questions about click repair

[decibelle]

Is click repair simply arithmetic: If you do two passes at level 3, would that be the same as doing it once at level 6?

Have people found that when working with a piano recording that it is better to put percussion protection at the highest level to preserve the full range of piano nuances?

Thanks,
Ellen

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

No, it's not a matter of simple arithmetic.  Second and subsequent passes sometimes find clicks that were masked by clicks removed on the previous pass.  In general, however, multiple passes achieve little and are not recommended.  The facility is there for those rare cases of severe damage where it helps.

Using a higher percussion protection setting for piano music will probably not make any difference (other, perhaps, then to let some clicks through that would otherwise be detected).  Piano music contains few impulses that might get mistaken for clicks, but you might like to look in the corrections list for repairs wider than 40 samples or so and, if found, zoom in on them to see if they look like music rather than clicks.  Increasing the Percussion Protection setting would then be appropriate, but it's always a compromise.

[decibelle]

So for cleaning up a really worn area, you're saying there is less chance of distortion in using one pass of the "turbo" setting then in doing two or more passes of a setting of 3 or 4?

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

It's probably a better bet, yes, although the turbo settings are pretty harsh and can do a lot of damage.  If you use them, use them sparingly and listen carefully to the results.

It sounds like your records are in a bit of a sorry state, in which case you might consider gently sponging them with a dilute solution of washing up liquid, rinsing with water, dabbing dry and then allowing to air-dry (keep the water off the label!).  This can improve things a lot, worth experimenting with on a badly damaged recording

[decibelle]

Most of my albums are in much better condition, thankfully, but I wanted to get the experience of working on one that was particularly bad.