When I listen to the audio on my track, it sounds great, but when I export it, it sounds like through a tunnel or a phone. I thought maybe a macro caused this, I tried to record without one, and the problem still stuck.
I also tried changing the bit rate, quality, and even audio file type, but it still sounds bad.
The âStandardâ preset is the recommended default for the LAME encoder. This setting uses VBR, which gives a better trade-off between file size and sound quality than CBR or ABR. The actual bit-rate depends on the audio.
What else does mediainfo say about the exported file?
How are you playing the exported file?
How does it sound if you import it back into a new Audacity project?
One more question - When you re-import the âbadâ file, does it [u]show clipping[/u]?
Have you tried WAV? MP3 is lossy compression so itâs usually helpful to eliminate that variableâŚ
I exported it at Standart preset, why is it on 110kb/s and variable? Or is it supposed to be this way?
Iâd say thatâs normally âmediumâ or âlowâ quality, but it looks like you used âV2â which is âgood qualityâ variable bitrate. So Iâm guessing itâs a voice recording thatâs easy to compress and it doesnât need a high bitrate.
I didnât really understand the âclippingâ part, either way, when I import it to a new file, it doesnât show any âred linesâ or something along those lines. Is there something I can do to disable or enable them or something?
I believe Show Clipping is enabled by default and it will show red for potential clipping.
[u]Clipping[/u] is squared-off waves or âoverload distortionâ. You get clipping distortion if you go over 0dB digitally, or if you try to get 110 Watts out of a 100W amplifier, etc.
It gets tricky because Audacity itself can go over 0dB without clipping, and when itâs showing red itâs just looking at the levels for potential clipping. Itâs not looking at the wave shape. You can get false positives and false negativesâŚ
MP3 can also go over 0dB without clipping (Iâm not sure how high it can go), but the MP3 decoder might clip when you play it, or you can clip your digital-to-analog converter. i.e. You playerâs decoder might be clipping while Audacityâs decoder is happily going over 0dB.
Another thing you can do is run the Amplify effect. If it defaults to a positive value you have headroom and itâs probably not clipped (especially since you say it sounds OK). If it shows a negative value, your peaks are over 0dB and you can get clipping when the file is played. So if it shows negative, go-ahead and run the effect (which will reduced the volume) and export and try again. If that fixes it, itâs best to go-back to your original file and reduce the volume, rather than going through multiple generations of lossy compression.
A regular WAV will also clip at 0dB so if clipping is the problem, the WAV re-imported into Audacity will also âsound badâ although the MP3 might not.
Maybe tell us what youâre doing⌠Are you recording your voice (or someoneâs voice)? Or, are you starting with a known-good file? What kind of editing/processing are you doing? Your original file is mono, right? Do you have a saved Audacity project?
Ok, so I just opened the file on an audio-playing site, and itâs normal! Everything is cool, except the fact that I NEED TO USE THE FILES IN PREMIERE PROâŚ
And I checked, it doesnât work in Premiere ProâŚ
Something similar happened to me and I searched everywhere for a solution and couldnât find one on here - but finally figured it out on my own! I got so frustrated on these boards because I found people with similar issues to mine but everyone commenting was like âthat shouldnât be happening, what youâre describing makes no sense.â No kidding! Thatâs what I was thinking, thatâs why I couldnât figure out how to fix it!!
ANYWAY - here is what worked for me:
I had an audio file that played fine in the Audacity program, and fine when I exported to WAV, but when I exported to mp3 it sounded so weird and distorted you could barely hear the speaker in the audio. I realized that when I was exporting to mp3, in the export settings I had selected âforce export to mono.â When I changed this to export mp3 to joint stereo, it worked fine. However I needed a mono file. So in Audacity I clicked on the name of the audio file to open up more options, selected âsplit stereo to mono,â which split it into two waveforms. I deleted one of them, then exported again as an mp3 forced to mono. It worked fine! So I would suggest checking if you are exporting to mono or stereo and seeing if changing it makes a difference.