Pro Tools - Digital Clipping At My Fades?

[ruckus328]

OK, something tells me I'm gonna get laughed at for this one but what the hell is going on? I'm getting digital clipping everywhere I have a fade. Just rendered my whole project and there's clicks and pops all over my DI's. Good thing I kept a backup. It's obviously not ligning up the waveforms at 0, isn't that the whole point of doing a fade - so you DON'T get a clip? Am I just a noob moron and doing something wrong here? Please tell me I don't have to go and touch each one of these guys.

 

[egan.]

Clicks and pops indicate bad cross fades not clipping. Try re-rendering the fades.

 

[barricade]

...and if re-fading doesn't help try commiting the tracks and fade it when you are not in ElasticAudio mode!

 

[C_F_H_13]

elastic audio+fading=clips galore.

Always do elastic audio to 1 single track. If you want to edit that track...finish elastic audio, commit, and then cut the audio.

 

[joelplagues]

your pops and clicks are coming from the waves not meeting up. they arent passing a full wave cycle. try cross fading at a zero cross point.

 

[arv_foh]

this would be the correct placement of the crossfades

 

[ruckus328]

Thanks for the help guys.

trivkidd - I am crossfading at a zero point, that's what I get.

arv_foh - that section the middle IS a crossfade. If I added more crossfade's where you indicated I'd be crossfading the crossfade, and the end result would still be clicks and pops (only now I'd have 6 of them instead of the 2 I have now)

Yes, I am trying to fade with EA enabled. I guess that is the issue because I've never had this issue before. I know the proper workflow would be to do my edits, consolidate into 1 track, then do my EA, then render, then do any addtional edits after I've rendered.

However, in this particular case I did what I just said and enabled EA and did a bunch of quantizing clean-up to the single track, then we had some changes and tweaks to the riffs. So I unfortunately had to splice in other takes directly into my EA tracks, as I didn't want to lose the EA work that was already done in the unchanged areas and also didn't want to render until I had the final product arranged, and obviously that is now biting me in the ass (the best lessons are the ones hard learned I guess?)

So now my question is this, how can I commit the EA WITHOUT rendering the crossfades. I usually just hit edit>consolidate but that commits the EA and renders the crossfades all at once. Sorry for the noobness.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

arv_foh - that section the middle IS a crossfade. If I added more crossfade's where you indicated I'd be crossfading the crossfade, and the end result would still be clicks and pops (only now I'd have 6 of them instead of the 2 I have now)

The issue is that you crossfaded in the wrong spot. We can tell that the middle section is a crossfade...but what hes trying to tell you is that you put it in the WRONG spot...you're supposed to add crossfades where the cut pieces of audio meet up...not in the middle of 2 cuts.

look at it this way...A crossfade is essentially a "volume automation"...The way you have it set up right now, It probably sounds like "audio-pop-wavy sounding audio-pop-audio" If you put the crossfades where you made your 2 cuts and took out the one that you originally had in that spot, then essentially the volume is dropping real quick when the wave forms meet the cuts, and then picks back up AFTER the cut therefore "muting" the clicks and pops that your hearing.

 

[James Murphy]

render your elastic audio edits first... then try using Equal Gain fades rather than Equal Power fades if the issue persists.

 

[ruckus328]

The issue is that you crossfaded in the wrong spot. We can tell that the middle section is a crossfade...but what hes trying to tell you is that you put it in the WRONG spot...you're supposed to add crossfades where the cut pieces of audio meet up...not in the middle of 2 cuts.

look at it this way...A crossfade is essentially a "volume automation"...The way you have it set up right now, It probably sounds like "audio-pop-wavy sounding audio-pop-audio" If you put the crossfades where you made your 2 cuts and took out the one that you originally had in that spot, then essentially the volume is dropping real quick when the wave forms meet the cuts, and then picks back up AFTER the cut therefore "muting" the clicks and pops that your hearing.

Dalink, I think the picture I posted is skewing things. What you said to do is exactly what I have done. Those two waveforms meeting up on each side of the cross fade were not there before I put in the crossfade in (which definitely is centered on the cut). I don't know why the crossfade is acting this way, it is essentially working backwards from what it should be doing. This is why I'm scratching my head.

Like mentioned, it has to be the result of doing fades while in Elastic Audio mode, since essential it is trying to cross fade points which don't really exist yet because the Elastic Audio hasn't been commited to.

I'm still unsure what the procedure is to commiting the Elastic Audio and then inserting fades and consolidating. Can anyone help with how I do that? Thanks again!

 

[James Murphy]

your fades will update, no need to do anything... just remove the EA plug and PT will ask if you want to commit. read your manual. read your manual. read your manual.


one last thing.... read your manual.

 

[James Murphy]

So you put your crossfades where arv mentioned...and somehow you ended up with it looking like that? Where are you from dude? there seems to be some sort of language barrier going on here

nope... the OP is relating what happens quite correctly.. the "cut" becomes invisible in PT when you place a X-fade.. but it's still there, right in the center of the fade.

EDIT: nice "delete" action there Dalink.

 

[Dalinkwent48@aim.com]

I realized i was wrong after i wrote it thats why i deleted lol...thanks for the call out bud

 

[ruckus328]

Haha, thanks for all the help guys, glad to know it wasn't me going crazy at least. James, I know that if I turn off EA on the track it will ask me to commit or revert, the only reason I didn't do that is I have a commitment problem lol (just ask my ex's). I didn't want to go that route as I won't be able to go back and tweak it if I need to, which is why I was wondering if there another way to commit the EA.

What I usually do is make a new playlist on the track and copy the original to the new playlist, then hit consolidate, which commits the EA on the new playlist but leaves the original playlist intact. In this case I can't do that because of the fades issue as it renders those as well using this method. I guess what I can do is make new temporary duplicate tracks with EA enabled and copy each original track to the new tracks, and then turn it off and then consolidate the fades. Then move my now consolidated audio back to my original tracks and delete the temporary ones.

And if you can follow everything I just said you get 10 points and a cookie. I almost confused myself there.

 

[arv_foh]

Ah, I see what you're saying, I never use Elastic Audio I was going strictly by the photo