De-clipper - Distorted Vocals ??

[KingFish]

Every few years I play around with this technology, and see where it's at, and in the end, I've found "Distortion is Distortion", and I've never found any results that warrant a purchase.

However... seems more and more, I'm handed projects to mix, that everyones 1 inch away from a u47, Gained up way too much through a Neve flavor Pre, driving an LA2A way too hard....

In the end, I really wish people that don't intimately know how to use this gear, would cut all their vocals on an SM7 with almost no Gain, and just make that meter "Dance a tiny bit" at the loudest spots in the performance on an LA2A

Nevertheless... THAT, is not my reality.

Over Saturated, Capsule, PreAmp, and Converter clipping and distortion is.

I think i already know the answer to this, but I have had my head pretty buried for the last 2 years - any of these new products out in the last while, actually help anyone with this age old thorn?

[HD2]

I guess it's that time again and I think this time around you will find exactly the same thing. Nothing really warrants a purchase.
At some point people have just got to realize that by spending money on all these expensive tools does not make one an engineer.
It's like buying a crane, some steel and a cement mixer and expecting someone who has never been on a construction site to build a skyscraper.

[Stig Eliassen]

Every few years I play around with this technology, and see where it's at, and in the end, I've found "Distortion is Distortion", and I've never found any results that warrant a purchase.

I've heard good things about iZotope RX 2, but haven't used it myself.

[KingFish]

Originally Posted by PT Lover

I've heard good things about iZotope RX 2, but haven't used it myself.

Ya, I've heard things about that, and I believe a new Waves? product, that weren't around on my last attempt.

I mean really... distortion is distortion... part of the actual harmonic print of the clipped audio... I'm not expecting much in this regard... but I never suspected DNA Technology in Melodyne either, so... I'll prod out there every few years till I'm deaf.

I'm really contemplating "Passing" on mixing anything thats handed to me distorted in 2011, but then i'll be Centering out other engineers work. Like a rat in prison, people will start to attack my credibility in defense. It's a catch 22... I don't want "ANY" drama or politics... I just want to keep quiet, do "MY" gig, and in mixes, and say "Nice job" to everybody... make friends all the way around... however... mixing distorted sources, makes "My mix" sound distorted.

There's no way to "Listen to the Source Multitrack" before I check my calendar. Ah well "Most" of the time, I get to mix really well recorded stuff, or mix my own Production / Tracking, but I've never been one to turn down work... and I keep quite a few "Tools" around as a Mixer... Melodyne, Elastic Audio, Dynamic Spectrum Mapper, Drum Replacement / Augmentation, Transient Designer, Multiband Compression, Noise reduction etc....

Distortion is just another "Bad performance", but by the engineer rather then the talent. Perhaps there will be something in the Toolbox to deal with this in the future... till then... this project was "Just" handed to me yesterday, so I can likely have "Something Come up", and start 2011 with my new attempt at turning down Mixing projects, that in the end, will sound bad after I mix them.

[ankely]

iZotope RX has saved my ass countless times...