Can hear noise but no visible change in the waveform

[smrki]

I am on windows 7 and yesterday have downloaded audacity 1.3.11-beta (Unicode).
So now I am editing a podcast and I notice that I can hear a sound (noise) but there is no change in the waveform. I mean the waveform is straight and without curvature, but the noise is there. Looks like a bug to me.

Here is the example in a mp3 file. The noise appears somewhere at the 1.0 and lasts until 3.0
http://www.mediafire.com/?zzytd2jz2yz

[kozikowski]

<<<Looks like a bug to me.>>>

It will look like a bug to us when two or three hundred other people complain about the same thing.

I couldn't access your test. Do the sound meters move during the noise? The sound meters will indicate sounds much more quiet than the blue waves. You can reset the blue wave to "Waveform dB" with the control panel on the left that will let you watch waves down to very tiny values -- but it's harder to edit like that.

On the sound meters, what are the values printed on the very left? At least -60? You can pull the sound meters away from the work window and make them very much bigger for better accuracy.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_full.jpg

You can hear stuff beyond the reach of both the meters and waves. Note the illustration blue waves only go down to -38 or so? Human hearing goes into the -70s.

A more normal view of my piano solo might be something like this...

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_playback.jpg

Koz

[kozikowski]

OK. I got the track. Those bumping and clicking noises are clearly visible in the Waveform dB setting and they're always visible on the -60dB sound meters.

They're only on the left and there is otherwise a good background hiss level. Not so much on the right which has a relatively high hiss level, but no other sounds.

How are you recording these sounds?

Koz

[smrki]

<<<Looks like a bug to me.>>>

It is not like I am complaining and criticizing your hard work which is very much appreciated by me. Its more like I would like to add some help, like, alarming you about some possible bug. I had an impression this is useful.

Thanks for the explanation. My mistake.

[waxcylinder]

Don't worry about Koz' curmudgeonly tone (he lists curmudgeon as his profession in his Audacity profile )

All he is pointing out is that if one user finds that on their one machine behaviour that no-one else gets or reports, then it's hard to get the developers to pay attention to it - when sevral users find the same problem, then the developers get to notice.

Your posting is useful - we just need to wait and see if someone else pops up in the thread and says "yeah, that happens to me to - when I do ... "

But I think Koz' analysis is driving at that it may well be your hardware which is at fault.

WC

[smrki]

The fault is my laziness. I've never noticed the db Waveform option. Regarding the recording of that audio, it's from a podcast which is recorded with skype, and it is of really low quality.

Thanks a lot guys!

[kozikowski]

The Audacity tools wake up from First Birthday set for editing, cutting, and effects. If you need to do sound analysis, you need to change the tools around a bit so see what you're doing. If you do extensive high-loudness work, then Waveform dB will be almost useless to you because all the work will be jammed up at the top of the blue wave display.

Koz

[smrki]

wake up from First Birthday set for editing, cutting, and effects.
Koz

Is this supposed to be funny? Well, it's not. It's disappointing. If you can help, help. If not, silence is better than this.

[kozikowski]

Pure statement of fact. When you install Audacity, it wakes up the first time (first birthday) all set for maximum visibility of edits, sound manipulation, and effects management, not analysis.

Koz

[smrki]

Ah, ok. I didn't understand the expression.