I’m using Audacity 2.3.3 and all my sample recordings have a flat spot on them. I’m a real novice at recording audio but I believe this is called ‘clipping’. I’ve researched online for a solution but all I can find is how to remedy clipping on existing audio files.
Could someone please tell me what setting(s) control clipping so that I can record without clipping?
There is a [u]Clip Fix[/u] effect but it doesn’t work “perfectly” because it’s impossible to know the original unclipped wave height or shape.
Normally… You can’t see “digital clipping” in Audacity because the display doesn’t go over 1.0 (=100% =0dB). Some USB interfaces will clip at -6dB (50%) with certain configurations, and you can see that if you zoom-in on the waveform.
There is a [u]Show Clipping[/u] that shows red if the waveform goes over 0dB or if it’s hard-clipped at 0dB, but it’s actually showing potential clipping… It doesn’t know the shape of the wave.
Could someone please tell me what setting(s) control clipping so that I can record without clipping?
What are you recording? Do you have any external hardware like USB audio interface or a USB turntable or something?
I’m using an Apogee Duet USB audio interface and an Audio-Technica AT4040 condenser mic. All connections are XLR to the Duet and USB from the Duet to a Windows 10 PC. The purpose of the setup is to record voice-overs.
I’m using an Apogee Duet USB audio interface
Keep the meters out of the red and you shouldn’t get clipping. Leave yourself plenty of headroom and you can boost the levels after recording. It’s good to have good-strong acoustic & analog signals for a strong signal-to-noise ratio but you can turn-down the recording level knob without hurting anything.
The general recommendation is to shoot-for peaks around -6dB, but pros typically record lower or you can actually get close to 0dB as long as you don’t “try” to go over. Digital levels are not critical at all as long as you don’t clip the analog-to-digital converter.
The levels in Audacity may be lower than the LED meters on the interface. That’s OK as long as you don’t clip the interface.