Hi Audacity developers and community,
I like the idea of open source, but with audacity, I am stuck at troubleshooting every time I have tried using it every couple of years. Then I give up again and turn to web apps.
I have just reinstalled audacity on a chromebook in the linux container, from the normal repository, and it is version 3.2.4.
The microphone does not work, and I have tried rescanning the device, but the mic does not show up with its name. I have tried default and sysdefault, but it does not work.
Previously I got the microphone to work in audacity, but I deinstalled the whole linux container after the program froze at trying to download a 1-minute audio recording in mp3.
That is discouraging. Does this actually work?
Thanks for helpful suggestions,
Nicole
p.s. There are some things that I do not understand:
(1) What is the difference between installing audacity on a chromebook with a simple sudo apt install audacity, or installing it from flatpak?
(2) If I wanted to use the latest version, what would I have to do?
(3) Is this really cross-platform, that is, if I produce projects and files with the 3.2.4 or the latest version now, and I am overwhelmed with the linux management and would like to switch i.e. to a windows 12 next year, could I use the projects and files produced?
Thanks for a clarification.
Nicole
Audacity works fine on macOS, on Linux and on Windows. Since you do not mention what variant and version of Linux you use: it may be necessary to grant access to Audacity for “microphone” or “sound-in” or whatever it may be called.
The current version of Audacity is 3.6.4.
You should tell a bit more about your setup. What is connected how?
If you want to use another app for what you are planning to do - why do you ask here at all? Good luck.
Hi mac-christian,
Thanks for responding.
By looking for the Linux version (which I do not find in Chrome OS), I found a setting to turn on the microphone for use with Linux in the Linux-container. Now the microphone works. But I still do not understand, how to maintain this audacity in the Linux container or choose a specific version. This technology is not my metier.
It seems like the counterintuitive solution would be to purchase the proprietary Windows-system, to be able to install and maintain open source software more easily.
Kind regards,
Nicole
Thank you. In the meantime, I got the microphone to work.
On a Chrome OS level, I am wondering how to maintain audacity, manage projects and files: how to handle the file sharing on a Chromebook and eventually syncing it with Dropbox or Google Drive.
On an audacity level, I have not understood yet how to improve the audio quality. If I remember correctly from many years ago there is the possibility to take a noise pattern to reduce the noise specific to my environment (like the fan). The raw audio of my voice for a podcast sounds real, but given the room with some echo and a little hallow. Can I make the voice more voluminous without great artifacts? What codec would I use? Thank you for suggestions.
Now, I have learned how to get the information about the linux system that is running in the Chrome OS Linux container “Crostini”:
PRETTY_NAME=“Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)”
NAME=“Debian GNU/Linux”
VERSION_ID=“12”
VERSION=“12 (bookworm)”
VERSION_CODENAME=bookworm
ID=debian
HOME_URL=“https://www.debian.org/”
I have installed audacity with the simple command
sudo apt-get install audacity
So, if I understand it correctly, the latest version available in this distribution is installed, while via flatpak this may differ.
Pretty much the one thing you can’t fix. Using classic noise reduction, you select a clean sample of noise, fans, motors air conditioning, etc. Then tell Audacity to remove that from your show.
Echoes and reverb are your voice bouncing from the walls and ceiling and arriving at the microphone late. So in effect, you’re asking Audacity to remove your voice from itself.
There’s a bunch of different ways to get rid of echoes—before the microphone. Record at night in your garage. Most people have enough junk in the garage to suppress echoes.
Hi kozikowski,
Just as I thought: the cleaner the first recording the better. But the echo of my own voice bouncing from the wall is a good point to consider.
But with winter coming, I think I prefer to stay inside my office with my grandma’s carpets for noise reduction
Thanks,
Nicole
Anything you do to break up the bounce is good. I had a nice office once which turned out to have surgically perfect parallel walls. My joke was I could clap loudly once and go to lunch. The clap would still be bouncing back and forth between the walls when I got back. No acoustical recording in there.
For a while, until they caught me, I was cranking out quality voice recordings in one of the accounting records storage areas. Boxes and boxes of manila folders and paper printouts. Perfect! I got the word that I would have to stop, not because they were going to put more boxes in there, but they were going to turn it into a Producer’s office!
I made a deal with her that I would pop for coffee and donuts if she let me occasionally record sound in there.
There’s a trick to this.
Sit quietly and see how many noises you can identify. There’s some easy ones. Cars and trucks going by can’t be taken out later. Any moving or changing sounds are permanent. The easiest one is my local bus. It’s scheduled.
There’s the fridge, some jet out of LAX. The police found someone double parked, so they sent the choppers out.
Depending on how you heat, you may have fans or pumps that go on and off. I have a nice wall clock that ticks loudly. Gotta put that one in the bathroom or the garage.
Etc.
You should guard against spending all your time rescuing damaged recordings and no time actually producing your shows.
Makers of Home Microphones are good at skipping straight from buying and setting up the Award-Winning microphone, and cranking out successful audiobooks, to retiring in a nice beach house on the Mal d’Mer.
Thank you, Koz, for taking the time to share your experiences and resources. Because that’s what I am looking for, a straightforward way to record in a decent quality in the first place. The tip with the blanket is great, I could place them in the room between me and the wall. Have a nice day,
Nicole
Thank you, Koz. I have added bookshelves with books, a small sofa and plants to my office today to break the echo. And I have tried the blanked method for a comparison - that makes an impressive difference. - Nicole
After rearranging the furniture, I was disappointed because the recording was not audibly better. Today, I thought if the point is to avoid that the echo returns to the mic from the walls, instead of covering the walls, the textile box should be around the mic.
Covering my mic with the textile covers of my loudspeakers, creating a semi-permeable box, the result is audibly better. This way, I have achieved a decent recording by applying only the noise canceling effect from a room noise sample:
