Hey folks –
sorry for the very vague subject line, but I don’t really have the vocabulary to describe what I’m seeing/hearing, so I’m hoping these pictures will help:
It seems to me that these abrupt waveform jumps/skips/whatever would be prime targets for some kind of algorithm to eliminate… Or are they too irregular for for a computer to get rid of? Or is Audacity (or a plug-in) just not up to the task?
These were just placeholder VOs that we recorded in an office with a cheap mike, so this isn’t a life-or-death situation, it’s just my curiosity. Thanks in advance for your help! 
It’s weapons grade distortion and I’m sure it sounds like it. We can’t fix it in post production. I’m perfectly clear what’s happening to the waveforms, but I’m a lot less clear how a microphone overload is causing it.
Anyway, back up from the microphone and see if a lot of the trash doesn’t go away. You can use Effect > Amplify to bring it up again if you need it louder.
Ordinarily I would say you were overloading the analog amplifier system, but I think this is getting all the way into the digitizer. The overload is actually damaging the bitstream somehow.
It’s hard to get it to break like this. Congratulations!
Koz
LOL! No worries – I think that we did manage to get some decent recordings out of it, and I’ll keep your advice in mind the next time we use it!
Cheers! 