Audacity Forum

I am recording both with Audacity 1.3.9 Beta and stable 1.2.6 and I am experiencing the same problem with both programmes. I am streaming from the internet and the amplitude ‘0’ of the channel and the ‘0’ position of my recorded material do not coincide, a difference of -0.15. To-day however, the difference is as much as -0.5. What is the problem, does it matter and how can I correct it if it does matter?

It's like you grabbed your whole blue waveform and pushed it straight up or down a little? That's DC offset and it can make editing and production a nightmare. I don't know why it would do this, but download audio shows seem to change depending on the machine. I can download the same work on two different machines and get two different results, but it's never very bad.

The Quick Way Out is Effect > Normalize > DC Removal (don't check anything else).

If it's a long show, that should be good to go. If it's a short show and/or the performer has a non symmetrical voice (many performers do) that tool might fail or produce odd results.

Then, it's harder.

Before you start editing, Effect > HiPassFilter > rolloff 24dB, cutoff 10Hz.

This will damage the first second or two of the performance and you can't apply any of these tools after you edit. They could destroy your show.

If your captures get worse or change a great deal on the same show, you may have soundcard problems. If the soundcard is built in, you may have computer problems. There was a posting of someone who had massive waves of up and down damage rolling through his show. That one's hopeless.

Koz

Many thanks, your first solution solved my problem. The second solution I couldn’t have used because in my EFFECT column doesn’t contain a HiPassFilter. Thanks again Timbuck2

hm...interesting...