This isn’t really a question regarding Audacity’s features, but rather help on modifying audio. I’m also very new to Audacity, so I’ve yet to know how I can use the tools provided to optimize the quality (I use 2.1.0.) I have looked up tutorials, but none of them necessarily helps clean out the bad quality.
I can’t listen to your recording right now because I’m at work.
But, there’s a reason pros still record in soundproof studios with good equipment, and on-location movie dialog and sound effects are re-recorded in the studio for the same reason. There’s only so much you can do with a bad recording…
Like I said, I haven’t listened to what you’ve got and you may be able to make some improvement.
There’s not much improvement can be made to that (with any software).
Your recording level was way too high, which has caused severe “clipping” (a form of distortion that occurs when the signal level is too high).
Severe distortion is permanent and irreversible. The only “fix” is to re-record and set the recording level lower.
There’s a video me and a friend recorded way back in March, but little did we know how atrocious the mic quality is. I’m also very new to audacity so I’ve yet to know how to optimize the quality.
So how do you optimize an abomination of a microphone with Audacity?
In post production? You don’t. Between the overload, clipping distortion and massive noise reduction, there’s nothing left to rescue. This is the same request as the people who record a live concert. Between the pounding overload and other distortions, they don’t have an actual audio track to rescue, either.
I didn’t crank down the performance, but if this voice is mixed with good-sounding show sound, and that’s the only track you have, that’s the end.
The Big Kids have “reshoot.” Not every live shoot goes perfectly. Some of them turn into what you have, so the Producer gathers everybody together and they shoot it again.
Best Practices has you performing the voice track and then, when you’re finished but before you do anything else, select the track by itself and export it as a perfect quality, uncompressed WAV (Microsoft) 16 bit sound file. I was going to post that the WAV export would not have helped you, but if you had the voice track before you messed with it, we might have been able to do something. We can’t take filters and effects out of a track.
little did we know how atrocious the mic quality is.
Just so you don’t spill over into calling the microphone bad. Probably not. I can make almost any microphone sound like that by using it wrong. I can get that honky, wine-glass voice by either overusing Audacity > Noise Reduction, or running the noise reduction software built into my computer. Many new computers do that now.
The voice track and the game was recorded together. This is the exact quality it came out as.
I would have to take your system apart to figure out why it was doing that, but using the microphone wrong is right at the top of my possible hit list.
Recording Game Commentary creates very serious technical problems and we do not recommend Audacity for that. So there is that in addition to everything else.
And there’s still no bringing your recorded show voice back. We can convert it to different bad, but not make it better.