distorted audio on export

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

so I recorded myself singing a song I like, synced it up to the instrumental, and played it back. it sounded fine in audacity, but once exported it turned into a distorted, peaking mess. so I did another take, farther away from my mic this time, and had the same problem.

I turned “show clipping” on, but that only shows a few short spots where i kinda expected to be peaking the mic a bit, while on the exported file, practically the entire second half of the song is distorted and awful. i’m at a loss for what to do now.

since my recording came out a bit quiet, but it would definitely be peaking if i got any closer to the mic or sang any louder, i turned the gain up on my vocals to +6.0dB, and the instrumental down to -6.0dB. i’m not sure if this matters, but i figured i’d toss it in there in case it does.

2

When you export, you mix your tracks together. And when you mix (add) two tracks that have “full” waveforms but are not peaking individually, you will frequently get a mix that is peaking in several places. There are many approaches to correct this problem. One way is to Select > All, then Tracks > Mix > Mix and Render. This will show you exactly where peaking would occur. And since Audacity works in 32-bit float, no information is lost. Then do Effects > Amplify to reduce the volume so it is no longer clipping.