I record vocals on a Tascam DR-40. When I listen to the lyrics on the Tascam, they sound fine; however, when I import that audio file into Audacity and listen to it, some of the vocals have a faint static “k” sound on them. It doesn’t happen during silence, and it doesn’t happen on all lyrics. I can’t figure out what is causing the vocal sound to be altered like that.
Does that happen during the quiet parts or the loud parts?
Usually noise is most-noticeable during silence, and distortion ([u]clipping[/u]) happens during loud parts. So, I’m guessing it’s distortion.
What are our levels like? Are your “waves” hitting 1.0 in audacity? If you are hitting 1.0 (100% or 0dB) in Audacity before any processing, your recording is probably clipped.
…I doubt you’re creating 8-bit files, but there is something called quantization noise. Quantization is “unusual” because although it’s most-noticeable with quite sounds (like most background noise) it doesn’t exist with silence. (You can’t hear quantization noise at 16-bits or better.)
Hi, no, it doesn’t happen only on the loudest parts of my vocals. I also am not hitting 1.0 on the waves. I’m well below .5 probably around .25. I don’t think it’s distortion from clipping.
Worth playing back your audio on a Microsoft own-brand media-player to determine if the problem is specific to Audacity.
If the static-like “k” sounds are “baked-in” to the recording, i.e. they always occur at the same point in time, attach a few seconds of audio to a post , then we may be able to identify the problem.