problems recording

[Gale Andrews]

i am recording clips of music that i am already playing on the pc

Why would you do that?

no mic used, nothing plugged into line-in, audacity picks it up via the stereo mix method i think

Is there some effect in the player that you would like to record?

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why would i not do that? whats wrong with the post - this is a forum for help isn't it?
no effects, just plain and simple recording clips of parts of music but the output is poor quality. that's it.

Because we are suggesting you are going about this the wrong way

Recording a file is not an exact byte-for-byte copy of it. Recording it with stereo mix, so involving conversion from digital to analogue and back to digital, may lead to audible degradation.

So, File > Import > Audio... to import the file into Audacity. You get the whole audio in one track like you said you wanted. And this way, there is no quality loss at the point where you get the audio into Audacity.

Once the audio is imported, you can (for example) drag-select a part that you want to use, CTRL + B to label that region, then select and label other regions. You can then File > Export Multiple... each labelled region as a separate file. It depends what you want to do with the clips when you have them in Audacity. What is the end goal?

its a better sound now but still needs attention. the bass is a thud echo type sound and not a clean crisp beat like the original

If you want to be sure to avoid degradation and sound effects in the audio, the answer is as above - import the audio, not record it.

If you must record the clips, exactly what choices do you have in all four boxes in Device Toolbar? -

To get a good recording of computer playback, turn off Transport > Software Playthrough in the Audacity menu bar at the top, and look for and turn off sound effects as per the link I posted before http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/fa ... hancements.


Gale