Audacity Forum

Once again thank you all for your time and great and helpful comments. (even though i was little bit lost reading some of them when they started to be a little bit more above my audio tech knowledge )
Today i did some more testing and i have couple things to say regarding your comments, tips and my tests:
- yes i am using headphones while recording. I have to. But i tried recording without headphones and there was no difference.
- after setting both audacity and windows to 48000 hz / 16bit audio rate, it seems it is now much more stable. What i mean by that is that before, i could start 20 recordings in a minute, and almost each of them would sound a bit differently, sometimes the buzz was there, sometimes not, sometimes louder, sometimes more subtle. But now it is mostly ok and is most of the time the same as in my second test recording i uploaded here.
- i tried the "playthrough" audacity option to listen while recording and i tried moving the mic all around. I moved it towards PC, towards monitor, left, right and centre, up or down, just everywhere and weirdly enough, the sound was not changing at all. Only thing that made the recording buzz/humm more was when i tried to turn on my table lamp (but that is not the issue, because when i record i don't do it at night so it is never on). One other thing that was making more buzz was docking charger for my wireless PS4 controllers. But the mic had to be very near it and i have it on my table for like a week and the buzzing problems were there much longer. So it is not caused by this. (But i will place it somewhere else either way, it doesnt need to be there)
- the trust starzz microphone is nothing really fancy, but it was performing admirably well for a year maybe before the problems begun. It could be caused by the mic as some of you said, but if yes, then something must have "broke" because it was not always like that.
- i wouldn't mind buying some better microphone, but there is so many of them and almost everyone has some people saying it is great and some people saying they have this or that noise problem etc. So i am afraid that i will spend a lot of money for "better" mic but the quality wont be better and/or the problems won't dissapear. Another thing i am afraid of is the set up of the better mics with the XLR connectors and those amplifier stations (or what they are ) because i have no experience with that. So i will be glad for any recomendations (i am recording a lot, almost daily for my youtube channel) thanks again

just everywhere and weirdly enough, the sound was not changing at all.

That's good. That means the buzz and funny noises are probably not coming from the stuff on your desk or in your room.

i was little bit lost reading some of them

That's OK. Sometimes more than one forum elf posts and we talk to each other and not you. The forum helper elves live across nine time zones, so we drop in and out depending on where the sun is. The sun is over California. My turn.

Did you try the cleaning? I had trouble with a computer microphone when I got a little dust on the plug by accident. If I moved the cable a little, I would get funny noises and power sounds with my voice. I move it again and the noises go away and my voice is clear.

Pull the microphone plug out of your soundcard and rub it with a clean rag or paper towel and a little alcohol or unflavored vodka (same thing). Dry the plug and put it back in two or three times.
Try announcing.

Koz

Hi everyone.
some may remember me (probably not ) because i was having an issue with weird squeaking noise in my recordings and i was trying to solve it here maybe year or two ago here but i wasn't able to solve it. But i think i may have found something that would help experts here to solve it.

So the problem is that whenever i start recording in audacity, the recorded audio is randomly in one of two versions - it is either silent with just the classic background noise which can be fixed by noise reduction after the recording which is the desired version. Or the second version is that it has this weird squeaking noise that is very annoying and even noise reduction won't help to clear it completely. And when i say it is random - it really is. I may start 50 short silent test recordings quickly one after another and sometimes it will have the problem and sometimes not.
I have tried everything imaginable to idendify the problem, but i wasn't able to even with your help year ago. It just one day started happening less often so i just tried to live on. But now it is happening more often so it is bothering me again.

But this time, when i was checking different settings in audacity and different viewing options etc, i have found something!!! When i switched the audio track view form from the default "waveform" and switched it to "spectogram" (i don't even know what it is ) the difference between the normal OK recording and the squeaking recording is visible!!! When the recording is squeaking, there is this up and down line around 5K that is not there when the recording is ok.

Can you please tell me what could that be? See the attached pictures. Thanks

Molda22 wrote:some may remember me (probably not ) because i was having an issue with weird squeaking noise in my recordings and i was trying to solve it here maybe year or two ago here but i wasn't able to solve it. But i think i may have found something that would help experts here to solve it.

I've merged your new post with your original topic so that we have all the information in one place.

