Odd Waveform

Firstly, it's nearly impossible to introduce sibilance during editing - it invariably happens as a function of the relationship between the person speaking and the microphone they're speaking into. Secondly, I'm not denying for one moment that there's a bloody obvious, awful edit there - but there ain't no click in the second sample like in the first one.

I can cut sound out with a click, or I can make things happen that you simply wouldn't realise - all options are open. Whoever edited your files a) didn't know what they were doing (well, not technically anyway) and b) did it on a pretty crappy system. There seems to be little point in getting bogged down in the niceties here; it would seem that this will get you nowhere.

I don't know quite what you want us to tell you here - yes, we agree that they've been badly edited, but so what? There's nothing we, or apparently you can do about it, because it would seem that your judicial system doesn't appear to understand the concepts of objectivity, or indeed pay very much attention to jurisprudence at all. You've already got more than enough evidence to take to a higher court, but somehow I really can't see it getting you anywhere other than gaining a reputation that might not help you too much in the long run.

I think that if you are to get anywhere with this at all, you need some finance behind you, and a local credible Expert Witness - preferably one that can't be bought by the people opposing you.

In particular, we can't point at any feature of the waveform on a screen and say "this proves there has been an edit at this point".  Forget about the clicks - they are not relevant to the issue, and are just distracting you; all they tell us is that the recording system has technical limitations.  What we can say is that we can hear that the recording has been edited.  But we are just people on the Internet from your point of view, and we are making a (pretty obvious) judgement based on our experience.  You need someone who is local enough to you to be able to get involved, and, as Steve says, with some kind of credentials that will allow his judgement to be considered seriously by your courts (or more importantly, I imagine, those who would arrange for it to go back to court at all).

I suppose I should also say, in case you hadn't realised, that both Steve and I are far away from you, in the UK.

Paul

PS: I missed this earlier:

cool- but-- if you went into the edits, like looking at one thousandth of a second...would there be any sign of it there?

No, not least because edits are always made with a short cross-fade, so you will not see an abrupt change in the waveform; if you did see something like that, it would cause a clearly audible click.  Note that even when editing physical tape the diagonal cut that is employed causes a cross-fade of around 10msec.   The flexibility of computerised systems does make it easier to deal with tricky cases, though - I once resolved a problem with a cross-fade which took nearly a second.

Firstly, it's nearly impossible to introduce sibilance during editing - it invariably happens as a function of the relationship between the person speaking and the microphone they're speaking into. Secondly, I'm not denying for one moment that there's a bloody obvious, awful edit there - but there ain't no click in the second sample like in the first one.

I can cut sound out with a click, or I can make things happen that you simply wouldn't realise - all options are open. Whoever edited your files a) didn't know what they were doing (well, not technically anyway) and b) did it on a pretty crappy system. There seems to be little point in getting bogged down in the niceties here; it would seem that this will get you nowhere.

I don't know quite what you want us to tell you here - yes, we agree that they've been badly edited, but so what? There's nothing we, or apparently you can do about it, because it would seem that your judicial system doesn't appear to understand the concepts of objectivity, or indeed pay very much attention to jurisprudence at all. You've already got more than enough evidence to take to a higher court, but somehow I really can't see it getting you anywhere other than gaining a reputation that might not help you too much in the long run.

I think that if you are to get anywhere with this at all, you need some finance behind you, and a local credible Expert Witness - preferably one that can't be bought by the people opposing you.

Steve, I appreciate your honesty; 'logic-wise', I agree with you about the clicks; they could be sibilent voice recorded and 'cut'; the clicks I get from just walking are weird; the clicks in Surrogate's Court second floor are unexplainable, but exist; the transmitter on a nearby iphone makes them; so if I was a purely logical person, I would listen to you, and abandon belief in the clicks having any relevance. But; I'm one of those 'follow your gut' people.I haven't given up on the clicks. They exist- in different channels; LOUD; at points where nothing should be there. Kinda like a UFO theory, unfortunately. Whether I spend another second of time on this at all...well, I know me; my friends say I'm like a dog with a bone. Yesterday I faxed documents to Social Security , describing phone recordings where  woman there said she's going to charge 'sanctions' against me for $57,500. AT MINIMUM; for her absolute error in knowing the law. In that case alone, fifty thousand dolars could have been charged against me and my family, because she has no clue on how to do her job; I fully believe I'm not the only one she's pulled it on. So, I stood up; I won't take it lying down; and won't just correct it 'for me'; while those before and after got screwed. Having said all that, I appreciate your input; I understand that you've read my personal statement that editing happened; you are not unbiased then; and even only saying 'yes it sounds edited' is not enough. I believe it's going to come out; when? I don't know; I just know if I don't persist, 'they' will keep doing it. The thing to get is the hard drive. If they've already destroyed it, they win. It would be against the law to do that. Guess what? That's not been a problem for them so far.
Thanks-)

