Spot Healing Brush -- how the heck...? [ AudioMasters Forums - The Home of the Original Cool Edit and Adobe Audition Community ]

I've just started to make the transition to version 3 from 1.5. When I first saw the new feature called "Spot Healing Brush" I thought Oh crap, they're trying to make this act like PhotoSlop (of which I'm not necessarily a fan for it's quick-fix tools that get over- and mis-used.).

However, I'm editing a live recording I recently made of a doo-wop group using wireless mikes. One of the mikes was subject to loud buzzes when it was moved around, and it really spoiled portions of the recording. The buzzes lasted from about a half-second to nearly a second-and-a-half. So I thought there was nothing to lose by trying the healing brush... and I'm just astounded at how well it was able to clean up the noise, without wrecking the vocals. Not perfect, but salvaged a recording to the point of being quite listenable. I just hit the noise with the "brush," and it removed probably 90+% of it. I'm sure if I applied the tool more carefully, and perhaps tried it in conjunction with some others, I could repair the audio to the point that it would be nearly impossible to detect the mike buzz. I assume the brush "looks" at whatever is before and after the noise, and blends it over the trouble... but I'm surprised at how well it works without much fussing. I'm looking forward to trying it on some more conventional transient and click/pop noises, to see how it works compared to the traditional fixes.