Molda22 wrote: But this time, when i was checking different settings in audacity and different viewing options etc, i have found something!!! When i switched the audio track view form from the default "waveform" and switched it to "spectogram" (i don't even know what it is ) the difference between the normal OK recording and the squeaking recording is visible!!!

As illustrated previously by Trebor: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 12#p305612

Trebor also commented that there is not just one "buzz" but three.
There is a low frequency (50 Hz) "hum" that is present in both left and right channels. This is without doubt "mains hum" (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_hum)
In the Left channel only, there is a high pitched "whistling" that oscilates between about 4 to 6 kHz at a rate of 50 cycles per second.
In the Right channel only there is an almost inaudible, extremely high pitched whistle that oscillates between about 15.5 to 17.5 kHz at a rate of 50 cycles per second.

Here I've mixed to mono for the first track to show the constant 50 Hz hum. and split the channels for the next two tracks to show the 5 kHz and 16 kHz whistling:
Without doubt, all three noises are the result of electrical interference. The difficult things to ascertain are:
1) Where is the interference coming from? In the case of the 50 Hz hum, that is simple: it is "mains hum". For the high frequency noises, it is less obvious.
2) What is picking up the interference? My guess here is that it is the sound card at fault. It may be the mic that is picking up the 50 Hz mains hum (or more likely the microphone lead), but I think the high frequency whistling must be from the sound card because it is different in left/right channels.

Is your computer a laptop or desktop?

But why the randomness of it? This is the weirdest part of it. How is possible, that within short space of time, i can try for example 10 recordings, and some of them will record without the hum/buzz/squeak and some of them with it. If the problem was for example sound card, wouldn't it be constant problem? I have a standart desktop computer.

Molda22 wrote:But why the randomness of it?

Perhaps it is picking up interference that is sometimes present and sometimes not.

There are many possible sources of interference. It could be something inside the computer, or something outside the computer.
Outside the computer it could be something as simple as a mobile phone checking for messages, or a fluorescent light switching on in another room on the same electrical circuit, or a lighting dimmer switch, or a refrigerator, or 1001 other possibilities.
Inside the computer it could be intermittent due to power saving modes, or wifi scanning for new connections, or bluetooth scanning for new devices, or 1001 other things.

A good, high quality sound card should be largely immune to interference, though not all devices are, and no devices are immune if the interference is very strong.

To try to isolate the source of the interference, you could try switching off all electrical appliances in the house, including lights, mobile phones, iPads, and other portable devices, and making a load of test recordings. Ideally, though perhaps not practical, you could try moving your computer to another room, or better, to another house.
Do you still get the problem? If yes, then it's probably something in the system (PC, sound card, mic, etc.)

Buy or borrow another mic. Do you still get the problem? If yes, then it's not the mic.

Buy or borrow a USB sound card. Does that fix the problem?

Sorry but there are no easy answers to this type of question. You just need to try different things and try to make the problem better or worse. If you can make the problem worse, then that can give a strong clue as to what is causing the problem.

...all three noises are the result of electrical interference.

The 50Hz one is, but there's question about the other two.

But why the randomness of it?

I'm having flashbacks.

In analog electronic design, you shoot for unconditional stability as well as whatever the actual goal is. Most analog design involves clever management of intentional feedback, so this is harder to deal with than you would think.

If you hit the goal but miss the 'unconditional stability' part, you could get undesirable, audible feedback inside the electronics.

Worse, it might change with stimulation or condition. "I get a high-pitched tone or whistle when I try to use my device...but it doesn't always do it." If you really offend the electronic gods, you can have hardware moon-phase errors. "The last three days have been clean, but today I want to start my audiobook and I have this frying, whistling sound.

Any of that sound familiar?

Since we will shortly be on forum chapter 5, I suggest we're not going to solve this across many time zones and some professional, hands-on trouble-shooting is needed. That's not to say there is no desperation method. There is. Replace everything but the room. If the problem is not solved, it's probably your environment.

Nobody said you can't have more than one problem. See: 50Hz hum plus 5KHz whistle.

I can think of one thing which could cause both of those. Bad power supply in the computer. Hummy instability? Oh, yeah. So fast.

Koz