Simple help needed - unknown term in Audacity

[Tolle44]

Hello all.
I'm using Audacity 2.0.3 on Windows 7.
I'm currently working on a simple singing project, but am not familiar with Audacity.

My problem:
At times, the voice in my track becomes so loud that the sound starts buzzing. I figured that I could either rerecord from further away from the microphone, or there would be some neat trick in Audacity that would help cut off this unpleasant buzzing. I'm thinking there's too much gain, but honestly I don't know.
I've tried looking at Equalizing and Normalizing, but I wasn't able to figure out how to use it properly.
Lowering the overall sound level wouldn't be a problem if needed in the solution.

Generally, I avoid fiddling too much with the recordings, unless there's something that just doesn't sound good.

Thanks in advance for any help that can be offered.

- Tolle

[kozikowski]

Once the blue waves go all the way up and down and the sound meters go all the way to the right during a live recording, the damage is permanent. That's where the digital sound system "runs out of numbers" and is no longer able to accurately represent your voice. There is no filter or effect. Re-recording is the only option.

The video people have the joke of applying the "reshoot filter."

You can avoid that problem by recording at a lower level, or better microphone technique where you avoid extremes of volume or great changes in the mouth/microphone distance. Low volume in the show can be changed with filters or effects.

Depending on your show, a headset microphone may be good. The microphone/mouth distance is fixed and many volume extremes go away.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/PCHeadset.jpg

Koz

[Tolle44]

Thank you so much, Koz.
Okay, I guess I will have to record again, then. I'm glad I learned this now - before it having progressed too much.

Again, thank you!
- Tolle

[Gale Andrews]

Once the blue waves go all the way up and down and the sound meters go all the way to the right during a live recording, the damage is permanent. That's where the digital sound system "runs out of numbers" and is no longer able to accurately represent your voice. There is no filter or effect. Re-recording is the only option.

There is Effect > Clip Fix for mild excess volume and Effect > Repair for very short damaged sections (the selection may not exceed 128 audio samples). Both effects replace the damaged audio by looking at what the undamaged audio looks like.

But much better to re-record if it can be re-recorded.


Gale