btw, yes, it's sloppy editing by a 'law person' not audio engineer; using asystem I believe is part of the FTR system; or integrated with it; since all 4 channels are edited separately and also at once. They know only one person other than themselves (lawcrooks) ever is going to listen to it; the transcriptionist; all they care about is the words; not clicks. Yes, in that way, it's crude.

In particular, we can't point at any feature of the waveform on a screen and say "this proves there has been an edit at this point".  Forget about the clicks - they are not relevant to the issue, and are just distracting you; all they tell us is that the recording system has technical limitations.  What we can say is that we can hear that the recording has been edited.  But we are just people on the Internet from your point of view, and we are making a (pretty obvious) judgement based on our experience.  You need someone who is local enough to you to be able to get involved, and, as Steve says, with some kind of credentials that will allow his judgement to be considered seriously by your courts (or more importantly, I imagine, those who would arrange for it to go back to court at all).

I suppose I should also say, in case you hadn't realised, that both Steve and I are far away from you, in the UK.

Paul

PS: I missed this earlier:

cool- but-- if you went into the edits, like looking at one thousandth of a second...would there be any sign of it there?

No, not least because edits are always made with a short cross-fade, so you will not see an abrupt change in the waveform; if you did see something like that, it would cause a clearly audible click.  Note that even when editing physical tape the diagonal cut that is employed causes a cross-fade of around 10msec.   The flexibility of computerised systems does make it easier to deal with tricky cases, though - I once resolved a problem with a cross-fade which took nearly a second.

Paul, I see what you're saying; when I saw the clunky jagged samples etc I thought I 'had it'; but nope. and the clicks; come in all shapes and sizes; with all kinds of sources; so far unable to be connected, if ever. On cross fade; I don't see why there's cross fade in digital edits really; tape, as you described with angle cut splices yes; but digital? why? you can remove every nuance of a sound...right? As for cross talk, like with stereo equipment, phono cartridges, cassette tapes, we have that here in channels partly by mikes; there could be some minor electronic crosstalk through audio cards; but minimal. The big thing is not having the ability to 'see' the edits; Even though the user/editor is not sophisticated, the system might be; and provide a way to go back and hear the edited stuff later. I suppose I may be giving the engineer of it too much credit. It might just be a sloppy, crude crap thing., for use by sloppy crude crappy people; Lol. Hah; got my 'dig' in. Thanks. btw I have relatives in Blackpool, I studied in London in 1981. would be nice to visit again someday- when the nightmare's over.

PS: I missed this earlier:

cool- but-- if you went into the edits, like looking at one thousandth of a second...would there be any sign of it there?

No, not least because edits are always made with a short cross-fade, so you will not see an abrupt change in the waveform; if you did see something like that, it would cause a clearly audible click. 

Paul, were you saying here that there WOULD BE  a clearly audible click from editing>? If so, why? and what would the click be caused by and from? and where would the click be?

The click would be caused by an abrupt change in level between adjacent samples at an edit point because the waves before and after the cut don't line up. A short crossfade of a few milliseconds smoothes out the abrupt change by making a much less steep slope across several samples. 1 msec = about 44 samples at 44.1K sample rate.

Paul, were you saying here that there WOULD BE  a clearly audible click from editing>? If so, why? and what would the click be caused by and from? and where would the click be?

The click would be exactly at the point of edit.

Editing is a precise art (or it is in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing) and there should be no clicks resulting from a properly executed edit.  FYI, you might care to read this thread - http://audiomastersforum.net/synforum/9/topic-9970.htm - from the old Syntrillium forum, where I outlined what is necessary to do a decent edit.

The click would be caused by an abrupt change in level between adjacent samples at an edit point because the waves before and after the cut don't line up. A short crossfade of a few milliseconds smoothes out the abrupt change by making a much less steep slope across several samples. 1 msec = about 44 samples at 44.1K sample rate.

