Hello everyone, I am new here and I have a bit of a unique situation and issue that I cannot for the life of me figure out…
I am trying to record voice audio for a youtube video that I want to make using Audacity, however when I playback the recording from my PC, it sounds bad. There is a echoing hum after some syllables in the words that I speak. It just doesn’t sound correct.
HOWEVER if I export that voice clip and send it to someone else, it sounds perfect. I sent it to 5 of my friends, even sent it to my really old laptop, and it sounded perfect. The playback is only giving me an issue on my PC.
Additionally, all other audio coming out of my PC sounds perfect as well, it is only when I play back my own voice is when I notice issues. I’ve tried troubleshooting this for two days now and I am 100% stumped. Someone please help.
Are you listening on laptop speakers? If so, try external speakers or headphones/earphones, etc.
“Excess bass” can sometimes distort on those little speakers even when they can’t put-out those frequencies or if you have subsonic noise. If that’s the issue you can try turning-down the low frequencies with EQ, Bass & Treble, or with a high-pass filter. Or, the _Filter Curve e_ffect has a preset called Low roll-off for speech.
Thanks a lot for the reply. My PC has a couple of logitec speakers with a subwoofer on the floor. As I stated in my initial post, I sent the file to my laptop and played it through the laptop speakers and it sounded just fine… I will try the earphone and headphone method when I get home from work. I’ve got a pair of PS5 headphones I can test it with.
If you don’t mind, would you be able to connect with me on discord or something so we can troubleshoot this? I would greatly appreciate it. I am pretty frustrated with this whole situation and you seem to be very knowledgably and helpful in this area.
The microphone is plugged into the back of my PC in a couple of USB ports. I used discord to chat with friends and they tell me that my voice comes out crystal clear, which is another reason why I am confused by this whole thing.
I know it’s tempting, but do not go back and edit a post. Always post fresh.
I think I’m missing one post.
As we go.
I do have a problem-adjacent experience. I once got a new Windows computer from the Systems people and it didn’t sound right. It turns out someone left “Cathedral Effects” running on the playback system. I had no idea you could do that, but now I know. Dig into the Windows Settings > Sound and see if there’s anything attached to the playback service.
This is where we inspect that voice test wav file.
I can tell you what we’re looking for, too. If you’re accustomed to listening to pre-digested sound such as CD, Records, or Broadcast, those are all processed so as to not have any surprises. They have to be a stable, marketable sound product.
Not so your live presentations. Nobody would be surprised if your live recordings had sound that was so low pitched and high pitched that you couldn’t hear them, but had effects in signal pathways or processing. The first tool in Audiobook Mastering is a rumble filter to get rid of earthquake, thunder, and truck driving by sounds. You don’t have to actually have trucks going by. Many home microphones make those sounds by accident.
Audacity has tools that can reveal these tonal accidents.
