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Really awful sound quality on some tracks

Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 1:24 pm
by DonW
I thought I had Audacity set up right. I'd recorded one LP and got really good results. But with the second things started to go wrong half way through the second side. Two tracks sounded just awful, harsh and electronic like James Brown's backing band had been fed through some sort of electronic cypher and come out sounding like Stephen Hawking's voice box. I tried re-recording these tracks, but got the same results, and they sounded the same while playing through, as if it was some strange fault on the vinyl. Then on the third and fourth side it was the same thing. Anyone any ideas at all?

Don

Re: Really awful sound quality on some tracks

Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 9:06 pm
by kozikowski
USB Turntable, right? Those die all the time. Disconnect the USB and restart the Mac. Get the adapter cables that allow your turntable analog outputs to connect to the Mac Line-In. Usually something like this...

USB Turntable--Analog Solution
http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic ... 8840#p8840

Ad Lib the part numbers depending on where in the world you are. Macs have terrific, high-quality Line-In connections and I've used mine for professional voice capture sessions.

Once the USB connection dies on a USB turntable, it's dead forever.

Koz

Re: Really awful sound quality on some tracks

Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 9:27 pm
by DonW
Thanks Koz. I've obviously been away from vinyl too long. The trouble turned out to be...half a carpet on the stylus. Doh!

Re: Really awful sound quality on some tracks

Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 4:18 am
by kozikowski
So it's not a USB turntable? You, at least have a fighting chance to make it through your collection in good condition before the system expires. If you have a reasonable quality original turntable, your results will be vastly better than the us$100 turntable people.

Koz