Audacity Forum

As I'm recording from a record, there are skips throughout the audio file that are not on the original record. On the graphic window where noise is monitored/measured, there are little horizontal bars throughout the graphic image where there is nothing during playback. I can re-record the same section of a record and these "blanks" appear in different places, so I do not believe the problem is on the record. The "blank" lasts just fractions of a second. For example, imagine the slashes as the music and the equals as the horzontal marks where blanks/skips occur:
|||||||||||==||||||||||
I saved a "print screen" image if you would like me to email it. Can you help? Thank you!

looks like a pc problem
you got any other stuff running that could preempt the recording so it misses data capture? turn off all other software and stay offline when recording.
turn off all windows automatic "help" stuff like indexing.

also be sure to defrag your disk before recording.
do the defrag first and try the recording again.

robbbin wrote:there are little horizontal bars throughout the graphic image where there is nothing during playback

That sounds like "drop-outs" and is not uncommon with USB devices. Are you using a USB turntable?

Assuming that it is a USB turntable, the problem is caused when the USB connection is unable to transfer all of the audio data in real time - it is struggling to maintain the necessary continuous data transfer, and bits of data get "dropped". This is not the only possibility, but with USB turntables it is by far the most common reason.

There are a number of things that can be done that may improve the situation - sometimes using a different USB socket on the computer will fix it. USB audio devices should not be used with USB hubs - they should be connected directly to the computer.

USB is dependant on the availability of the computer processor (CPU). If the CPU is busy, the USB port waits, and data is dropped. Background processes and other running applications can be using the CPU close to capacity and thus interfere with the USB, so it is recommended that you shut down any non-essential programs and processes.

There are a variety of other suggestions relating to this problem discussed here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/USB_turntables