Getting Rid of Ghost Click Track

Sounds like a job for R-Mix but you need X2 for that...

edit

Actually, I wouldn't mind having a go at fixing that for you but you would need to upload the WAV files for me.

Aldwyn


I have a couple of tracks with very soft acoustic guitar, and nothing else. The mics picked up the click track from the headphones, it seems, and I can hear a faint click in the background during these soft passages. How can I get rid of these clicks while not effecting the guitar recording? I am using X1 producer, and have Alloy and Ozone, if either of these would help. Also, the click track which was recorded was the standard Sonar "Ping High" and "Ping Low". Any help would be appreciated! (I thought I saw a way to do this with EQ in an instructional video once, but cant seem to find it anywhere) Thanks!

In the past with clicks / and hum etc I have been able to record a sample of the offending noise on its own track, line up the signals, reverse the phase on the "noise" track and cancel out the noise portion..  You would have to record the click track under the same conditions.


Cheers


Grif

Steves technique is a gooden. Good one for gang vocals if you don't have enough headphones, too. Speaker in the room - record a playthrough without the people in the room, and then a playthrough with them singing. Line them up and flip the phase on the first.

Aldwyn


right now, when I dump to wave file, the level is very very low

Hi Aldwyn, you do not have to export or dump a WAV file from Sonar. If you recorded the tracks within Sonar just upload the associated audio track and I'll work on that.

If it is sucessful I'll bounce the result to another audio track and I'll send it back to you.


cheers


andy

 Often times an expander/gate will fix a click in the mix. Set it (threshold) so the content gets through (click not as noticable then anyway), but, the gate closes when it's soft. EQ the clicks frequency out if need be. Or sample the click with Waves X-Noise then reduce with that if ya need. Probably find the Gate to suffice. If you don't have the Pro channnel Gate, you can use the one inside the Vintage Channel.

Hi Blogman. The recording is quite low, peaking at -19.1db, so I'm not sure that the gate will help to be honest. I'm not even sure that R-Mix will, but I'll know by tomorrow :-)

One thing I do is, I use something that's not so sharp sounding for my click track.

I'll use toms, or a kick and tom. That way the sound is much less prone to be heard from your headphones, and the little bit of bleed that may occur if you have your headphones really loud, will be pretty much removed when you roll off your EQ for that track.

The other thing ... if you are using headphones with foam cups ... tape them to your head real tight. I know it sounds funny, but the tighter they are to your head, the less sound is going to get out. Tape, or string, or a velcro strap.

BretB

"Let me tape these to your head" always impresses a client!

LOL!

I'm pretty sure he's not in that kind of environment or he wouldn't be asking.

Here is an attempt with iZotope RX2 Advanced. Let me know if the link doesn't work. Haven't tried sharing this way before.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ehxifga7h30qerf/160PllY0TD

Pretty sure it was 16-bit since the bit rate is 705.6 kbps (mono at 44.1, 16-bit.) 

I didn't normalize the file, although doing so would have been a good step. As a practice I don't normalize to 0 dbfs. I prefer to normalize to -6 or even -12 to give myself headroom for proper gain-staging when mixing multiple tracks together (only when working with 24-bit recordings or higher-res soft-synth renderings, though. For 16-bit files I wouldn't go below -6 when normalizing as you are losing resolution by decreasing your dynamic range by doing so.) 

From my brief look at R-mix I don't think it will help in your situation that much. R-mix seems best suited to a few very specific noise reduction situations and to filtering between sounds when there is an obvious difference in pitch or the position in the stereo field. Given your recording was in mono that kills one dimension of R-mix's operations right off the bat. I am open to being pleasantly surprised, though. 

iZotope RX is a full editor where I can edit any specific time/frequency selection independently of others, so I could select a specific instance of a click and choose from multiple options how best to make it disappear. It's really a much better tool for this job. More of a scalpel, less of a "one-size-fits-all" solution. The downside is that it takes a while to learn its various options and when best to use them, so it takes some experience to move from good results to great ones. It would also make a terrible filter- something R-mix does very well.

Peace,

Tunes

to get a "reverse the phase" to work, the track has to be 100% identical. If there is ANY difference it will not cancel properly and you will hear something. 

To do this..... do not record it twice. Record it once and clone that track.... then flip the phase. You now stand the best chance for a total cancellation to occur.  recording it twice allows for small variations to occur and it won't cancel properly. 

I'm still thinking a set of noise canceling ear buds are the best, quickest, and easiest solution. 

http://reviews.cnet.com/h...5-7877_7-33772066.html

I was first introduced to these when I bought my Dell laptop. They came with it. At that time they were around $75 a pair.

I have bought these things in bulk from Amazon for around $15 a pair. I personally think the bass in them is superb with nice crisp highs. I have compared them to "professional" headphones at a Sam Ash pro-audio dept. I was prepared to buy up to a $300 set of cans..... after comparing them, I decided to keep the money in my pocket and continue to use the EP-630's and my other existing cans. 

As far as durability, at $15 a pair...(check prices on Amazon to find the best price).. they are almost a disposable commodity. I do have a set now on my MP3 player that has been operating fine for well over a year. They get almost a daily workout. 

the soft rubber cups (they provide 3 sizes...S, M, L for individual comfort levels) do a fine job in isolating the outside world's noise meaning you don't have to really crank them to hear the music. I wear them on my riding lawn mower when cutting the grass, and can listen to acoustic guitar music easily. 

+1 to what Steve said. Phase reverse works.

  Ted, I actually tried this, but couldn't isolate the frequency in order to kill the tone. Lack of experience, more then likely. While I have been recording since the early days of Cakewalk, I have never taken the time to learn some of these tricks well. Now it's on my to-do list!

Aldwin...I just inserted a parametric EQ and cut a very narrow Q...then would slowly sweep it back and forth until I found the offending freq.  You would have two freqs to kill with that type of click.

Being able to cut the freq at a very narrow Q should not affect the guitar track very much.

+1 to the Grif.  The phase reversal trick is awesome.  You may have to mess with levels and record the click via headphone bleed, but it is a great way to go.

You can also do this to get rid of or reduce track bleed in general on vocal tracks if the mix is the same when you create the version to invert.