Hello All,
I recorded an interview and the audio can be played but I can’t hear parts of it I have finals so I don’t have time to redo the interview. Could someone please fix this or give me some advice.
Please start by telling us your version of Audacity (all three numbers, see the pink panel at the top of the page).
If a few parts are too quiet, with less tall waves, then the simplest solution is to click and drag a selection region over the first less tall part, then Effect > Amplify… .
Repeat for the other less tall parts.
We can’t fix someone next to you coughing, laughing or scraping their chair on the floor.
Gale
Audio sample on Google Drive (550.4 MB) https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5KVgggGpUspS0FvTVNmb3hjSmc
I’m using version 2.0.5
That version is ancient. The current version is 2.1.3 which is available here: Audacity ® | Downloads
If that is the ‘raw’ (unprocessed) recording, then I don’t think it can be improved. The sound quality is too poor, and it appears to have been badly damaged either by excessive noise reduction, or very low bit-rate encoding.
That version was converted from the original to see if I could edit it to hear it better. This is the original.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5KVgggGpUspbFB0YS1hMUljd28
Also, I recorded this with my phone though I thought that it would sound better than this, as I have recorded previous interviews quite easily with it.
I ended up using the amplify feature in a newer version of audacity and transcribing the interview carefully before reviewing it with my interviewee. Thanks for all the help.
If you were using VoiceMemo on your phone, VoiceMemo has stiff noise, interference and quality processing built in and can lead you into a false sense of being able to record anything anywhere under any conditions. You can’t. If you happen to catch a recording environment that’s just too hard to deal with, VoiceMemo will just give up and you get a super badly damaged recording. Worse, it’s always a surprise because it’s worked perfectly until then.
There’s a cousin problem where people use open phone conference where they really shouldn’t. If you talk to the producer of the conference, everything worked just fine, but if you talk to one of the people at the other end, it doesn’t work out so well.
Koz