Windows XP, Audacity 2.0.3 downloaded from the internet.
—I had a 45-minute long Audacity file that was recorded from a cassette tape player, consisting of 11 songs. I then split this into 11 separate stereo tracks. Ten of the tracks play back clearly, but the 11th is extremely loud and badly distorted, although the wave looks normal. I then re-recorded that song from the tape, onto a separate track in Audacity, and this one plays back clearly. Comparing the wave forms, they are identical, but one plays normally and the other one is loud and distorted.
—Then I took the distorted track and re-attached it to the end of the previous song, getting back to where it was before I split it into a separate track, and now it’s not loud or distorted.
—I have had this same problem in the past in which an occasional song will be very quiet or else distorted, although the waveform looks normal. I think this happens after splitting into individual tracks, but I’m not certain about that.
—This prompts two question: Why does it sound different even though the waveform is normal? And how did it get messed up in the first place?
I then split this into 11 separate stereo tracks.
How did you do that?
If you stacked tracks one above the other, did you accidentally bump the +/- volume control to the left of one track?
Why does it sound different even though the waveform is normal? And how did it get messed up in the first place?
Darn good questions. Describe your system (see #2).
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/Documents/PostingQuestions2.pdf
Koz
— Ah! That fixed it! Thank you so much. The volume control on that one channel was turned up. I don’t know how that happened, but it’s certainly something I will watch in the future.
— I think this also explains how it got messed up in the first place.
— By the way, I split the tracks by putting the cursor between selections, hit Cntrl-E to highlight from the cursor to the end, then Cntrl-Alt-I to move everything to the right of the cursor to a new track.