From 8aedc304ed6fd44dd170cbfc6a43a3f138835af9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Christopher Johnson Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2025 16:20:20 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] DeCrackle --- Airwindopedia.txt | 20 +++++++++++++++++++- what.txt | 1 + 2 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/Airwindopedia.txt b/Airwindopedia.txt index cc662bdb5..3e7c9b5c2 100644 --- a/Airwindopedia.txt +++ b/Airwindopedia.txt @@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ Tape: ToTape8, ToTape7, ToTape6, FromTape, Tape, IronOxideClassic2, IronOxide5, Tone Color: BussColors4, Channel9, Apicolypse, Neverland, Elation, Calibre, Cider, Crystal, Precious, Luxor, Channel8, Channel7, Channel6, Channel5, Channel4 -Utility: SoftClock, DubPlate2, DubPlate, CansAW, Cans, Monitoring3, Monitoring2, Monitoring, BitShiftPan, BitShiftGain, PurestGain, PurestFade, EveryTrim, HermeTrim, SlewOnly, SubsOnly, PeaksOnly, Golem, DCVoltage, LRConvolve2, LRConvolve, EdIsDim, MidSide, uLawEncode, uLawDecode, RightoMono, LeftoMono, Balanced, Flipity, MoNoam, VoiceTrick, ContentHideD +Utility: SoftClock, DubPlate2, DubPlate, CansAW, Cans, Monitoring3, Monitoring2, Monitoring, BitShiftPan, BitShiftGain, PurestGain, PurestFade, EveryTrim, HermeTrim, SlewOnly, SubsOnly, PeaksOnly, Golem, DCVoltage, LRConvolve2, LRConvolve, EdIsDim, MidSide, uLawEncode, uLawDecode, RightoMono, LeftoMono, Balanced, Flipity, MoNoam, VoiceTrick, DeCrackle, ContentHideD XYZ Filters: ZBandpass2, ZHighpass2, ZLowpass2, ZNotch2, ZRegion2, ZBandpass, ZHighpass, ZLowpass, ZNotch, ZRegion, YBandpass, YNotBandpass, YHighpass, YNotHighpass, YLowpass, YNotLowpass, YNotch, YNotNotch, XBandpass. XHighpass, XLowpass, XNotch, XRegion @@ -1602,6 +1602,24 @@ So what exactly is this thing? It’s like a thunderousness overdrive. It’s hu You can use it how you please, but you can throw it on kick drums for EDM and hip-hop, or whatever elements need to be more beefy and sub-rattling. +############ DeCrackle isolates clicks and vinyl crackles to remove them. + +This was a lot of work, for a good purpose (cleaning up vinyl records), being asked for (ever since I did the livestreams developing this, I've been hearing about it) and getting put out as it is. There might well be good ways to inappropriately use it, and I might well get something out of it in its intended use, but all the same I have to establish expectations. + +The fantasy of a decrackle plugin is that you can throw a scratchy ol' record at it, and get a lovely noiseless version back out, that is perfect and has all the tone you want, with none of the noise. Seemed worth trying. I could try to isolate bursts of energy that were the right kind (more side energy than mid, energy higher than the average energy happening at the time, and so on) and mute them. Or, apply a filter, and snap to the filter while the click is happening, so the lows remain unaltered, then back to the raw audio right away. + +Turned out to be a lot more tricky to get it to work… but there's a problem. The whole idea was to let the audio through totally untouched, rapidly triggering the decrackle for every instant it's needed. This is happening, but when there's heavy crackle, the noise is so constant that there's no way to play the raw audio between the crackles… and there's always a lot of quieter crackle happening between the louder pops and clicks. So the concept worked, but it didn't work in the sense of making all the noise go away. And since it barely touches or affects the rest of the audio, you get a powerful sense of whatever crackle remains… minus the REALLY loud bits, that get neatly removed as if they weren't there. + +Filter goes from bass-only to full frequency and is the audio you replace clicks with. You tune it to hide the transitions (full bass might not be the ideal setting, you're looking for minimal disruption). Window is important: it'll go from very narrow, to extremely wide. It's set up so it can be abused to let through a big section of the click's surroundings, which can be used for other purposes. Threshld gets lowered to increase the effect, and requires delicate adjustment: be careful about letting it kick in on actual music as that will sound bad. Surface goes from normal at zero, to intense treble filtering. It's not purely a lowpass, it tries to respond to micro-crackles but not underlying high frequencies, and you can use it to subtly mute general surface noise in quiet sections. Finally, Dry/Wet has a special trick: if you set it to 0.0, full dry, it switches to delta monitoring so you can hear ONLY the clicks. If you hear music coming through that, you know Threshld has to be higher. + +Since this probably isn't going to excite would-be decracklers unless they're really committed to keeping the tone of the audio at all costs, including 'sounding like you didn't bother decrackling' (certain music might be more resilient to lower thresholds), I have an alternate suggestion for amusingly misusing DeCrackle. + +Use high Window settings and full Dry to make it a neat little percussive gate which is also a highpass, and which isolates the attack (because it's treating it as a click where it has to remove the entire onset of the sound). It will apply a fair amount of latency: DeCrackle is FAR from zero latency, unlike most of my plugins. That does let it gate around a peak while presenting the whole peak without cropping the front off. + +Or, use the Dry/Wet to reinvent the attack of percussive sounds, from very high frequency spikes to bassy thumps. Filter controls how much of the attack is allowed to be bright, Window controls how much of the attack you grab, Threshld interacts with that and Dry/Wet blends how much of the attack is removed. This is going to work well for darkening and refining bright attacks on kicks you want to make heavier, since it interacts with the Filter up top plus the Window setting plus the processing latency of the plugin. + +DeCrackle is a lot of tricky, hard-to-balance processing tuned to invisibly remove just the right crackles and clicks from only certain vinyl recordings. If it works for you like that, I'm thrilled! If it works when used on totally different things, I guess the trickiness of it makes the process more interesting or gives you more sophisticated results. Your mileage may vary. Hope you're enjoying kBeyond, I'm working every day on following it up with even better stuff :) + ############ DeEss is the best de-essing solution there is. A go-to utility plugin. The Airwindows DeEss works by tracking slew rates, not by filtering and frequencies. It keeps a string of recent slew rates, and if it sees high slews that keep going back and forth (flipping direction) that’s how it triggers. It doesn’t trigger on things like square wave or sawtooth waves, because those aren’t going back and forth fast enough to be an ess. It’s purely mechanical: the trigger for DeEss happens instantly and way more powerfully on real esses, making it extremely easy to set. It’s not fiddly, just crank up the effect so you can plainly hear where it hits and use that (don’t overtrigger, for the bad esses you’ll get a HUGE powerful trigger even when everything else is totally clear of de-essing) diff --git a/what.txt b/what.txt index ab3aeca4d..5be4cf4e4 100644 --- a/what.txt +++ b/what.txt @@ -127,6 +127,7 @@ DarkNoise is an alternative method for producing bassier noise directly. Sound d DCVoltage is literally a DC control voltage, in a plugin.[coll=Latest] DeBess is an improved DeEss, with perfect rejection of non-ess audio.[coll=Recommended,Latest] Deckwrecka fattens and dirties up beats.[coll=Latest] +DeCrackle isolates clicks and vinyl crackles to remove them.[coll=Latest] DeEss is the best de-essing solution there is. A go-to utility plugin.[coll=] DeHiss tries to suppress background hiss, like a hiss gate.[coll=Latest] Density is a Swiss Army Knife of saturation/antisaturation.[coll=]