Is it possible to remove digital distortion?

[David Penick]

I'm working on a film's audio in LE (using DV toolkit). There is digital distortion throughout the audio track. Is there any way to remove this distortion, or is it too late? (I have the Waves Diamond bundle, McDSP Analog channel, and BNR.)
Thanks

[Ducky]

This may sound like a strange fix, but it should work:
Run your source through several different reverbs (very short duration at 100% mix) and pick the one that works.
It will take a lot of tweeking, but you will be able to clean things up.

I would also recommend a D/A ==>> to A/D step since dithering could bring back noticable distortion.

It will surely color your source, but I think that is the intent at this point.

[Sevenlights]

or if you have the diamond bundle it has a digtal clip remover that works well with tweaking. I don't see how that reverb trick would work, could you explain the theory behind that one? Seems like it would be used to sort of smear over trouble spots.

[Ducky]

... Seems like it would be used to sort of smear over trouble spots.

I couldn't have described it any better than that
I am assuming, of course, that there is dialog and other non-audiophile critical material that is going into the film. Sidechaining a specific frequency range would limit the 'smearing' effect as well.

As for clip remover, I didn't read the original post as suggesting it is clipping digitally, just badly processed source data. This could have been caused by a multitude of processes and likely seriously compressed, and probably recompressed, source audio in an MP2 format or something drastic like that.

Posting a audio snip-it for others to play with might get more input

[David Penick]

Thanks.

[David Penick]

The film is of a live band performance. It was done on a great DV camera, but the sound source went directly into the camera's mic, so any time the band plays, the entire audio source is clipped. (The waveform looks like a solid bar.) I've tried using the Gain plug-in in Audiosuite, and have lowered the gain by as much as 10 percent, but I still hear clipping. Do you think I could reduce the clipping by redrawing the entire waveform with the pencil tool?

[Sevenlights]

if it's clipped that bad you may be kinda screwed. Cause that's probably the diaphram of the little mic getting hammered. The clipping is recorded right to the source, lowering the gain won't really do anything.

[David Penick]

Thanks again.

[ggunn]

...Do you think I could reduce the clipping by redrawing the entire waveform with the pencil tool?

Thassa joke, innit?