Audacity Forum

Hi,
I recorded some audio through my laptop's "mic in" jack without thinking about it and I used the "line out" of a soundboard as the input.
Now the sound is very high pitch and nothing but loud noise. I can see the normal audio levels as a light blue frequency meter but a dark blue one is a solid rectangle. I would really like to recover this sound so if it is an easy fix I would be very grateful for any help.
I've attached a reference screenshot of Audacity.
Thank you so much.

It's actually "clipped" rather than "high pitch" - the mic inpit on your laptop is not a good match for the line output level of your soundboard.

If your laptop only has a mic input and if that input cannot be configured for a line level input signal (some can, some can't - you'll have to read the manual for the laptop) - then you may have to resort to buying an external soundcard.

WC

I usually use a different laptop, but it wasn't working at the time.
Is there any way to salvage this particular recording?
Thanks for all your help. :]

Clipping is one of the fatal mistakes. There are no good (or even marginal) software packages that can help.

Koz

We would urge you to make a quick sample recording before a major musical event to avoid recording three hours of trash.

Macs tend to have "Line-In" which is a perfect match for a sound console, mixing desk, or field mixer. Laptop PCs tend to have connections for business communications which are Headphone Out and Microphone In (Vonage, VOIP for example). Line-In and Mic-In are a thousand times different in sound level and don't cross well.

Deskside PCs with good sound cards tend to do everything.

Koz

thanks for your time and quick responses. I won't make that mistake again.