Repair recipes: fix clipping, clicks, hum and dropouts in RX
Clipping, clicks, crackle, hum, dropouts and distortion — recipes sorted by the artifact you hear, each scoped to the modules that treat it.
Start with the fault you can hear: a click, a clipped word, a steady buzz or a missing fragment. Keep a protected original and audition a representative passage before processing the whole recording. A spectrogram helps locate a problem; its shapes alone do not tell you which sounds belong in the performance.
Match the fault to a repair
Clipping and distortion: listen for overload and inspect the waveform alongside the De-clip histogram. Concentrated peak levels can suggest clipping; flat-looking peaks are not sufficient proof. Set Threshold just below the identified clipping level and leave headroom for reconstructed peaks. The De-clip guide covers this process. De-clip treats digital and analog clipping artifacts; it is not a universal distortion remover.
Clicks and crackle: use the De-click guide for short recorded impulses, and Mouth De-click for mouth clicks rather than every defect in speech. Dense, quieter impulses belong to the De-crackle workflow. Its Strength controls detection and repair; Amplitude Skew targets louder or quieter crackle. Audition what is removed as well as the repaired sound, protecting consonants and musical attacks.
Hum, buzz and hiss: the De-hum manual distinguishes Static for simple tonal noise with few harmonics from Dynamic for complex hum or buzz. Follow the De-hum guide to identify the actual fundamental. For broadband hiss or overlapping noise, use the background-noise workflow; a changing noise floor does not automatically rule out adaptive denoising.
Repair a local event or missing fragment
Spectral Repair uses surrounding audio as context. Attenuate reduces an unwanted event; Replace reconstructs the selected content, including suitable gaps in tonal audio. Pattern searches for a similar nearby passage, while Partials + Noise links harmonics across the damage. Replacement modes estimate missing material; they do not retrieve an exact lost performance.
The Spectral Repair guide explains selection boundaries and mode limits. For tiny defects, Interpolate is documented for individual clicks below 4,000 samples; the dropout repair guide explains when to try it and when to use spectral reconstruction. If a repair invents an audible seam or changes a word, look for an alternate take or re-record where possible.
Use the specialist route when it fits
The De-wind guide addresses intermittent microphone rumble from light to moderate gusts, with separate limits for steady wind and overload. For bandwidth-limited speech, the Spectral Recovery guide covers synthesized frequency extension. For stereo tape-transfer gain or delay misalignment, use the Azimuth guide.
Check the RX edition comparison before choosing a route. Elements supplies plug-ins without the Audio Editor; Spectral Repair, Interpolate and De-crackle require Standard or Advanced. De-wind, Spectral Recovery and Azimuth require Advanced.
Choose the order by listening
Treat the problems that are actually present and reassess after each step. The De-crackle documentation recommends removing the worst clicks first. That useful pair does not establish a compulsory clipping-clicks-crackle-hum-noise chain. Repair Assistant can suggest processing, but its result still needs your approval.
Compare alternatives from the same original at similar playback loudness. Stop when clarity costs too much tone, intelligibility or ambience. Keep an RX Document for editable history and follow the safe saving and export guide to produce a separately named audio file.
Audio repair questions
Do flat-looking peaks prove clipping?
No. Listen and inspect the waveform together with the De-clip histogram. Concentrated peak levels suggest clipping; the display alone does not establish the cause of distortion.
Must every recording use the same repair order?
No. Process the faults that are present and compare the result after each step. Removing major clicks before De-crackle is a documented relationship, not a requirement to run every module.
Can Spectral Repair recover the exact missing audio?
No. It reconstructs a selected region using surrounding information. The result may be useful, but it is not the original lost performance; an alternate take or re-recording can be a better option.
Guides in this hub
iZotope RX 12 Spectral Recovery: Fix Thin AudioSep 4, 2026 · 12 min readUse Spectral Recovery only where the spectrogram shows a real bandwidth cutoff, then add the smallest believable low and high extension without inventing brittle speech.
iZotope RX 12 Azimuth: Fix Tape Phase AlignmentSep 4, 2026 · 12 min readA practical RX 12 guide to fixed and drifting stereo alignment, tape-transfer azimuth, mono checks and the crucial difference between Azimuth, Phase and polarity.
Remove Wind Noise in iZotope RX 12: De-wind GuideSep 4, 2026 · 12 min readDe-wind targets intermittent microphone rumble. Check overload first, tune the four controls to the recording, and preserve speech and outdoor ambience.
Repair Audio Dropouts in iZotope RX 12Sep 3, 2026 · 10 min readUse Interpolate for truly tiny defects below 4,000 samples; use Spectral Repair when the missing section needs tonal, patterned or harmonic reconstruction.
Remove Crackle with iZotope RX 12 De-crackleSep 3, 2026 · 11 min readUse De-crackle for dense recorded impulses. Tune Strength and Amplitude Skew with the removed-signal monitor, switch back to normal output, then compare and export a separate file.
iZotope RX 12 Spectral Repair: Practical TutorialSep 3, 2026 · 11 min readSelect the defect tightly, choose the repair mode from what survives around it, compare several reconstructions and render the least audible correction.
iZotope RX 12 De-hum: Remove 50/60 Hz HumSep 3, 2026 · 11 min readIdentify the fundamental and its harmonic ladder, choose Static for fixed simple hum or Dynamic for complex buzz, then monitor Hum Only before rendering.
RX De-click: Remove Clicks, Pops and Digital SpikesSep 3, 2026 · 11 min readStart with the click type, choose the matching algorithm, then raise Sensitivity only while the removed-signal audition contains clicks—not speech or transients.
How to Fix Clipped Audio with RX De-clipSep 3, 2026 · 9 min readConfirm genuinely flat-topped peaks, set Threshold just below the clipping shelf, leave headroom for reconstructed peaks, and compare quality modes.