Dialogue Editing

Fixing Noises 199
If there’s a short electrical click in the middle of the word “peanut,” you fi x
it once with the pencil and you’ve fi xed every occurrence. This is an unusual
case, however. Normally, you want to protect the soundfi le from any stupidities
you might cause with the pencil, so remember this rule of thumb: Before
using the pencil tool, make a copy of the section you intend to repair. To make
a safety copy of the region you’re about to operate on:
Highlight a section of the region, a bit wider than the damaged area.
Make a copy of the sound in the region. It’s not enough to copy the
region itself, as this doesn’t create a new soundfi le. Instead, consolidate
or bounce the selected region, creating a new soundfi le and leaving
the original audio safe from the destructive pencil. (See Figure 12-4.)
Zoom in very close to the click. Filling the screen with one sound
cycle is a good view. Select the pencil tool and draw over the
damaged area. Take care to create a curved line that mimics the
trajectory of the underlying (damaged) curve, or what that curve
“should have been.”
Redraw the smallest possible portion of the waveform. Otherwise, you
run the risk of creating a low-frequency artifact.
Move the boundaries of the now fi xed consolidation until there’s no
click on the edit. Fade if necessary to avoid clicks (it’s generally better
to move the edit location than to fade).
Figure 12-4 Top: The segment from Figure 12-3 with two clicks (labeled with
markers). Bottom: The area to be repaired was consolidated (highlighted in black)
to create a new, tiny soundfi le. The pencil was used to redraw the waveform.
Compare the smooth curves below with the jagged originals.