Hi folks, been desperately seeking a replacement for the crash-happy Roxio sound editor so have found my way here but totally puzzled about a feature of the editor screen.
Start a new project.
You have a track and the little arrow in the track allows you to select bit rate and sample depth.
So I change those to say 16 bit PCM, 32000.
Press record, it creates a new track with the default settings and records there?!
Surely there must be a way to record at a lower rate than what you have in the preferences on the fly?
Audacity always works internally at 32-bit floating. If you pick 16-bit as the recording standard, the performance will be converted to 32-floating. Some devices don’t like being addressed at 32-bit.
I’ve never been particularly happy with Audacity garden-hosing the sound standards across the program. Sample Rate, Bit Depth and Number of Channels are of primary importance to anybody recording sound, but I don’t think the settings are available anywhere in one place.
Thanks again, so are you saying regardless of the setting it is always going to record at that rate but will convert it to the lower settings for playback?
Normally you would record at 44100, 32-bit float. This gives excellent recording quality and retains maximum accuracy when processing the audio. If you require a different format for the finished product you would normally set the required format when you Export the file. If you require 32000 Hz sample rate for the final product, change the “Project Rate” (lower left corner of the main Audacity interface) to 32000 before you Export. Exported files use the same sample rate as is set for the “project rate”.
