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View Full Version : Playing with Audacity.


Yarram
2010-07-11, 11:53 PM
I recently bought a set of headphones, which would be of little significance if they didn't have a mike attached. It's not the greatest mike of all time, in that it loses quality at low pitches, and at high pitches it tends to spike and buzz.

That's not what I've made this thread for. I'm recording using Audacity, and while using the program, the soung quality is fairly decent, but immediatly after exporting, a breathy, windy undertone forms. Does anyone know how to remove this, or stop it from forming during rendering? I've tried making MP3 WAV and several others. All but mp3 lose too much quality to seem to bother with (They shouldn't, but I have no idea why) and mp3 has the aforementioned problem.

Here's a recording I threw together with the problem:
Babylon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok7JUxClzJQ)
Edit: Here's another one. You might instinctively think the weird double tone comes from the mike, but it's not present until rendering.
Blue Moon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB_IFwsKD1s)
Critique of what I've done is also appreciated.
...
:smallbiggrin:
thubby
2010-07-12, 01:25 AM
are you recording on one channel or 2?
Yarram
2010-07-12, 01:32 AM
Two channels. You might notice I've shifted the balance of the some of my voices to the right and left for more clarity. It makes it so it actually sounds like a round, rather than one voice singing the same thing over and over again.
thubby
2010-07-12, 01:35 AM
Two channels. You might notice I've shifted the balance of the some of my voices to the right and left for more clarity. It makes it so it actually sounds like a round, rather than one voice singing the same thing over and over again.

I'm not sure why audacity does it, but try using just 1 channel. makes editing a bit weird but I've found it gets rid of that problem.

or, and i'm starting to feel like a broken record here, try wavosaur (yes it's free).
Yarram
2010-07-12, 03:21 AM
Gah! It's not Linux compatible. :smallmad:
thubby
2010-07-12, 04:04 AM
Gah! It's not Linux compatible. :smallmad:

not really surprised there. IME linux doesn't get a lot of love for this sort of thing.

rendering in audacity seems to shoot balance to hell. the echo may be there and just inaudible until you render it.

there are VST's you can use to clean things like that up, but in audacity it's a compatibility nightmare i have yet to untangle.

the only other thing i can think to do is a little circuitous.
lower the master volume as much as you can without losing anything, render it, then edit the render to raise the volume, render that. essentially pushing the "echo" off the low end.

(for the record, i have now taken to throwing the kitchen sink at it)