Resolve waveform clipping

[zerocool22]

Hello,

 

I just watched an editing video, and this guy was using final cut pro. And the cool thing was he could see visually in the waveform what was clipping with colors(yellow and red). Is there any way you could set this up in davinci resolve as well. As it is way easier to identify the clipping parts visually then to play the whole track and view the output bus.

 

Thanks

[Mark Romero 2]

1 hour ago, zerocool22 said:

Hello,

 

I just watched an editing video, and this guy was using final cut pro. And the cool thing was he could see visually in the waveform what was clipping with colors(yellow and red). Is there any way you could set this up in davinci resolve as well. As it is way easier to identify the clipping parts visually then to play the whole track and view the output bus.

 

Thanks

I'm not sure I understand, but if you are in the color page, you could open the parade and that would show the wavefroms for the individual channels (R, G, and B).

But I am not familiar with final cut so maybe I misunderstand what you want to achieve in Resolve.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbcat-2J9oM

 

[scotchtape]

I think he means audio, I could be wrong. That would be cool.

[zerocool22]

7 hours ago, scotchtape said:

I think he means audio, I could be wrong. That would be cool.

Yes sorry, should have mentioned that. If it doesnt exist, it would be a sweet update for resolve to implement that.

[Mark Romero 2]

Hmmm...

If you expand the track height for the audio track and then make sure you are showing waveforms for audio, does looking at where the audio peaks (on the waveforms on the audio track) at least give you a head start on finding where the audio is clipping?

[zerocool22]

3 hours ago, Mark Romero 2 said:

Hmmm...

If you expand the track height for the audio track and then make sure you are showing waveforms for audio, does looking at where the audio peaks (on the waveforms on the audio track) at least give you a head start on finding where the audio is clipping?

Yes sorta but not precise, you can only see that parts that are louder, but you cant see in a glance if its really clipping or not. (unless its crazy clipped, and the waveforms are massive differently)

[kye]

@zerocool22

When you play the video you can see levels via the Mixer section of the edit page (it's the panel bottom-right corner with levels just going into the yellow band on the main mix) and they show if something is close/clipping via colour.

You have to enable the Mixer via the button at the top-right, similar to how you turn on and off the Inspector window.  Also, if you have a few audio tracks you might have to drag out the width of the Mixer panel so you can see each track.

It won't show if an audio clip is clipped on the original recording, although I wouldn't think this is something you'd need to refer to frequently, especially considering the damage has already been done, but maybe there's something else going on..

In a sense, the more useful measures are if a track is clipping (which is recorded audio + clip volume + track volume) or if the whole mix is clipping.

It's a similar thing in the Fairlight page, although you have more places to see individual levels for tracks and busses etc.

Was there something specific you are doing, or a specific situation you are in?

[zerocool22]

Bit really just saw that in the final cut video and was impressed. It could save me a couple of minutes per project, as I dont need to play the track to see where its clipping. I would just import the track and everything thats clipped is already marked.

Im all about workflow, I loose focus fast, so when I am doing these little things, its focus I can spend better on actual clip editing.

[Mark Romero 2]

4 hours ago, zerocool22 said:

Bit really just saw that in the final cut video and was impressed. It could save me a couple of minutes per project, as I dont need to play the track to see where its clipping. I would just import the track and everything thats clipped is already marked.

Im all about workflow, I loose focus fast, so when I am doing these little things, its focus I can spend better on actual clip editing.

Yeah, it would be a great feature to have in resolve. I will keep digging but I don't think it is in there yet.

[KnightsFan]

That would be a fantastic feature to have.

[bjohn]

On 5/16/2021 at 9:17 AM, zerocool22 said:

I would just import the track and everything thats clipped is already marked.

That's not how it works, though. The green, yellow, and red colors in the waveforms in FCPX are showing audio playback levels. If you raise the clip's volume too high you'll see the peaks start to turn red in the waveform. It's not going to show you clipping on imported tracks: in imported audio you can spot any clipping simply by looking at the waveform itself: if the peaks look like they are shaved flat, they're clipped. There's nothing you can do to fix that (Izotope RX has a "declip" tool that attempts to reconstruct clipped peaks based on its best guess, but that's an option of last resort).

FCPX's colored waveforms are really just another way of metering: instead of seeing a red indicator in the meter, you see the peaks start to turn red as you push up the playback volume. The only real difference between looking at these color-coded waveforms and looking at a meter is that the waveforms show you where the clipping is occurring. I suppose that's helpful: for example you can quickly spot the problematic peaks this way and then use automation to drop them down a bit so you have more headroom to raise the overall level.

[zerocool22]

17 minutes ago, bjohn said:

 

FCPX's colored waveforms are really just another way of metering: instead of seeing a red indicator in the meter, you see the peaks start to turn red as you push up the playback volume. The only real difference between looking at these color-coded waveforms and looking at a meter is that the waveforms show you where the clipping is occurring. I suppose that's helpful: for example you can quickly spot the problematic peaks this way and then use automation to drop them down a bit so you have more headroom to raise the overall level.

Yeah thats what I meant, but was not able to communicate 🙂

[kye]

@zerocool22 Why not just use a limiter?  Not sure about FCPX, but Resolve has one built into every track, and every bus, and also the master output.

[KnightsFan]

It's far better to know where the sound is a problem and fix it rather than stick a bandaid on it. A brickwall limiter (which is the only type that is guaranteed to fix all clipping) still sounds distorted, it just won't technically clip. Immediate visualization of clipping without requiring playback would be amazing.

[kye]

11 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

It's far better to know where the sound is a problem and fix it rather than stick a bandaid on it. A brickwall limiter (which is the only type that is guaranteed to fix all clipping) still sounds distorted, it just won't technically clip. Immediate visualization of clipping without requiring playback would be amazing.

Of course it is better to know where a problem is and fix it properly, but let's not kid ourselves - the OP doesn't even have time to listen to the final edit to see where any problems might be, so the basket of solutions is pretty empty when there is such a lack of care-factor, especially considering that poor video quality is tolerable but poor audio makes something unwatchable.

Besides, any half-decent limiter can put a pretty heavy limit on a signal without it having much/any perceivable effects.  Anyone familiar with tape saturation would know that this type of limiting can be very sonically benign.  I used to use them for compression and sonic effects in writing electronic music and you'd have to go seriously out of your way to push it hard enough to get anything sonically interesting in terms of distortion.

I read somewhere that there is a bone in the ear that we hear through and that it causes high levels of second harmonic distortion, which is then removed by the auditory processing parts of the brain.  I'm not sure if that's true, but it's pretty obvious that even-order harmonic distortion is orders of magnitude less offensive than odd-order harmonic distortions, so anything that can create even instead of odd harmonics will be far more pleasing, or can be used so much more before becoming unpleasant.