New here, I appreciate the community and hope to use it as a resource.
I’ve been using Audacity to record my podcast successfully for over a year but have noticed that I’m getting some low level noise, sometimes more than others, post-recording on my side that doesn’t show up on the level monitor during recording. To clarify, I’m using Soundflower, Skype, Audacity, Apogee MiC USB microphone, and earbuds. During recording, when my guests are talking and I’m not, the level monitor shows a flatline (unless of course I cough or something) but then once I finish recording my audio (when I’m not talking) shows a very low level but sometimes audible noise. To deal with this I sometimes have to go back and generate “silence” but it’s a huge pain and would love to be able to not have to do that.
I’ve attached a screenshot, I’m the top audio file.
Any ideas why I’m getting this and how to stop it?
I’m getting some low level noise … that doesn’t show up on the level monitor during recording.
That’s the magic part. I can’t explain why it only shows up later.
What’s the noise if you listen by itself? Is it a distorted version of one of the voices?
It’s not that low. The Audacity blue waves run out of accuracy around -25dB to -30dB (about 3%). That’s clearly audible in normal conversation.
There are people who got Soundflower and Audacity to record Skype presentations, but most people can’t. Audacity is not recommended to record Skype or chat conversations because it can’t be consistent or reliable. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
Skype likes to change their programming, setup and support software with little or no notice and people who have been sailing right along for months suddenly find their shows crashing. That’s normal.
If you do find out what happened in this case, post back.
We recommend three different processes. The latest one comes from Skype. They now offer a service where they will record your mixed show in a stable manner and then present the mix to you.
The classic pay-to-play recorder on Windows is by Pamela. Some of the packages will give you your own voice on one stereo track and the guest(s) on the other for post-production and editing. I think this one only work on Windows.
And the classic subscriber record method is where each participant records their own voice and ships the sound file to you for post production. That one is the most work, but it gives you 100% control of each voice and mix.
people who have been sailing right along for months suddenly find their shows crashing.
Let me be clear. Skype always works perfectly unless there’s something wrong with your computer. Your recording crashes. One common way is to start recording the Skype echo cancellation and not the main voice. That gives you the bubbly, gargly voice like a bad cellphone. That’s why I asked what the “noise” sounds like.
We strongly recommend everyone on a Podcast Skype call wear headphones. The less work Skype has to do to cancel echoes, the better.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve tried to install the Noisegate.ny in the same plugins folder where I see my other plugins but it’s not showing up as New, Enabled, or Disabled when I try to add in Audacity.
Sorry, should’ve been more clear before. I had updated to the latest version prior to trying to add the Noise Gate plugin. It’s not showing up in my 2.2.2 version, I hadn’t tried in the older version.
The other plugins that are visible are in the same folder where I put the Noise Gate plugin so it seems like that should work. No idea where else it would go.
Yes you do have other Nyquist plug-ins installed. “High Pass Filter…” in the bottom part of the Effect menu is one of the standard Nyquist plug-ins that is included in Audacity.
In Finder, right click on “Noisegate.ny” and select “Get Info”, then take a screen shot of the Info and post it here.
Interesting, I found a folder with that naming structure and placed the Noisegate.ny file there. It did show up as a new effect but I got this message when I clicked enable.
