Windows 8
Audacity v 2.0.6
.exe installer
Hello,
I am in an acoustic band in Western Colorado and we are using Audacity to record our work…intending to put this on a CD to sell at our gigs.
There are three of us and we crowd around a single condenser microphone which captures two voices and acoustic instruments.
We have found the condenser mike “represents” us better than an army of dynamic microphones and pick ups…so we use this same set up in live performances although the settings on the board are different for live concerts.
My bass goes to an amp which pointed away from the condenser mike (so we don’t get it in the condenser mike mix) and it is miked with a dynamic mike on the grill as my amp has no line out.
Those two signals go to our PA board and, from there, to our laptop running audacity.
Audacity v 2.0.6 (running on Windows 8) is set to Stereo, 44100Hz 32-bit float. Audio host is MME. My recording volume in Audacity is at .60 and the signal gets from our Fender mixing amp to my laptop via a 3.5 mm input connector directly into the microphone input jack on the laptop. That inbound signal has no reverb in it.
Once I get a good take, I then filter that recording and use the following audacity effects and in this order:
Noise reduction based on a sample of dead silence
Normalize (with these checked: Remove DC offset AND Normalize max amplitude to -1.0)
Compress (set at Threshold -18 dB, Noise Floor -40 dB, Ratio 2:1, Attack Time 0.5 seconds, Release Time 1.0 seconds)
Equalization (base line at 0 and boosted to 6dB from 5,000Hz through and beyond 10,000Hz)
Normalize (same as above)
Leveler (Heavy @ -60db)
…and we are getting fairly good results.
I am currently testing out a few Audacity reverb settings to add to the above mix.
My question is this:
We are VERY new at all of this. The settings above are those I discovered on various YouTube presentations or via trial and error. Do you have any suggestions …things you notice as being overlooked, set incorrectly, needing to be eliminated or added???
MANY thanks in advance!