Audacity 3.33
About a year ago, I started recording my albums to Audacity (which I’ve been using off and on for about 10 years Thank you!). This is my 1st go at really utilizing Audacity recording capabilities. I’m copying each album as it was pressed, and will also use Audacity to play them… so no MP3’s or FLAC exports here.
My intention is to record everything, then go about removing any pops/static, and try to make the recordings as close to day 1 as possible. Last month, I bought a new copy of The Beatles - Rubber Soul. I listen to each album as it’s being recorded, so I can note where there are pops/static areas. Even with a brand new album (esp these days) there ARE pops and clicks. The album sounded very good, no clipping… just a couple of pops at the very beginning, so I immediately went to my Audacity recording to see how it sounded.
At the 22 second of Drive My Car, where the piano comes in … there was barely ANY piano (right speaker). Then, at the 1:08 mark, during the 1st break… the right speaker barely had any of the guitar notes. Each break in the song had the same lack of audio on the right speaker. Note that during the recording, the meter level on both channels appear to be exactly the same. I got the album back out and played it again. Sounded great coming out of the receiver.
I made another recording of Drive My Car, and had the same thing throughout the same breaks. I started getting a little concerned this might not be the only album, so I went back to my previously recorded albums and grabbed James Gang, the song Walk Away. The same thing happened with the 1st guitar solo break. The album is fine, but the recording wasn’t.
I uninstalled Audacity, used CC Cleaner to delete any leftover files and clean the registry… and downloaded version 3.13. I reinstalled Audacity into a new folder on my 2nd hard drive. The same thing happened when I recorded songs. Thinking this could be a Windows issue as well, I wiped and reinstalled Windows 10. I installed Audacity (3.33) and tried it again… same thing. I have never made any adjustments to Audacity (except volume) as it’s always been plug and play.
I grabbed a spare laptop with Linux Mint, updated the OS… came back to this site, and downloaded Linux version 3.33. Took me a few hours to get Linux Mint to recognize the USB port as the microphone… but as soon as I got that squared away, made my recording. Everything sounded great! I copied the Linux version over to my HTPC and it plays fine. So, I’m thinking it’s Windows Audacity, or the USB ports (which have the standard MS drivers), but the ports work fine with thumb drives and whatnot. Understand, I am not dogging Audacity… it’s a great program. I have barely touched the surface for what Audacity can do… I’m just a schmuck trying to get good copies of his music together. Any thoughts, ideas or things you want me to try… FIRE AWAY!
I’m a mid-level budget guy, with the following gear:
Receiver - Pioneer VSX-104 Elite.
Phono - Fluance RT85 w-Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge.
Preamp - Parasound ZPhono USB.
HTPC: Windows 10 Pro - Version 22H2; Build 190454.3155
Intel(R) Core™ i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz 3.50 GHz
RAM - 16.0 GB
My preamp RCA connection goes directly to my receiver. The USB goes directly to my HTPC.