I’ve been having a really hard time figuring out how to get good sound quality for my podcast. It seems my closet is the best spot in the house and I even put a blanket on the hardwood floor and one over the door. I’m using Audacity 2.4.1 and Mac Catalina. after recording I amplified, compressed, and applied the filter curve, all using some guidelines I found. I don’t know my mic brand - admittedly not high end - there’s a pop filter and I’m about 3 inches from it. I tested this setup yesterday and could have sworn is was pretty good, but today I tested again and the sound still has a tinny quality. Any suggestions for improvement or does this sound good enough for a podcast?! Sample attached. thanks in advance.
There is a phaser effect, as if the sound is leaking (bleeding) from the headphones and being picked up by the microphone,
the effect is changing (sweeping) as you move your head, changing the mic-headphone distance.
Here is a cheap cure for headphone bleed … https://youtu.be/1Gd0AsPNqMo
If you were on Windows, we would send you off to Windows Enhancements and voice processing—to turn most of it off.
Did you use Zoom or Skype between the two recordings? Is it still running there in the background? Bad idea. Both of those apply voice processing and what you want doesn’t matter.
Restart the Mac and don’t let anything else start when it wakes up. Try a recording.
If it still does it, don’t give up. There are other things to try.
No, that’s not normal and it’s really unusual for a cheap microphone to actually kill a show. It usually has help.
Koz