Since audacity to 3.7.3 I have a continuous white noise on the left channel as soon as I start the recording.
My first thought was my micro (Rode NT USB) is broken or the cable. Both is replaced by a new product - the noise remains. I tried it on different windows computers, also in work - the noise remains. I tried different micros - the noise remains. The company which checked my micro uses audacity 3.7.0 - the noise does not appear.
I can definitely prove that the noise is caused by Audacity, due to the following facts:
I installed an older version of audacity now - 3.7.0 - and there is no noise on the left channel (see the uploaded screenshot of my original posting to understand what I mean).
I install audacity 3.7.3 - and there is a noise on the left channel
I tried it with three different microphones on 4 different PCs - always with audacity 3.7.3 - the noise is there
I replaced my RODE micro with a completely new one - the noise is still there
I uploaded a screen shot so that you can see what I mean.
I don’t know what the problem is but noise is an analog problem. Audacity doesn’t generate noise. (Except if you record “loopback” or otherwise what’s coming out of the soundcard you can end-up an internal feedback loop and feedback noise, but it usually goes to full-volume.)
But if 3.7.0 works… Good!
The Rode is known as a low-noise mic but of course it will pick-up room noise and most of us don’t have “soundproof” studios.
I assume the signal is also on the left? Like most microphones, the Rode is mono so if you record in stereo you’ll usually get one silent channel, or depending on the computer/Audacity configuration, maybe the same thing on both sides.
Hi DVDdoug!
Thanks for your reply! I am aware that noise is an analog problem - so I also have no explanation, but I can just tell you, the noise is there, on the right channel. The other channel does not show any noise - see my screenshot I provided in my original post. You can easily see it, one channel has a thicker “silence” line than the other. And I am not talking of background noise - this is white noise - it’s continuous.
And no, it remains only on one channel, and that is from version 3.7.1 onwards - before I had two thin lines when recording and there was no noise. It is also there when I record a mono track (thanks for the hint, I really did not know that my Rode is a mono mic) - than it is on this single channel - the line is just thicker than normally.
And this phenomena can be reproduced on several PCs I used with different micros - as soon as you start record and have no noise, one channel represents a thin line (no noise) the other a thicker line indicating a white noise.
The only possible solution for me is that Audicity produces this noise - or a bug in Windows system.
The corresponding wav file I have uploaded in my next reply (error message from the forum: new users can only post one media item at once ).
I am curious on your analysis
You posted just plain recording. I’m looking for your noise damage on one track and normal room sound on the other. I want to analyze the comparison.
You seem to have explored many of the usual causes of sound damage. I’m going to go further out. Are you near an airport? Are all the computers you tried in the same house? Do you use sound applications in addition to Audacity?
The 3.7 series invented some pretty interesting problems and instabilities. I just now installed Audacity on my new machine, I installed 3.6.2.
I would recommend something like that with the idea of getting your production working while we investigate this.
A note if you do back up to an earlier version, you should reset the Audacity Preferences and Settings. They are designed to be “sticky” so you don’t have to adjust all your favorite tools every time you upgrade.
Sorry Koz I do not understand what you would like me to record … on one channel the noise and on the other channel the room noise? I have only a mono microphone, so I can record only one channel, can’t I?
Well but I can apply the audacity “silence” tool to this “visual render thing” and then you can see the same thin line than on the other channel. If it is a visual render thing I would assume that you can’t remove it, but you can …?
So I’m not convinced it is only a visual render problem - principally the SW can display the thin line?!
I think updating to the Very Latest Version in this case may not be the best idea. The 3.7.x series have exhibited quite a range of problems.
I recommend exporting your performances as WAV (Microsoft) when you finish reading a chapter and then again before you create the submitted MP3 for ACX, assuming that’s who you’re using. Do Not use the Audacity Project files for everything, There have been too many complaints of Project files not opening for no good reason.
You may be able to duck around the problem by recording in Mono. You have a mono (one channel) microphone and ACX (last I checked,) strongly recommended submitting work in Mono. Transmission, storage, and processing are all 100% more efficient in mono.
It’s only you in the middle that’s out of step.
I export all my work - once finished - to uncompressed WAV, no worries And so far I did not have problems with project files I cannot open. In the newer version they say it will be converted, which is ok, and it always worked so far.
With 3.7…. series I have experienced so far a problem on playback: when I play my recorded material there are glitches in the stream - meaning the playback suddenly stops for about 1 second and then continues. This is completely random and not reproduceable, but causes problems to me because I record usually a video to my song, and if there are glitches of 1 second, the video becomes asynchronous to the audio … so far I could not find a solution to this. First I thought that happens only with project files converted from older version, but recently it happened also with completely newly recorded songs. So far I thought this might be a problem with the OS or the virus scanner in the background.
When I record in mono, I have the noise on the single channel, this I already tried ACX I do not use. But I can try to produce in mono, though - since I have only a mono micro that would be logical.
).
The channels are identical because I have only a mono microphone, so I assume the channel is duplicated?