally find yourself listening to one channel when you had wanted both. That was scary when you were using it, like I was, not just as an editing tool, but as a playback source during live performances. Live shows are not the time you want to have to worry about clicking too high or too low in the sound window. Once you set the position of the playback head, hit the space bar and realize you're only hearing sound from one side, it's too late to try again, and the audience can tell you screwed up.

So I'd like to express the hope that this old functionality of Amadeus II can be integrated without the accident-proneness its old implementation caused.

Two different solutions that might satisfy both types of users:

1: Space bar always equals playback of all tracks, and double-click always starts playback of just the currently active track OR CHANNEL(S).

or

2: A new option among the preference settings to choose the desired playback behavior (hear whole sound or just current track/channel?) when the insertion point or selected region is in only one channel.

Thoughts?

Unrelated note: Martin, working with your latest release (1.2.1 beta 2), I discovered that it silently fails to open MP3s. These are MP3s which I'd recently encoded and can still successfully open using v1.2. I'm on OS 10.4.10. Are you using the 10.5-only version of mpg123 again by any chance?

User avatar
Martin Hairer
Site Admin
Posts: 1975
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:49 am
Contact:

Repairing pops in just one channel

Post by Martin Hairer »

1: Space bar always equals playback of all tracks, and double-click
always starts playback of just the currently active track OR
CHANNEL(S).
That's the one I was planning to implement.
Unrelated note: Martin, working with your latest release (1.2.1
beta 2), I discovered that it silently fails to open MP3s. These
are MP3s which I'd recently encoded and can still successfully open
using v1.2. I'm on OS 10.4.10. Are you using the 10.5-only version
of mpg123 again by any chance?
I thought not, but I'll check. Thanks for bringing this to my
attention. Regards,

Martin

HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/


_______________________________________________
Amadeus forum mailing list
Unsubscribe / change settings at http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/forum_list

User avatar
Tristan
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:44 am
Location: location, location
Contact:

Re: Repairing pops in just one channel

Post by Tristan »

Martin Hairer wrote:
1: Space bar always equals playback of all tracks, and double-click
always starts playback of just the currently active track OR
CHANNEL(S).
That's the one I was planning to implement.
Cool. That's the one that seems the most elegant / consistent to me.
Martin Hairer wrote:
Unrelated note: Martin, working with your latest release (1.2.1
beta 2), I discovered that it silently fails to open MP3s. These
are MP3s which I'd recently encoded and can still successfully open
using v1.2. I'm on OS 10.4.10. Are you using the 10.5-only version
of mpg123 again by any chance?
I thought not, but I'll check. Thanks for bringing this to my
attention.
Thanks Martin. I'm temporarily working around it by setting HSReadMp3WithQuickTime to 1.

0db
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:26 pm
Location: San Francisco

Editing of L or R channel

Post by 0db »

1: Space bar always equals playback of all tracks, and double-click
always starts playback of just the currently active track OR
CHANNEL(S).

That's the one I was planning to implement.
Well, that would work fine for me. What's taking so long? The longer you take the less our money is worth! :wink:

Dan aka 0db

0db
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:26 pm
Location: San Francisco

Single-Channel Stuff

Post by 0db »

That was scary when you were using it, like I was, not just as an editing tool, but as a playback source during live performances. Live shows are not the time you want to have to worry about clicking too high or too low in the sound window.
Tristan- Yes, I can really understand that! Just goes to show how we tend to become prisoners of our own environment... I never would have imagined that anyone would be using Amadeus at a live performance.

With respect to single-channel selection and monitoring, I've done a LOT of work converting old LPs to CDs, and have done some awfully slimy things along the way. It's been my observation that frequently the noise damage is present on only one of the two stereo channels, and in the event that the normal interpolation can't do the job there are a couple of other tricks worth trying.

1) Sometimes a severe filter and level adjustment on the offending channel will go unnoticed if there is sufficient level on the other channel to mask it.

2) Sometimes it is possible to replace a very short section section of the bad channel with a snippet from the good channel (perhaps filtered to improve consistency), if the sound is not too dissimilar on the two channels.

3) Once I even rescued an old Toscanini recording by finding a repetition of a very short passage later in the same recording, and replacing the damaged section with the later repetition.

I've been known to spend an entire week working on one of those old Toscanini/NBC Symphony recordings, but the results have been worth it. (You can afford to be a fanatic when you are retired.)

With apologies to Martin for mentioning yet another app, I usually use Audio HiJack Pro for acoustic/equalization correction or modification, followed by Amadeus for noise elimination/reduction and final editing. HiJack allows you to monitor and adjust levels, equalization, filters, ambiance, and just about anything else as you are playing the LP, and I save the resulting file as an aiff which is then opened by Amadeus. Between the two, you can do just about anything necessary to rescue those old LPs.

Regards to all-

Dan

User avatar
Martin Hairer
Site Admin
Posts: 1975
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:49 am
Contact:

Repairing pops in just one channel

Post by Martin Hairer »

Well, that would work fine for me. What's taking so long? The
longer you take the less our money is worth! [Wink]
Looks like I have to hurry up then ;-) I just updated the version at

http://www.hairersoft.com/Downloads/AmadeusPro.zip

to 1.2 beta 3. It does now play only one channel if you double-click
into it.

To Tristan: You were right, the beta version still had that Tiger-
incompatible version of mpg123 built in. This is also fixed now.
Regards,

Martin

HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/


_______________________________________________
Amadeus forum mailing list
Unsubscribe / change settings at http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/forum_list

0db
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:26 pm
Location: San Francisco

Post by 0db »

I just updated the version... to 1.2 beta 3. It does now play only one channel if you double-click into it.
Martin-

I just downloaded that and played around for a few minutes, and it looks very promising. Thanks so much for your continuous good work. If you send me your street address I'll forward payment in bullion, or if you prefer, about 1/3 barrel of crude oil.:wink:

Dan
San Francisco

User avatar
Tristan
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:44 am
Location: location, location
Contact:

Post by Tristan »

Amadeus Pro's interface just took another couple small steps towards perfection.

As usual, I find myself impressed by Martin's prompt responsiveness to users' feedback. Kudos.

- Tristan

Post Reply