Distortion and oversteer to remaster

[Karst]

Right. Someone has made an audience recording in a small club in Leeds and asked me if I can lift the recording. It was done on MD and a mic without any particular settings was used. This has resulted in quite some distortion and oversteer. I started working on this last night and I have a few options. After applying the usual dampening I'm left with either pulling down the db levels (to approx. -8) or setting some slight reverb on the audio track. Neither is ideal IMHO but I was just wondering what methods other people would have used.

[Five]

I don't quite understand you... slight reverb vs. taking it down -8db The reverb sounds like the better choice so far. Please tell me more!

[AAR.oner]

a blown out recording is a blown out recording...i hate to say it, but there's not alot you can do to "Fix" it...you can sweeten it up some sure, but you'll still have a blown out signal...just my 2 cents Karst.

as Five said--MORE INFO PLEASE
what programs/OS are you using?
what sort of studio processors do you have?
any rig info would help.

[ssamadhi97]

Originally Posted by Karst

[...] I'm left with either pulling down the db levels (to approx. -8) or setting some slight reverb on the audio track

pulling down the levels? So your music becomes 8 dB quieter and the distortion becomes 8 dB quieter, effectively solving nothing whatsoever? That's an... interesting solution :P

[Karst]

Pulling down the levels is not just pushing down the volume merely the level of the recording. I'd say reverb is indeed the way to go Five - its a Sisters of Mercy gig so comes of ok. I run it through a Yahama soundcard on my Sony NV laptop with headphones. Usual software.

Note that I'm basically talking about two things, distrortion due to the mic and overstreer because of the acoustics and the pocketsize venue. I suppose I'll just see what I can do and check what the taper thinks. Thanks guys.