Lots of red lining and weird noise

I just got a new microphone (Yeti Blue) and I’m not thrilled with how it’s coming out. I had been using the voice recorder on my phone and emailing myself sections of each chapter to edit into one recording on Audacity. But now, I’m recording directly into Audacity and I’m hitting a thousand red lines and I’m getting a sort of vibrate-y sound (sort of like a bad speaker noise) that I didn’t have before. I’ve tried lowering the recording volume which helped a little bit but I’m still hitting a lot of red lines and getting that noise on each of them. Is there something else I should be doing? It’s only on words here and there, usually shouts or forceful statements.

When you try to record quality work on a Windows machine (in a good environment), it’s a good idea to turn off all the voice and other sound processing. See if any of this helps.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#enhancements

The red lines in the blue waves are overload points from excessive volume. Chances are they’re permanently damaged.

We are noticing another concerning oddity. Everybody Knows that Yeti microphones record at low volume, so some USB sound systems now feature a sound boost feature. It’s popped up several times on the forum. This and/or noise problems could be giving your your problems.

Even if you do get it all working at the proper volume, Yetis can be sensitive to ratty USB connections. There is a background whine sound taken from USB data leakage that’s difficult to get rid of in quality recordings. I call it the Yeti Curse.


I had been using the voice recorder

I have another phrase. If you have something working, hold onto it with white knuckles. I have been doing voice presentation experiments with iPhone and iPod recorders. Given the troubles people have with other recording systems, this is not a dreadful way to go.

Koz