Audacity Forum

Hi ...
I'm basically new to Audacity, and new to sound recording ...
I'm basically using Audacity for narration recording.

Can someone tell me how to use 'normalize' and 'compression' to have my sound files be their best quality? Or is there something else I need to be doing?

Thanks.

To get voice tracks in their best quality, you should record them that way. Post production clean-up tools never get you back to perfect. They almost always sound like patch jobs -- particularly if you're new at it. There are no click-and-walk-away tools.

Most common recording problems can't be fixed. We can't get rid of echoes. Full stop. If you're recording in a room with bare walls and it sounds like a bathroom, that's the end of the story.

Microphone noise -- hiss and rumble -- is very rough to suppress without damaging the voice quality. MP3 compression, gargling and honking is another common problem. It's permanent. It's problems like this that scream newbie voice talent.

Normalize is to be avoided under most cases as it can cause stereo direction damage. Use Amplify instead. If you don't change the settings, Amplify will boost the loudness of the whole performance until your one loud peak in the whole hour show just kisses digital maximum. That's all it does.

You can to much more damage with the compressors.

...I need to go. I'm at work.

Koz

Getting a good clean recording to start with is probably the most important part.
Generally you would want to use a microphone quite close to yourself, with a "pop shield" between you and the microphone.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may05/a ... hields.htm

Thank you so much ... this has been amazingly helpful. Sometimes, when one is clueless, then one doesn't even know that the wrong information, is just that -- wrong!!

I feel much better knowing that it is up to me, which I knew instinctively.
Again, much thanks.
D.