Dealing with spikes

[studiotony 001]

When a spike is in the middle of the audio and you want to get rid of it, what is the best way to go about it. I can zoom in all of the way and clear where the spike was and put fades on both sides of the missing audio. If there are other sounds on top of this then there is no problem because the sound is masked by the audio, but if it is the only audio then it just does not sound right. There are several ways to deal with this but I want other peoples opinions on how they deal with it. Most of the time we are talking about a section that is so small the average person could not tell, but most people that use PT are not average people.

tony

[batj]

I redraw the wave form with the pen tool.
(Preferably on a copy because this is undoable, but I often live dangerously...)
Works most of the time.

[Shameless]

If its not clipped and you just want to bring it down some you could use the gain plug in.

Also, getting good with the deesser can work wonders for transparent file correction.

I have a buddy who is whacked, he does all his deessing and level correction with the Waves C4. I thought he was nuts untill I heard his mixes.

Pro Tools works fine in most cases. But if I have to do serious sample level work I use Peak. I find the tools and interface more accomadating for sample level work.

[Chompers]

I have better luck using gain reduction and fades, rather than using the pencil tool. It seems I mostly get misc wierd noise when I use the Pencil tool. However, the good thing about the pencil tool is that if you succeed in eliminateing the artifact, then all the other instances of that specific artifact are also adjusted. THis is because it actually changes the file at the root level.

[where02190]

IF the spike is a performance peak, and it is not clipped, I jsut use a gain plug-in.
If it is clipped, I redraw with the pencil tool.
If it is not performance, I redraw with the pencil tool, find the cause of the spike and correct it so it doesn't happen again.

Not as above that the peicil tool is undoable, so work on a copy unless you're brave and/or stupid. (no offense to the previous poster)

[Chompers]

The pencil tools is undoable. Its just destructive. Big difference.