Problem with garbled crackling vocal

Greetings,
I have Windows 7 and Audacity 2.0.0

I have several voice recordings where everything sounds understandable at the beginning but the the voices get crackling garbled almost robotic.

I have a two minute sample of one at https://www.dropbox.com/s/735z4u58mfju6k6/SAMPLE.wav?dl=0 (it starts out fine then half way through no longer can understand anyone…And I am one of the speakers)

Is there any way to fix this to make everyone clearly understandable all the way through? Are there any ideas as to what might cause this issue and best way to prevent it?

John

Something very serious happened to the machine at 1 min 7.3 seconds and it stopped managing the sound data. Everything from that point onwards is trash.

Audacity 2.0.0 is six versions old. I’m pretty sure the senior elves are going to urge you to bring the machine up to the current version.

http://audacityteam.org/download/windows

It’s a little rough to troubleshoot something like this long distance. Nothing like this ever happened before, right? Does the machine work right now, after the problem?

Describe the microphone connection. Pretend I’m going to buy the same thing.

Koz

Microphone is a built in Microphone array in a Dell Vostro 3350. I just noticed this recently during playback of a few files.

I don’t know if there was an issue with the initial recording itself or if the sound file itself was corrupted.

A Few Files? Multiple files are corrupted?

It’s rough to believe the file itself has become damaged. Much more likely the system made a good file from a damaged show.

I’m in deep water. I’m not a Windows elf.

Koz

The recording becomes crackly because of dropouts and disjointed waveforms where there is still a waveform - zoom in to see it. So it’s a recording problem.

Upgrade to 2.0.6 http://audacityteam.org/download/windows.

Make sure you download and install (or reinstall) the audio drivers for your computer model from Dell: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/vostro-3350/drivers. Make sure you get the 64-bit drivers if you have 64-bit Windows 7.

Also look at these tips: Managing Computer Resources and Drivers - Audacity Wiki.

Do you have an external microphone you could try?

Gale