Hi Everyone,
I am trying to record some songs. My setup is a single condenser mic picking up vocals and audio. During some of my recordings, the audio sounds very clear and crisp for most of the way, then suddenly becomes distorted and muffled. I have uploaded a brief example showing the transition from clean audio to muffled audio. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
My laptop is getting a little old. Would it be wise to get a cheap chromebook or something to use solely for running audacity?
The problem does sound somewhat like the fading that you get due to Windows enhancements meant for recording meetings and conferences, but those enhancements are usually offered only for the internal or external microphone of the built-in audio device.
Please give more detail. What is the make and model number of the mic, what pre-amp or mixer is the mic connected to, and how is the connection then made to the computer?
If you want to run Audacity on a Chromebook you will have to install a Linux subsystem then use the Linux version of Audacity.
It is possible if you installed Linux on your current laptop the problem would go away or be replaced with some other problem. We need more detail on your equipment to advise about that. You could tell us how much RAM your laptop offers and what the processor speed is but your sample doesn’t appear to show a problem of insufficient computer resources.
Gale
The mic is a Floureon BM-800 condenser which is hooked up to a 48V phantom power supply and then that is hooked up directly to the 3.5 mm jack of my laptop. Laptop has 8 GB of ram and a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5-3210M CPU. I’m going to try recording some more stuff tonight with all sound enhancements switched off and I’ll update with how that goes.
external microphone of the built-in audio device.
Which is exactly what’s being used.
Unless it’s told not to, Windows will assume you’re trying to Communicate, Skype, Chat or Conference and it will try its darndest to suppress background noise, and process your speaking voice for maximum clarity. It doesn’t do music.
Koz
Thanks for all the help everyone. I cut out all recording and playback enhancements/effects and switched over to mono from studio. I spent about an hour and half recording and playing back and everything sounded super crisp. Thanks again and happy holidays.
I’m glad the problem seems to be solved. For anyone else reading this, the sole audio input of a laptop is not the best choice to connect a phantom-powered mic to. You are lucky in that you seem have a compatible mic that adjusts for strong signals, but some mic inputs on laptops are only for dynamic computer mics and would clip-distort if you connected a phantom-powered mic to them.
Gale