How to record with the follwoing quality

Hello all,

I apologise for my ognorance but I had a look around Audacity to see how to record an audio with the following quality:
24 bit, 48kHZ WAV audio files
-60dB noise floor (or better)
RAW audio file

and I am not sure how to do so, especially withe the reagrd to the noise floor.

Where can this be set?

Thanks in advance for your help.

All the best,

I’m a Windows guy so someone else can help with the settings -

Your hardware (soundcard or interface) has to support 24-bits. When you record (or open an audio file) Audacity temporarily converts everything to 32-bit floating-point for “processing”. You can select 24-bits again when you export.

Noise comes from your room (if you’re recording with a microphone) and there is some electrical noise from the electronics. -60dB is 1/1000th of 0dB and if you are recording with a microphone it’s VERY difficult to achieve if you don’t have a soundproof studio. :frowning: -60dB is the audiobook standard and many people are able to achieve that with some noise reduction, but that’s not “raw”.

(If you are recording an + signal like from a CD player there is no acoustic room noise and -60dB usually isn’t a problem.)

What you’re looking for is a strong signal-to-noise ratio. i.e. Speak/sing with a strong confident voice, fairly-close to the mic, etc. With a strong signal you you won’t have to boost the levels which would also any background noise.

RAW audio file

They probably don’t want want a raw formatted file. They probably want an “unprocessed” WAV file (no noise reduction, etc.) Usually a “RAW” file means a WAV file without the WAV file header and then you can’t open it without knowing the format details (bit-depth, sample rate, etc.) and it’s just a royal pain to deal with.

how to record an audio

We are going to flop around at random until you tell us what you’re doing and what the show and goal are.

As DVDdoug above, recording 24-bit is pretty unusual with home equipment. Professional studios do that at 24-bit, 96000 sample rate and a two foot wide mixing console.

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Koz

Thanks for your response.

I have been asked to provide such a quality recording for a voice work, which is clearly not my primary line of work, but that I am happy to have a go at.

Hence my questions which may have seen very simple and basic to some.

How can I check whch level of noise I have achieved once the recording has been made?

Thanks

Thanks so much for your response.

I have been asked to do some voice recording for an organisation. Which I am interested in having a go even though this is not my primary line of work.

And your response helped. So thanks.

How can you test the quality of your recording with regards to the noise?

You can measure the noise level by selecting a part of the recording when no-one is speaking (so it is background noise only), and measuring with the “Contrast” tool: Contrast - Audacity Manual

The measurement is in “dB RMS”.
-60 dB RMS is generally considered to be a good level for the noise floor, but it requires a very quiet room to achieve this level while also achieving a good voice level.