Hi Ryclark- so, why then is a 'click' made? or is it just 'heard' because a driver is not able to respond to the signal quickly enough?

Paul, were you saying here that there WOULD BE  a clearly audible click from editing>? If so, why? and what would the click be caused by and from? and where would the click be?

The click would be exactly at the point of edit.

Editing is a precise art (or it is in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing) and there should be no clicks resulting from a properly executed edit.  FYI, you might care to read this thread - http://audiomastersforum.net/synforum/9/topic-9970.htm - from the old Syntrillium forum, where I outlined what is necessary to do a decent edit.

Hi Graeme- great explanation-) so, you don't use smoothing and crossfading when you edit- and prefer to do a more precise job yourself; which requires more care, right?
With the 'court recording editing system', they don't care about accuracy, or clicks; since only the court, or lawyers, or transcriptionist ever listen to them; in fact their goal is to avoid them ever being listened to, by just plain 'winning the case' by removing information that would make them lose.
So; there most likely is no 'smoothing and crossfading' in the editing program; the engineer got paid to make a system that allows editing four separate channels and then blends them back together in the timeline; that was work enough for their 'fee'.

Paul, were you saying here that there WOULD BE  a clearly audible click from editing>? If so, why? and what would the click be caused by and from? and where would the click be?

The click would be exactly at the point of edit.

Editing is a precise art (or it is in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing) and there should be no clicks resulting from a properly executed edit.  FYI, you might care to read this thread - http://audiomastersforum.net/synforum/9/topic-9970.htm - from the old Syntrillium forum, where I outlined what is necessary to do a decent edit.

Hi Graeme- great explanation-) so, you don't use smoothing and crossfading when you edit- and prefer to do a more precise job yourself; which requires more care, right?
With the 'court recording editing system', they don't care about accuracy, or clicks; since only the court, or lawyers, or transcriptionist ever listen to them; in fact their goal is to avoid them ever being listened to, by just plain 'winning the case' by removing information that would make them lose.
So; there most likely is no 'smoothing and crossfading' in the editing program; the engineer got paid to make a system that allows editing four separate channels and then blends them back together in the timeline; that was work enough for their 'fee'.

What was puzzling was the location of loud clicks, in varying intensities and times; in different channels; I would have thought, that if the clicks were the actual data that was removed, the click would always be in only one, same channel... and it's not. (yes i'm a dog with a bone on that theory- hopeful the original sound is still there) So...what you've said here make sense; that a click can be a result of cutting and splicing sloppily; maybe removing a section and then jamming together a rise and fall, sometimes at high volume levels; other times could be at low levels, or both rising or both falling, therefore, less click as result; hmmm?

Firstly, it's nearly impossible to introduce sibilance during editing - it invariably happens as a function of the relationship between the person speaking and the microphone they're speaking into. Secondly, I'm not denying for one moment that there's a bloody obvious, awful edit there - but there ain't no click in the second sample like in the first one.

I can cut sound out with a click, or I can make things happen that you simply wouldn't realise - all options are open. Whoever edited your files a) didn't know what they were doing (well, not technically anyway) and b) did it on a pretty crappy system. There seems to be little point in getting bogged down in the niceties here; it would seem that this will get you nowhere.

I don't know quite what you want us to tell you here - yes, we agree that they've been badly edited, but so what? There's nothing we, or apparently you can do about it, because it would seem that your judicial system doesn't appear to understand the concepts of objectivity, or indeed pay very much attention to jurisprudence at all. You've already got more than enough evidence to take to a higher court, but somehow I really can't see it getting you anywhere other than gaining a reputation that might not help you too much in the long run.

I think that if you are to get anywhere with this at all, you need some finance behind you, and a local credible Expert Witness - preferably one that can't be bought by the people opposing you.

So- unless some other miraculous observation of minute fact arrives; by close scrutiny of each and every click at known edit points (which I'll have to look at) then there is one absolute fact that cannot be avoided without major fraud; the obtaining of and analyzing of the original hard drive. There is on that drive, a time of original edit; and then modification of it. What we've learned about how drives work, is that the original remains in place, it is not 'written over', but links to the data are changed. It's still there. The courts and agencies mandated to ensure fairness refuse to investigate; (as they know editing is being done); we do live in what we still think of as a democracy here; public opinion does matter.

