Distorted Recording

Hi,

I’ve recently recorded a set of mine through Audacity and discovered once I had recorded it the levels were too loud (sounded ok on the headphones!). Basically it sounds ok but becomes heavily distorted when heavy bass kicks in (which is quite often during the set, as its a nice bit of D&B)

My question is what I can do to circumvent the issue and prevent me having to re-record it? I’ve already heavily reduced the lower frequency components by using the Equalisation tool, attenuating below 200Hz and just reducing the volume but it doesn’t seem to affect it significantly enough…

I’ve exported a few seconds to MP3 and would really appreciate some expert opinion! Let me know if you need longer playback

Thanks,

Euan

Probably nothing. I think it’s beyond repair.

Hmm I did guess as much…

Ok thanks :slight_smile:

You should keep an eye on the red recording meters during the show. They should never go all the way up. Keep reducing the recording volume until that meter is happy. You can process, compress, and play games with the quality and loudness later, but once you overload and distort, that’s the end of the show.

Many of us make the meters very much bigger than the ones that come with Audacity. Grab the right hand side of the meter panel and pull to the right.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_record.jpg

Those meters are a lot more important than the small size would lead you to believe.

Also, you can’t connect the output of a keyboard or mixer to the Mic-In of a Windows Laptop. That’s a sure way to cause distortion and overload.

Koz