Waveform

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I have recently installed Audacity 2.1.2 on Windows 7 (32 bit machine).
After some doing I have managed to enable the Line-In inputs such that I can see signal activity when I “Start Monitoring”.
Should I not also see the Waveform in the center of the screen before I can start recording?
Thanks.Ivan

2

No. The sound meters represent “now” like the meters on the front of a mixer or other sound processor.

The blue waves are recent history. You won’t get those until you have history to draw. You may not want to call the papers so fast anyway. The blue waves are theatrical shortcuts and only measure about the loudest 25dB of the show. I like them for editing, but some don’t.

The blue waves are handy because they can show you possible overload points or conditions. View > Show Clipping and they will produce thin red lines at points where the volume may be too high. The bouncing meters will show you that, too, in real time. They will go all the way up and turn red. You shouldn’t record sound like that.

Koz

3

Thank you. I have some homework to do to read the manual and check my setup more closely. I have just barely started.

4

At least once you have to do what I do and set up the recording volume and conditions in Monitor and then, when the magic time comes, forget to press Record.

Koz

5

Hello Koz.
I have been able to do some test recordings with Audacity, very impressive.
In the Audacity Manual/Wiki it is suggested that ClickRepair or Goldwave might be alternatives to the builtin Audacity features. I have tried both.

There are separate Forum threads on ClickRepair and DeNoise by Brian Davies. These are separate paid products.
There is also a discussion thread on Goldwave. Goldwave appears to be all-in-one single license (with a large trial period).

I don’t see any comparisons of the pros and cons of these. Can you give any feedback on this or possibly redirect me if necessary.
The reason I ask is that I have access to a large vinyl collection that I want to digitize and need to make a decision on the above utilities.
Thanks.Ivan Danelon

6

Those threads are our feedback :wink:

I used ClickRepair on my vinyl collection (after a steer from Koz, for which I am ever grateful).

Another forum elf Billw58 also used Click Repaire.

Gale Andrews favours Goldwave (he doesn’t like the fact thar ClickRepair uses Java).


A couple of things I really like about ClickRepair:

  1. it is a very tightly focussed application - neatly targetted at one problem.
  2. You can preview what is going to be removed from the signal.

WC

7

WC,
Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated.
One final question Re: Noise Reduction (PS: I don’t know at present if I will have to deal with Hiss/Low Freq rumble etc yet).

Audacity Noise reduction, is this “good enough”.
Or should I use Goldwave or DeNoise ?

Obviously, I’m already a fan of Audacity, amazing amount of work that must have gone into this!
Thanks,
Ivan Danelon
Toronto,Canada

8

Hi Ivan,

Audacity’s Noise Reduction is a much improved effect over the so-called “Noise Removal” that it replace in Audacity a few releases ago.

When we originally released Noise Reduction we didn’t get the baseline default setttings quite right but e we have tweaked tose to improve them over the last couple of releases.

I use Noise Reduction regularly for three webcast programmes from Dublin City FM for DJ friends of mine so that they can post “Listen Again” recordings of their shows online. The Dublin City FM stream has a consistently very noisy carrier hiss - and I use Noise Reduction at default settings on those recordings to de-his them. It must be noticeable as on eof the DJs commented on the fact that my recordings were hiss-free compared with others he had received from another recordist in Texas.

Cheers,
WC.

9

Oh and you might find this workflow tutorial from the Audacity Manual useful Ivan:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/sample_workflow_for_lp_digitization.html

It’s part of this set of tutorials:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_copying_tapes_lps_or_minidiscs_to_cd.html

Cheers,
WC

10

In my opinion, if you have time, you should make comparisons and trust your own ears for which software is best.

For anything other than slight noise I would tend to prefer Goldwave because the “sweet area” (where there is a good compromise between noise reduction and not harming the sound too much) is much wider, and so easier to hit without excessive fiddling with the controls.


Gale

11

WC and Gale, thanks for your feedback and info.
I had to step away from this subject matter for a bit and do some Windows 10 updates on my home machines.
But just before the Win update I also had to do an update to Java 8 update 101 ( for other apps I am running).

The Audacity worked fine after Win 10.
Goldwave and ClickRepair were both complaining about the Java runtime. Re-installing Goldwave cleared the issue.
Re-installing ClickRepair still complains about Java runtime.

Now I am ready to play with some recordings, and see if I can trust my ears.
My wife thinks I’m going deaf, my audiologist says I’m losing some high end in the presence of noise.
Garbage, my hearing’s perfect. What these women don’t realize that some of us have these built-in filters specifically for certain types of noise and chatter etc .

Thanks.Ivan