I’ve been battling with my new neighbors recently and am trying to record the noise coming from their apartment upstairs but every-time I try to record them through Audicity I just get white noise, the mic will record my voice if I speak into it but apparently it can’t pick up the sounds of their 2 children running back and forth, their sexual antics at 4 in the morning nor the music that is playing a little to loud for anyone’s comfort. Any assistance you can provide would be very much appreciated.
Surveillance recording isn’t Audacity’s thing. Room noises are very difficult to record without special purpose microphones and sound sensors. Normal home style microphones as you’re finding, won’t do it.
Usually special recorders are required. Audacity can’t record Time Of Day either in rolling time or time code and there’s no way to certify the event.
We hear “loudness” relative to other sounds - in the dead of night, even a very low leve sound can sound loud, but your recording shows that in absolute terms the sound level is actually very low.
The quantify the loudness you need a calibrated “SPL meter”.
Regardless, for the reasons stated already, we have a policy not to assist with recordings that are required for court cases or noise nuisance cases. Contact your local authority and see if they will assist with making a recording that will be legally admissible. Or they may have a “quiet word” with your neighbours, if you have not already tried that.