KVR Audio

Equilibrium · Post by **Equilibrium** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 3:26 pm

Ok I've run into a whole bunch of problems that were really quite annoying. I basically used livecut to splice up a lead line from a synth. I then spend about 2/3 hours putting the stuff back together in wild and crazy ways.

I tend to make music with the volume quite low so when I turned it up and found out that there were loads of clicks in my piece I was very annoyed. I don't really understand why they happen is the thing. I've now tried doing "mixdowns" with Livecut and lowering the dB rate on the mixer by two each time to see if the clicks lessen, and they do seem to.

What I want to know is why are there in the first place. I think I understand Aliasing, and if I do that should only effect stuff if the pitch of the sounds are really high. i have also done all this in a Cubase project with just one VST loaded and no effects other than livecut. Is it that putting "disconnect" sounds togther causes clicks?
And also while I'm at it why is it that when you cut up drum beats, sometimes when you leave a space you get a click too?

There is something I am not understanding here.

Thank you for any responses, and thank you for LiveCut it is a program I have fallen in love with!

C00kie · Post by **C00kie** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:53 pm

Without knowing anything about LiveCut, I think you are victim of a normal sampling phenomena.

When you cut sound suddenly and randomly, chances are big you get a click. The click is there because the sound stops while it is near a peak.

When you cut meticulously at the point at which the sound crosses zero (and it does very often!) you will not get a click.

flanneljammies · Post by **flanneljammies** » Mon Oct 31, 2005 8:05 pm

From the developer (http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=96709):

mdsp wrote:
legendCNCD wrote:this is amazing stuff, but could you implement a fast crossfade or something to remove the clicks ?
I mean, I get clicks and peaks from the output, those should be faded off..
really, I don't want to remove them, I love them, sorry for you

Equilibrium · Post by **Equilibrium** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 10:40 am

Ah, ok, so when cutting if you don't want a click, you have to find the point where the sound crosses zero? Wouldn't some sounds never cross zero because the are full of partials that are all at different points in their cycles? And, isnt' digital clipping something you want to avoid like the plague?

Gargoyle · Post by **Gargoyle** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 10:50 am

It might help to think of this like literally cutting and pasting words from a newspaper. Unless you make those cuts in spaces between letters or words or between letters that are at the same level, then you end up with Capitals in the middle of sentences or letters which are partially formed or too close together to read properly. So, when slicing you either need to judiciously choose "gaps" (e.g. spaces between words/letters) or try to match up slices which don't involve great jumps (e.g. from a lower case to upper case) in level.

The only other thing you can really do is to use a fade in/out on each clip you've made to try and smooth out the "jumps" you are getting.

Otherwise, what you are getting is exactly what would one expect from doing what you are trying to do.

Shane Sanders · Post by **Shane Sanders** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 7:38 pm

Gargoyle is right. The slang for this process is "topping and tailing" a clip.

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 8:48 pm

your software should have the option to always cut at zero crossing, of course as i always said, developers are too stupid to implement that, right?

blaster78 · Post by **blaster78** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:00 pm

livecut wasn't designed to be that sort of software, many people find that the artifacts, clicks and glitches are what they actually want. (see the quote above)

you can always render it to audio and then edit out the glitches by hand if you really want rid of them.

cheers,

steve.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Tue Nov 01, 2005 9:08 pm

aciddose wrote:your software should have the option to always cut at zero crossing, of course as i always said, developers are too stupid to implement that, right?

In the case of livecut though, its reason for being is the glitch sound, so the clicks are part of the point.

Equilibrium, if you don't want clicks, don't use a randomized glitcher. Just get something like liveslice instead.

Equilibrium · Post by **Equilibrium** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:03 am

shamann wrote:
aciddose wrote:your software should have the option to always cut at zero crossing, of course as i always said, developers are too stupid to implement that, right?
In the case of livecut though, its reason for being is the glitch sound, so the clicks are part of the point.

Equilibrium, if you don't want clicks, don't use a randomized glitcher. Just get something like liveslice instead.

I don't actually mind the clicks, I just wanted to know why they happened. I have been told though by some people who have relases that your should avoid clips at all cost. I'm not sure how true that is.

Gargoyle · Post by **Gargoyle** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 10:15 am

I think you're confusing clipping (which represents a sort of "overpowering" of your output audio) with the clicks you get when you stitch audio together in ways it wasn't intended to be (which represents a lack of smoothness in the clips you are piecing together).

The former is usually to be avoided...

Equilibrium · Post by **Equilibrium** » Wed Nov 02, 2005 1:03 pm

ah thank you that added some claity. I was aware of the difference but I wasn't sure if they were related in some way.

I wish I knew more about this