Having said that- the public COULD demand an investigation, if there is enough belief that the editing sounds like it's edited; if I heard the 'money talks' thing, I'd believe it could be edited- (even if it wasn't me talking). What do you think? Is it convincing enough for the average guy to think it might be?

Paul, were you saying here that there WOULD BE  a clearly audible click from editing>? If so, why? and what would the click be caused by and from? and where would the click be?

The click would be exactly at the point of edit.

Editing is a precise art (or it is in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing) and there should be no clicks resulting from a properly executed edit.  FYI, you might care to read this thread - http://audiomastersforum.net/synforum/9/topic-9970.htm - from the old Syntrillium forum, where I outlined what is necessary to do a decent edit.

Graeme- here are two files, two different channels out of four. These are from the same exact time; words were removed from the channel named 'Howe', and my words from the Channel 4. Actually, all four channels are gone, for between 30 seconds to maybe a minute's time. What gets me here is that though many words were removed from channel Howe, there is no click there. Channel 4, though, has a very distinct click. I am Channel 4. It's possible I spoke too closely to the mike and was loud? Have a listen, please-

Here is a screenshot of the four separate channels- Howe is channel 1. The words ALRIGHT and then NOW are clearly seen in all four channels. But, it's channel 4 (mine) that has the BIG click.
wassup?

Graeme- here are two files, two different channels out of four. These are from the same exact time; words were removed from the channel named 'Howe', and my words from the Channel 4. Actually, all four channels are gone, for between 30 seconds to maybe a minute's time. What gets me here is that though many words were removed from channel Howe, there is no click there. Channel 4, though, has a very distinct click. I am Channel 4. It's possible I spoke too closely to the mike and was loud? Have a listen, please-

Not too sure what I'm supposed to be listening for here.  What I have is two files with a single voice - obviously not yours - one on-mic and one off-mic.  They match precisely, in terms of time and I detect no clear evidence of editing of either track.  The 'click' on the off-mic channel is not really a 'click' as we would define it, more some sort of 'noise' generated by who knows what.  Since you are not speaking at the time, I can't see how you it can be the result of you speaking too loudly. What I think I can safely say is, whatever the cause, the noise is not the result of sloppy editing.

When we talk of 'clicks', through poor editing, we are referring to a very short term event. This would manifest itself as more of a single 'tick' noise - not the 20 odd mS of noise you have here. 

Maybe an intense forensic examination of the data would reveal the evidence you so obviously are looking for, but a quick look by me proves absolutely nothing.

Graeme- here are two files, two different channels out of four. These are from the same exact time; words were removed from the channel named 'Howe', and my words from the Channel 4. Actually, all four channels are gone, for between 30 seconds to maybe a minute's time. What gets me here is that though many words were removed from channel Howe, there is no click there. Channel 4, though, has a very distinct click. I am Channel 4. It's possible I spoke too closely to the mike and was loud? Have a listen, please-

Not too sure what I'm supposed to be listening for here.  What I have is two files with a single voice - obviously not yours - one on-mic and one off-mic.  They match precisely, in terms of time and I detect no clear evidence of editing of either track.  The 'click' on the off-mic channel is not really a 'click' as we would define it, more some sort of 'noise' generated by who knows what.  Since you are not speaking at the time, I can't see how you it can be the result of you speaking too loudly. What I think I can safely say is, whatever the cause, the noise is not the result of sloppy editing.

When we talk of 'clicks', through poor editing, we are referring to a very short term event. This would manifest itself as more of a single 'tick' noise - not the 20 odd mS of noise you have here. 

Maybe an intense forensic examination of the data would reveal the evidence you so obviously are looking for, but a quick look by me proves absolutely nothing.

I totally agree with you. The thing is, the channel where the 'tick' noise is, is MY channel, channel 4; it barely exists on Howe's channel. In this quick segment of time, of the whole proceeding, I am not speaking at all- but when I did speak, I may have been too close to the mike, and perhaps a bit excited, since they had just canceled my jury trial and appointed two lawyers to accuse me of theft and fraud, instead of me exposing all of 'them', as was undoubtedly going to happen in jury trial, if it had occurred.

I'll attach the other two channels here- the 'tick' is inaudible in channel 2, and somewhat there in channel 3.

Btw, I used to call the 'tick' a 'screech'; later someone called them 'clicks'; but whatever you call it, it's a very strange audio event, would you agree? And it's in channel4- my channel.