Sound clipping

I'm not sure whether this might be an Audacity question but I *think* it's a Resolve export question.

I'm trying to render a small clip of sound so I can edit it in Audacity (which I'm more adept at using than Fairlight). I'm selecting the clip and rendering it as a WAV file. But every time I'm bringing it into Audacity, it's clipping like crazy. I've lowered the volume down twice but same thing keeps happening. What is NOT sounding distorted in Resolve ends up being distorted in Audacity. Am I missing some option in Resolve?

Here are the export settings in Resolve:

red riding settings.jpg (66.48 KiB) Viewed 531 times

Here are screenshots of the two wave forms. First in Resolve, second in Audacity.

red riding wave form 1.jpg (112.69 KiB) Viewed 531 times

red riding wave form 2.jpg (455.99 KiB) Viewed 531 times

What are your Mixer settings in Resolve? That could add gain in the export that won't show up in the clip's waveform.

Resolve Timelines are 32-bit float and the deliverable is 16-bit (and truncated).

The Deliver page provides IEEE Float and 32-bit depth preferences for wave file deliverables.

For 16- or 24-bit deliverables, place a safety limiter on the programme Buss.

Jim - I haven't done a thing in Fairlight. But right now the volume for the clip is -1 and the result is what you see in the screenshots.

Reynaud - I've never been very good at understanding all the variables for sound output. But....
I tried first changing the bit depth to 32 and this is what I get in Audacity:

changed bit depth to 32bit.jpg (358.69 KiB) Viewed 504 times

And then I made an additional change of the Codec to IEEE:

changed bit depth to 32bit with IEEE.jpg (480.47 KiB) Viewed 504 times

It's clipping no matter what changes I have made.

OK.

What does Resolve show when you bring the clip back in? If it looks the same as the original, then it's likely Audacity is doing something weird.

Oh good question.
Here is a screenshot of it back in resolve.
One on top is a "decomposed" comp which is what I exported as a WAV file.
One on bottom is brought in from an Audacity WAV export.

Visually it doesn't appear to be clipping but it sounds that way. And as you can see, it has more "stuff" added to it. I'm just trying to do some equalization to it in Audacity. I'm finding the Resolve/Fairlight equalizer difficult. It only gives me four points to move around and in ways I"m not used to.

brought back to resolve 1.jpg (78.5 KiB) Viewed 469 times

Maybe that's my question: is there an equalizer in Fairlight that works like this:

audacity equalizer.jpg (94.89 KiB) Viewed 469 times

...instead of this:

resolve equalizer.jpg (75.9 KiB) Viewed 469 times

There is a 6 band equalizer in the mixer for each audio track.

Okay thank you. I found that (with the extra 2 bands) but it's the way it works that is driving me a little crazy. I'm used to sliders! They are so much easier to work with.

But now that I've found the more complete one, I'll try and work with that and not complain. The problem is I'm trying to match two completely different recordings of two completely different pieces, both historical (one recorded in *I think* the 40s or 50s, the other probably in the 20s or 30s). The latter is muffled and I'm struggling to make it a little less so to match. So my thinking is that the more bands I have to play around with, the better.

I'm beginning to think it might be easier to muffle the first one!

Oh, I forgot to mention another thing. Although this doesn't affect the sound (at least what I can hear) when I turn a series of these audio clips into a compound clip, the wave forms appear to clip.

rach comp decomposed.jpg (56.83 KiB) Viewed 416 times

rach comp.jpg (61.01 KiB) Viewed 416 times

One on top is a "decomposed" comp which is what I exported as a WAV file.
One on bottom is brought in from an Audacity WAV export.

Sorry, I meant to bring the export from Resolve back into Resolve and add it to the same timeline from which you just exported. Compare the exported clip to the original clip in the same timeline.

For now, Leave Audacity out of it.

No, I understood you Jim. And I did do that. I posted the result above. It was inconclusive.

But I did decide to give up with Audacity and struggled with the Equalizer in Resolve/Fairlight enough to make it work.

Another thing I realized that was making the transition sound odd, is that one of the pieces is in C and the other is in B flat. I lowered the C down 50 cents and the B flat up 50 cents and that made a big difference.


Thanks for your help.