HELP! Screwed Something Up

[stringsandkeys89]

Hello, I finished tracking this song yesterday and last night I was trying to do a little mix on it. I got ballsy and saved a 2nd version of the song for me to play trying to avoid errors and mistakes got myself into a big error and mistake.

I was trying to remove clicks and pops from an audio track. by zooming all the way in and using the free hand pencil tool. Now apparently I went over some spots that had no pops and clicks and messed with the drawing of the line. When I played it back I noticed not I was getting fuzzes and clicks I wasnt before. The begginning which sounded good at first now pops and clicks. Is there anyway to reverse this damage ive done, or am i permantnly screwed and have to redo the vocal tracks.

Also what would be the write way to draw out pops and clicks without hurting the audio track.

ANY HELP AND ADVICE WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED !!!

[RegenerationMix]

my pro tools has about 20 undos. What is yours set to? you should be able to open the session and go to undo and keep undoing until you undo the part you messed up.

[stringsandkeys89]

only problem with that is I accidentally saved thinking it was saved to the other session i did as the save as but it didnt and i cant do undo i have it set to the 32 max. Is there anyway I can go back on this mistake or go somewhere and take the pencil drawings out or am i gonna have to re draw over the waveforms? Also ive been looking around with not to much help what is the right way to use the pencil. I was just trying to harmlessly mess around and it costed me nice sounding vocals.

[spidey01]

trying going to the audio folder for this session and open each one of the saved backup sessions until you find the one that does not have the clicks and pops providing you had autosave activated

[stringsandkeys89]

Thank you I will try that! But when you change the waveform with the pencil zoomed all the way in that doesnt affect the original sound file? And would I import them back into the session file? Also could anybody give me a brief description as to what im loking for when i zoom all the way in and am using the pencil tool?

Thank You!!

[BobbyDazzler]

I always thought the pencil tool works on the audio file not the session.
If you have no undos, then you may be out of options.

[Stig Eliassen]

Originally Posted by stringsandkeys89

only problem with that is I accidentally saved thinking it was saved to the other session i did as the save as but it didnt and i cant do undo i have it set to the 32 max. Is there anyway I can go back on this mistake or go somewhere and take the pencil drawings out or am i gonna have to re draw over the waveforms? Also ive been looking around with not to much help what is the right way to use the pencil. I was just trying to harmlessly mess around and it costed me nice sounding vocals.

You can't harmlessly mess around with the pencil tool on audio files, as it works destructively. The safe way to go about destructive editing is to make a duplicate of the audio file in question.

[stringsandkeys89]

Yeah I gotta say I definitley learned from this stupid mistake. I showed my buddy who I made the track with and were just going to redo the vocal tracks were upset because it sounded really good, but im determinded to have it sound better now.

One thing I would still like some clarity on is the pencil tool. Being its a destructive thing to do to a waveform I would like to know what would be the appropriate way to use the pencil tool. When zoomed all the way in a wave form or even when not zoomed in all the way. I know how to use the pencil for panning and volume and I could most likely use it with auxs, but on a waveform im completly lost how you would remove a click or a pop.

Once again any help would be greatly appreciated!!

[albee1952]

To use the pencil tool to remove a pop. you have to zoom in all the way so the wave shows as a line(a very jagged line). As said, your best bet is to duplicate the track and edit the duplicate to you heart's content. If you ruin anything, you can retrieve from the original at any time. Once you are happy with the edits, then you can go to the original track and select Hide and Make Inactive(I would not delete it until the session is ready to be archived and put away).

[stringsandkeys89]

Thank you for the response man I appreciate it so much! Yeah I regret not making a copy of my audio, that was really stupid on my part. When I zoomed in all the way in the last time I noticed that depending on the vocal the line on the waveform always was different sometimes it was closer to the center with smoothe up n down lines then other times it was further away from the center and wider spaces between the ups and down parts of the line. So im not just looking for a line thats bigger than another or further away from the center? Or am I looking for patterns in the waveform lines and for edges and ridges in the line that throw the pattern out of shape?

Is that what im looking for? Thank you for the response it is GREATLY APPRECIATED!