Sound Quality of Recording

[sablechatrat]

I am using Audacity to record a drum track that is being played by me electronic keyboard. There is a tambourine part that sounds bright and full when the piano plays it, but when I play back the recording it sounds like wimpy little high hat. I tried recording it with Windows Sound Recorder and it sounded fine, so there is some problem with Audacity. Is there a microphone EQ or something that would make it not sound crappy?

[kozikowski]

You're totally sure that it's not just a volume change? Both of those programs run their own input volume controls and I wouldn't be shocked to find that the one for Audacity was lower than the one for Windows. There is an old department store trick that the loudest amplifier always sounds more expensive.

Not once in that post did you tell us how you got your performance into the computer. That counts.

Koz

[nutmegrob]

I'm pretty new at Audacity myself but something I've noticed is that, when you open a new file, the Record Level Meter -- the slider next to the microphone icon on the Mixer toolbar -- is set all the way to the right, i.e.at full volume. Until I noticed this the files I read in clipped like crazy. I've had luck setting the level between 5 and 7.

[sablechatrat]

So I'm pretty much a genius...
Here was the problem: at the beginning of my project I had imported an audio clip with a sample rate of 15000 hz. Turns out audacity assumes that everything in your project is the same rate as your first track, which meant I had been recording everything at that low sample rate instead of the normal 44100 hz. The project rate appears at the lower left corner, and can be changed by clicking on it.
Thanks anyway, though.