Since Audacity is very new to me, I don’t know how to fix the little problem I’m confronted with right now. I’m sure that my problem is a small one for you and you are able to help me.
I made my first record today with Audacity. It all worked fine and I saved my File.
Now when I want to listen to the Record, I can very hardly understand what has been said during the presentation, that I’ve recorded. I don’t really know how to fix this problem. I randomly moved some buttons and tried different things in Audacity, but none of them really worked.
It would be really kind, if some on of you could help me. It wouldn’t be a problem for me to upload or send my File that you can check out on it.
What was it? What was your show? Describe the production.
Audacity does not save sound files. You saved an Audacity Project and you posted a small portion of it that we can’t hear. To make a sound file File > Export.
Thanks for your answer. Im sorry, I didnt know you cant listen that one.
I exported the project to an wav file. Unfortunately I was not abel to upload it here in this chat. Probably the file is to big. It would be great if you could give me an email address to which I can send you the file.
Unfortunately I couldnt post the whole project. Here is a little part of it. Hope it helps to solve the problem.
The record is a record of a presentation (in german). I recorded it with my laptop sitting on my place, like 5 Meters away from the speaking person. It seams like this distance causes some wird changes in the sound of the speaker.
If you would like to check the whole project in audacity, I could easily send it to your email.
It is not going to be possible to make much, if any improvement to the sound of that recording. The type of damage is permanent and not repairable. We may be able to help you to make a better recording. How did you record it? Please describe the set-up, both the equipment and the method, with lots of detail. Too much information is better than not enough.
Well that does not sound very promising to me. I would be really glad if I could make some improvments on the quality of the recorded file. I mean it’s a bad record but i understand some parts. If someone just knows, how i could get a little better quality would already help a lot. So if someone has an idea how it could be heard a little better, i would apreciate a lot.
How i recorded the file:
I didnt do much. I downloaded audacity. Then I opened it for the presentation and just pressed to record. I didnt make any chances on the standard that was given.
As I already mentioned before, I was sitting about 5 meters from the presentor.
That recording is trash, but we may be able to help with the next one. It sounds like your recorder is trying to make the presenter into a communications or Skype session. That’s what the gargling, honking, and boiling is. If all you did was a simple, “non-enhanced” capture, I bet the whole show would have worked.
I do those all the time with my mini-cassette recorder. Very plain, very simple, and even though the voices are low and slightly noisy, they’re perfectly understandable which is the goal. That was probably your goal, too, but High Technology got in the way.
If your whole interest in this is to recover that one performance, then this is the end.
Turn off the Windows Sound “Enhancements” (see here: Audacity Manual)
Get much closer to the microphone, then adjust the recording level as necessary so that the maximum level of the recording is about half the height of the track. You may be able to adjust the level using the mixer toolbar (Audacity Manual) but if your computer can’t do that, adjust the level using the recording settings in the Windows Sound Control Panel.
The recording sound quality should then be a bit better, but I’d not expect it to be brilliant because the microphone and sound card built into most PCs are rubbish. If you need better quality than that then you will probably need to use a better sound card and microphone. If you can describe the type(s) of recording that you want to make then we may be able to offer some advice about equipment.
If you turn off Windows enhancements, even a low level recording should just sound low, not completely destroyed. Low level recordings may have hiss on them, but that’s normal for microphones that don’t have a strong voice – or the voice is a distance away.
Stand across the room and talk in a normal voice while you’re recording as a test. You should get a recording that’s just low volume.