Stereo Tool

I'm a professional mastering engineer and today I'm dealing with a vocal track (isolated vocal stem) that was clipped during the original recording (analog clipping). Thimeo declipper is great. It performs much better than Izotope's declipper. But I'm struggling trying to figure out some undocumented features in the VST plugin. Version 9.62 seems to have the feature Step Size reduction, "to reduce hissy IM distortion" but the latest version 9.92 does not include that as an option. I wonder if we can have a tutorial to take notes on where that feature has gone.

And how to interpret the display. I see little red marks in the waveform while playing. Are those the areas that have been declipped? Do they show the degree of declipping?

Also, your explanation of the definition of a clipped sample, using sample values around 0.5, confuses me. I think I've got it down, that "Stop declipping if peaks did not increase above...." to lower the percentage if I want more action, of course with the danger that it will overcorrect.

EDIT: I think you may need to increase the operating mode from Basic to Extreme Tweaker. This is no longer an issue in the new GUI, so it slipped my mind entirely.

Original: Hiya! Sometimes Hans doesn't see the help section on his regular forum upkeep. For this specific question, I'd shoot him a DM directly. User hvz.

The new version of the UI is in beta (meaning the plugin is not fully stable) and I don't see nearly as many Declipper settings in it either. I'll bring this up in the beta thread as well. (EDIT: Ah, they're there, just tucked away and some renamed).

My understanding about the declipper algorithm is that it hasn't changed in years. If 9.62 is working as you like, I wouldn't bother replacing it with 9.92 unless you have other reasons. Maybe Hans can clarify.

edit: Here are the clipping detection settings in the new GUI. please excuse the possibly massive embed

Thanks for your deep observations on the declipper. Mr. K. Might as well use 9.92 if by engaging the "extreme tweaker" mode I can see the options I had previously seen in 9.62. I'll take a look on Monday.


Take care,


Bob