Problem with Maximize

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Coriolanus
Posts: 181
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 3:50 pm

Problem with Maximize

Post by Coriolanus »

I am having a problem with MAXIMIZE. I am using Goldwave to make digital copies of some old audiobooks on cassettes that I bought. They are library discards. After I make the recording, I run Maximize using the Full option. Sometimes it doesn’t work.

So I began to investigate the wave form to see what was happening. What I discovered was a very thin vertical line running through a minute portion of the wave form. It was so thin and light colored that it is hard to even find it. Some are very, very tall, others not so tall but they all block Maximize.

If I use SHAPE VOLUME it does show me these odd vertical lines. But the only way I have found to correct the problem is to go in and find every vertical line and enlarge that portion of the wave form as much as possible to isolate the line and then delete it. The deletion does not seem to affect the sound at all, as they most often occur between words.

I have tried using Pop/click etc. but that does not pick them up. The only thing that I am able to get to work is this deletion. Of course if I have a lot of these lines on a 45 min. tape, it can take several hours to clean it up and get maximize to work. I suspect of I just use auto-gain and don’t remove them they will be audible on the CD I make.

Can anyone help me find a quicker way to remove these tall, thin, pale vertical lines which block Maximize?

Thanks

Judy
Gord
Posts: 391
Joined: Thu May 21, 2009 4:26 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Problem with Maximize

Post by Gord »

Hi Judy.

Those thin lines are probably transient spikes in the waveform, likely the result of glitches in the analog-to-digital conversion process. I expect that they look something like this:

Image

If they only affect a small number of samples then they may well be too brief for the pop/click filter to recognize them. If I run the pop/click filter on the example above it does not remove the spike, yet when I play the sound I hear it as a very faint "tick".

If you don't want to be bothered hunting them down and deleting them, you could always just clip them. For example, in the example above I looked at the waveform and determined that the "real" signal lay between -0.5 and 0.5 on the vertical (amplitude) axis, so I just used Effect > Dynamics... to clip everything below -0.5 and above 0.5:

Image

After applying the effect the spike was reduced in size...

Image

...and then when I ran the Maximize Volume effect I was able to increase the volume of the file:

Image

Note that the "tick" sound is still there, but if you can live with that then this method could well save you some time and effort.
Coriolanus
Posts: 181
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 3:50 pm

Re: Problem with Maximize

Post by Coriolanus »

Thank for the reply. You are correct that is my problem. However, I have decided, based on your reply, to simply delete these ticks. It is tedious but at least it does not come through on the CD. Thanks again for your thoughtful and helpful reply.
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