Audacity Forum

Here's the beta version with the advanced options enabled.
This can be installed at the same time as the regular 1.2.7 beta version and will appear in the Effect menu as "Compress dynamics (advanced)..."

I've never used a Sound Blaster X-Fi Go!, but from the description it looks like it is primarily designed for 3D playback (great for games and videos), so I would not expect the recording quality to be great (though probably better than the built-in laptop sound card). The main disadvantages of USB ...

See here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/FAQ:Editing#snap

Due to excessive spam being posted to this forum it has sadly become necessary to hold new posts in a moderation queue, so your posts will not appear immediately. Please avoid double posting - your posts will be approved as soon as possible. By default, Audacity 1.3.13 will set the language to match...

The algorithm used in the 1.2.7 beta version is slightly changed from previous version, with the addition of the following parameters: "Compress bright sounds" [0/1] "Boost bass sounds" [0/1] To get the same results with 1.2.7 as the default 1.2.6 version settings, set "Hard...

The recommended version of Audacity for Windows 7 is Audacity 1.3.13.
The compressor effect in Audacity 1.3.13 is much improved over the 1.2. version.

More info:
http://audacityteam.org/download/
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Compressor

Could it be the way he downloads/saves the audio files? That could be at least part of the problem. Much of the damage is due to data compression (as Trebor said). If audio is compressed to a lossy format (such as MP3), some of the sound quality is lost. There is a trade-off with lossy compression ...

"download-Audacity <dot> com" which my McAfee flags in bright red That is a malware site. Avoid that site. The file that is supplied by that site contains malware. Here is an on-line analysis of the file that they are currently distributing: http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html...

an update to Microsoft Security Elements caused a temporary file related to the next Microsoft definition update to be incorrectly detected as Adware:Win32/Hotbar. That would seem to suggest that the problem is a false positive detection. That is, a file is incorrectly being identified by Microsoft...

Sadly, Chris passed away on 15th March 2011. In his legacy he left the latest beta version of his famous dynamic compressor (commonly known as "Chris's Dynamic Compressor"). We are able to post it here as it was licensed under the MIT license. ;;Permission is hereby granted, free of charge...