So I recently bought some of the orchestral libraries from Soundfont Downloads (
https://soundfontdownloads.com/catalog/orchestral). They sound pretty decent but some of the samples have problems. Especially with the woodwinds. As I was trying them out, I kept noticing a popping sound. I initially thought it had to do with the audio driver I tried changing some of the settings around and nothing changed. Then I thought it could be the loop points in the samples, so I opened up the sf2 in Polyphone and adjusted the loop points. That didn't work either so I found the sample with the popping noise, extracted it, and opened it up in Wavosaur. After some looking around I came across a spot where some of the points in the wave are out of place... in lack of a better explanation... I'll upload a picture of what I'm talking about. Anyway, after taking a look at some of the other samples, I noticed the same thing. Is there a way to fix this? The only way I know of is dragging each point to where they're supposed to be which is tedious and doesn't always work since you have to guess where they're supposed to be.
While I'm at it, I would also like to ask if anyone knows of any good tutorials for editing and repairing samples. I've been playing around with this kind of stuff for a few years now, but I'm still a complete newb. Especially when it comes to looping samples which is always a pain. I already tried looking on Youtube and Google for tutorials but all that really amounted to was how to edit and loop rap beats. Any info is very much appreciated. Sorry about the wall of text...
This won't solve your problem but it does fit under the topic you created. It shows a way to create loop points (via sfz opcodes rather than embedding the loop point in the wave form) by finding zero crossings and how to create a cross fade to remove any click when the loop repeats.
I'm already familiar with this video. I have already tried the zero crossing and crossfading trick before and had some success, but unfortunately it doesn't always work. Thanks anyway though.
You might try audacity. I recall that it has an algorithm somewhere in it that is supposed to take clipped Peaks and pull them down to a contextually appropriate level.
I haven't had a tremendous amount of success with it, as I remember, but I was working with some very overly compressed audio.
You might have more luck...
- - Kurt
Just looked around in Audacity and found the repair effect. Is that what you were talking about, Kurt? It seems to clean up the waves in that area, but still doesn't get rid of the popping noise. :/ It also has a limit on how many points can be selected to repair at a time. Thanks for the tip though. I didn't even think to try it. *facepalm* I need to play around with Audacity more. I keep forgetting how much you can actually do with it.
Since you mentioned using Polyphone, are you aware that it has a pretty capable auto-loop feature? Whether it will help in this particular case I don't know, but for looping tasks it may come in handy. Only problem is of course that it splits stereo files into L/R mono files upon import.
Paul, thanks for sharing that clip! I don't have time to check it out now, but I will for sure later.
To throw my own contribution in the center, my friend Simon has made a few great videos about sample editing in Reaper; worth checking out-
https://www.youtube.com/c/ivyaudio/videos
This is probably the best one to start with:
(he's actually cutting the oboe samples from VSCO 2; for any of you who are working with the community edition- please blame Simon for everything with the oboe ;D)
I also know Elan Hickler has made a few videos, also of cutting in Reaper, if I remember correctly. I will have to look those up.
Great thread idea! I'll have to maybe do a short video myself on the subject.
P.S. Steven, this might be a far shot, but have you tried a lowpass filter? Sometimes that can correct changes in the waveform that are greater than the sample rate can allow. Other than that, you're welcome to send them my way and I can see if Audition can do anything. I've had some experience cutting out BIG dropout chunks (more or less "audio meatball surgery"- finding zero crossings and cutting out a bunch of material). If the instrument is cyclical/harmonic-based, you can remove the affected 'cycle' via zero crossings with little harm. Unfortunately, this only works with very minor/isolated corruptions.
(07-12-2016, 06:13 AM)Samulis Wrote: [ -> ]P.S. Steven, this might be a far shot, but have you tried a lowpass filter? Sometimes that can correct changes in the waveform that are greater than the sample rate can allow. Other than that, you're welcome to send them my way and I can see if Audition can do anything. I've had some experience cutting out BIG dropout chunks (more or less "audio meatball surgery"- finding zero crossings and cutting out a bunch of material). If the instrument is cyclical/harmonic-based, you can remove the affected 'cycle' via zero crossings with little harm. Unfortunately, this only works with very minor/isolated corruptions.
I have tried messing around with some filters and even tried using EQ, but that didn't seem to work. I've tried changing to different sample rates, but that didn't didn't work either. (Samples are Stereo, 16 bit, 48000 Hz) As far as sending these samples to you, I don't know if that would be legal since they're something you have to pay for. Anyway, I sent a message to the people at Soundfont Downloads and hopefully I'll get a reply. For now I guess I'll just remap the Soundfonts without the damaged samples.
Sorry for not responding to this earlier.