RE: Trying to remove unwanted noise (corrupted recording)

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hi There,

This is a last resort “Hail Mary” attempt at seeing if there is a way to salvage the latest recording I did for my new podcast… before I slump my shoulders and give up in despair =(
I conducted an interview over Skype using Pamela, only to find that 2 hours of material have been corrupted with this strange buzzing noise throughout the whole track!
I have tried noise reduction to no avail, and can not find a way to clean this sound out. It’s quite hard to explain, but you’ll know exactly what I mean when you listen to a sample.

A short snippet of this track has been uploaded here (7MB .wav file):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/avwlzxgcjftil9g/badSoundSample.wav?dl=0

I was wondering if any kind experts out there had an idea of what could be done in this situation. I myself am by no means an expert, and any hints/suggestions/tips would be much appreciated…

Pamela for Skype (Professional Version - Full version trial): version 4.9.0.77
Audacity: version 2.1.1
OS: Windows 10

Please let me know if you need any more info.
Much thanks in advance!
(If a miracle solution is found, I will find a way to repay the debt!!)

Cheers,
Daniel.

2

Sorry but I think it’s time to slump your shoulders and give up on this recording.

3


That’s called glitching : an electronic version of a stutter. Definitely incurable.

4

Thanks for your responses Steve and Trebor.

…ah so I guess my suspicions of incurability are unfortunately correct… =(

Are there any suggestions as to how I can minimise chances of this “glitching” from re-occurring in future recordings?

5

Ensure that you have plenty of free disk space (more that 10% of the hard drive size).

Reboot the computer before you start.

Avoid running other applications at the same time as recording. Particularly avoid running other audio applications and games while recording. If you are running Pamela then Pamela and Skype should be the only applications accessing audio.

Avoid running background applications (if you’ve not already done so, check what applications start up automatically - it will probably be frightening how much stuff is running in the background).

Ensure that Windows, anti-virus, other security products, other software is fully updated (and rebooted) before you start recording.

Ensure that your sound card drivers are fully updated with drivers supplied by the manufacturer (don’t rely on Windows installing the best drivers).

Temporarily turn off scheduled tasks (such as Windows update and computer maintenance tasks. Turn them back on again when you’ve finished).

Disable system sounds.

Disable power saving.

Disable “Sleep” and “Hibernation”.

Make a test recording before you start recording for real, and check that it has recorded correctly.

Read this article and apply as necessary: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#skips

Read this (long) article and apply as necessary: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Managing_Computer_Resources_and_Drivers

6

Thanks so much for that advice Steve. I will be sure to go through that stuff before my next recording.

Much appreciated.