Does that problem go away if you record in stereo? Give that a shot. You may be one of those lucky people that has to record in stereo, delete one track and convert to mono later.
If that’s it, then that reduces us down to straight voice quality and ACX issues.
Koz
It is as you said…I can’t get above 0.5
I tried stereo…same results get above 0.5
I looked in the Device Manager for Audio inputs and outputs haven’t found anything yet even by adjusting some gains.
Where do I go from here?
Ted
Run through your sound channel again. Scarlett 2i2s come in first and second generation. There are two different Spark microphones.
When you’re doing your woof test, do the lights on 2i2 knobs turn red? I think they’re supposed to if the system is close to overloading.
I expect you to have two blue waves in Audacity if you’re recording stereo and only one of them has your voice on it. The other should be flat. Is that what you have?
We could be dancing down the garden path with this, but overloading at 0.5 is a thing and it’s different from something just running out of steam at some random loudness value. There are specific failures that cause damage at 0.5.
There is a desperation method. If you absolutely have to get a voice track out the door, you record it at -12 and -6 instead of -6 and 0. You record the whole thing low to avoid the distortion and them bump it up to normal volumes in post production. Everywhere we say “occasional peaks at -6”, you record it with occasional peaks at -12. You have a well-behaved system and can probably get away with that even though it’s not perfect. If there’s somebody with the car running in the parking lot for your track, this does work.
Koz
Does Audacity present you with an input volume adjustment? If so is it all the way up?
After that my next thought would be to look for drivers on the Focusrite site website.
Koz…I know what the problem is…
When I started this audio book project, I changed to a new computer. This morning I hooked everything back up to the Old computer and Peaks would spike up to 0.dB no problems.
I have tried to match the system audio files from the Old computer to the New. Thus far, I don’t see the difference. I’m going to join the never ending circle to contact the new computer Co. (Lenovo) Tech Dept. today. I trust they quickly know how to fix the problem LOL. (I’ll raise my faith levels by the time I make the call.)
From a technical standpoint, what would be the best possible statement I could make that would pinpoint the problem to them?
MegaThanks for your direction. I’m contacting the Author, (who is extremely understanding) and if I can’t resolve the issue with Lenovo, I’ll start re-recording the 27 Chapters. The good news is, I love the book and the author and look forward to starting the project over if need be.
Ted
I wouldn’t bother with Lenovo. Chances are excellent this is not a computer problem, even though that’s how it looks.
That and the split nature of the problems(s) makes this challenging.
Let’s do “out the door” mode.
Let’s say you’re going to read on the old machine until you get the new one sorted. Read a 20-second forum test and post it. I’m betting with minimum fuss, we can make a processing suite and you’re done.
Koz
A 20-second forum test from the old machine. This file has already encoded. Are you wanting a file before encoding?
Ted
Are you wanting a file before encoding?
Before you do anything to it. That’s why this request usually has to be shot apart from other, older works.
You should post clean, unprocessed work. Don’t adjust > anything > before Export. No filters, effects, adjustments, tuning or processing unless otherwise told. >
That’s a direct quote from this document.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html
We can’t take processing out of a work, and having multiple people offering processing advice is just asking for trouble. That and MP3 conversion has been known to mess up the peak number. I built that possible error into the newer tools.
Koz
This is where you get busted for a suspiciously quiet voice shoot. Remember several forum elves commended on that.
Koz
Ok…bust it! I’m ready. This was recorded with High Pass Filter.
Ted
This was recorded with High Pass Filter.
And it was recorded on the new computer. It has the 0.5 distortion and damage on the blue waves.
We can’t solve clipping distortion. Effect > Clip Fix is only good for very brief distortions and even then, it only guesses at the repair. It doesn’t actually know how to fix the waves. We can’t fix whole words that get damaged.
Record a new clip on the old computer so it doesn’t have any distortion and post a WAV, not an MP3.
Start the recording, pause quietly for two seconds and then read something or talk for 18 seconds.
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html
Koz
Thanks for your patience.
Ted
I wasn’t joking about holding your breath for two seconds at the beginning. The ACX-Check display is actually off on noise because your submission doesn’t have at least a half-second of room silence to measure. Your noise measurement is better than that.
And attached is the patched clip.
I got there with only two tools: SetRMS and Limiter. SetRMS bumps up the volume until the RMS (Loudness) is correct and then Limiter comes along and carefully pushes down the tops and bottoms until they pass Peak. Your noise is good enough not to need any other processing. Out the door.
Setting SetRMS up is a little rough because you have to paste custom computer programming in the Nyquist prompt window. But you only have to do it once because it sticks time after time.
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/ACXMastering/ACXMastering.html
Start with the second block of instructions. That’s where to find the custom tools and how to install them. You don’t actually need LF-Rolloff and you already have ACX-Check so you can skip those.
The third block is how to apply the tools. You won’t need anything past the first three sentences.
Koz
Let me know if you get stuck.
As I think I posted in the Comments, passing ACX-Check just gets you past the technical standards. You still have to pass entertainment and voice quality—you won’t have any trouble there—but you also have to pass ACX file size, structure, compression, silence, length and announcement standards.
http://www.acx.com/help/acx-audio-submission-requirements/201456300
Koz
I sincerely appreciate you and other members time, knowledge and direction. I’m still leaning that the issue is with windows 10.
Today I downloaded new driver of Scarlett 2i2 to the New Machine. I left the old driver (2013) on the Old Machine and ran test on both machines.
I ran test for 2i2 vs Hi Def. Notice the Recording level as well. And we are having rain and lightning that is being picked up in Floor Noise. I’'m impressed with 2i2 and the high pass filter.
Old Machine records properly on 2i2 and New Machine doesn’t. I’m going to go to the forum at Focusrite and see if any issues with Window 10
Ted
rain and lightning that is being picked up
The High Pass Filters in this series are intended to suppress thunder, earthquakes, large trucks, and some wind noise. Please be clear if the thunder rattles the windows, you’re dead because the window sound will go into your recording, not the thunder.
Also note that Low Frequency Rolloff and High Pass Filter are the same thing. They may change your voice slightly differently when you use them, so the pros “know” what each one sounds like.
Windows 10 is not an upgrade. It’s a whole new operating system and it killed off a lot of older devices, software and drivers.
''I upgraded to Windows 10 and now my [Product or Service] stopped working!!"
It’s good to look at the ads for your product and see if it explicitly says “Windows 10.”
There’s another twist to this as well. Many products use the ASIO software and tools for their products. Audacity doesn’t easily support ASIO.
Koz
There’s a movie-making joke that you can’t photograph or record an earthquake, so you always get the picture of the wine glass vibrating.
Always.
It’s a Hollywood law.
Koz
Your funny.
Is there anything other than Punch Copy/Paste that can edit pops, clicks and breathing that would change the whole track with one request?
Ted
There are tools for use with Vinyl recording.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_click_and_pop_removal_techniques.html
De-Esser and De-Clicker—Wet Mouth Noises.
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/updated-de-clicker-and-new-de-esser-for-speech/34283/1
Koz
ACX has a failure called “Overprocessing.” It’s always possible to meet technical standards by beating up your reading in post production. The goal is correct it without it sounding like you corrected it.
And this is the magic place we warn you to use good speakers or headphones. Once you get into serious sound quality corrections, it’s good to be able to hear them. I have a fuzzy rule that you shouldn’t be mixing sound on speakers you can hold in one hand.
Nothing like getting an ACX rejection for a sound you can’t hear.
“Quality Control has rejected your submission because of the rumbly popping sound in your reading.”
“What rumbly popping sound?”
Koz