Glitch on playback, from a quack to John Henry's hammer

[badt1mes]

Hello. I'm mixing a song: vocals, acoustic guitar x2, bass x2, and banjo = 6 tracks. With a little help, I was able to overcome a small obstacle and got the song exported to mp3. Upon reviewing the mp3 I heard a slight quack at 3:31. I thought it seemed a little loud for finger squeak so went back to the project and sho nuff, the quack is even louder and when I loop it, it sounds like John Henry's hammer pounding a railroad spike. What amazes me is that the sound didn't seem to bother me before the QC. I must have chalked it down as guitar finger squeak.

Now that I established there is indeed an unexplainable sound, I started soloing tracks to isolate it. Right at 3:31, the wave forms of all the instruments but the bass show a bump. The song was tracked live except for the bass, which was overdubbed later. So upon listening, the sound clangs on all the instruments but the bass. To spread things out, I duplicated the bass track, set a quick delay on one of them, and hard panned them L and R. The quack loud on both guitars (mic quack is a little louder than line in), not quite as loud on the vocal track, and faint but noticeable on the banjo track (pickup, not miked). I understand mic bleed over but the sound also appears on two lined in tracks, which mystifies me. It's almost as if it is an equipment or software glitch that permeates all the tracks but the ones that were overdubbed.

When I turned to automation volume envelopes, I really dug in. I placed an enveloped on each track the sound appeared on. Eventually I dropped down to -INF a couple seconds before and after the sound. Still coming through. Has anyone ever experienced something like this? Thanks everyone.

[Promidi]

You say that “ duplicated the bass track, set a quick delay on one of them, and hard panned them L and R”

Is this delay’s delay time synced to the DAW's tempo.

Do you have any tempo changes in your track?

With some delays that are synced to the DAW’s tempo, changing tempos while the delay is active can do this.

[Helios.G]

Why don't you just delete the offending sections and fill it in with copy paste from a section without the problem?

[badt1mes]

On 9/10/2024 at 2:14 AM, Promidi said:

You say that “ duplicated the bass track, set a quick delay on one of them, and hard panned them L and R”

Is this delay’s delay time synced to the DAW's tempo.

Do you have any tempo changes in your track?

With some delays that are synced to the DAW’s tempo, changing tempos while the delay is active can do this.

Thank you for helping troubleshoot this issue. I returned to the original raw recording and the squeaks existed before the bass was overdubbed. And yes, I have begun using plural. When I went back and started reviewing things more closely, I found 5 more squeaks like this one. I've placed a marker at each one.

 

[badt1mes]

On 9/10/2024 at 9:04 AM, Helios.G said:

Why don't you just delete the offending sections and fill it in with copy paste from a section without the problem?

Thank you for your idea. At first I thought it might work until I found 5 more squeaks. Unfortunately the vocals, guitar, and banjo were tracked live so the copy/pasta is unpossible. Since the instruments aren't isolated, it poses a problem and when I found 5 more squeaks, the problem got bigger.

[Base 57]

This is a job for Clip Gain Envelopes. 

[badt1mes]

1 minute ago, Base 57 said:

This is a job for Clip Gain Envelopes. 

Very good point, thank you. I've been teetering on the edge of a youtube rabbit hole regarding the subject of eliminating minimizing acoustic guitar finger squeak. Some of them talk about automating EQ or buying a plugin made specifically for this task or clip gain envelopes.

I do have a question about them. Since the squeaks appear on 3 tracks, does CbB have a way to group the tracks together so I only have to place an envelope on one track while the other two adopt the same envelope events?

[Promidi]

2 minutes ago, badt1mes said:

I do have a question about them. Since the squeaks appear on 3 tracks, does CbB have a way to group the tracks together so I only have to place an envelope on one track while the other two adopt the same envelope events?

Not really.

However, I am wondering if you could route these three tracks to a bus, then automate the level of that bus.

[Base 57]

Clip Groups 

[Base 57]

I will try to be more specific but there's a hurricane going over right now

[Base 57]

Earlier I said Clip Group. That is incorrect.

1. On the tracks you wish to edit, Set the Edit Filter to "Clip Gain".

2. Set the time range by Click-Dragging across all of the clips, or by dragging across the Timeline, or drag select on one clip then Cntrl-Click the other Track Numbers.

3. Adjust the envelope on one of the selected clips.

 

[badt1mes]

4 hours ago, Base 57 said:

Earlier I said Clip Group. That is incorrect.

1. On the tracks you wish to edit, Set the Edit Filter to "Clip Gain".

2. Set the time range by Click-Dragging across all of the clips, or by dragging across the Timeline, or drag select on one clip then Cntrl-Click the other Track Numbers.

3. Adjust the envelope on one of the selected clips.

 

Thank you for the details, I will definitely implement your instruction. I really appreciate you taking the time in light of the weather wherever you are. I hope you guys are safe.

[treesha]

It might be more than you want to do, but izotope rx has free trial for its rx products that can fix or clean up many things. That’s what I would reach for, I have an older version. 

[badt1mes]

On 9/11/2024 at 6:08 PM, Base 57 said:

Earlier I said Clip Group. That is incorrect.

1. On the tracks you wish to edit, Set the Edit Filter to "Clip Gain".

2. Set the time range by Click-Dragging across all of the clips, or by dragging across the Timeline, or drag select on one clip then Cntrl-Click the other Track Numbers.

3. Adjust the envelope on one of the selected clips.

 

Okay, I got the Clip Gain envelopes working and reduced the metal clangs back down to quiet squeaks. Thank you so much, I am very satisfied with the results.

The only thing is that while I figured out how to raise or lower the gain on one clip and have all the parallel clips do the same, I tried to place nodes to lower the gain in a very small portion of the wave form but the other clips did not follow suit. No problem though. I just went in a manually added the nodes to each track, one at a time. Worked out great. Thanks again!