Too much noise on the + side of the scale

[kac43]

Screenshot at 2018-02-09 15-53-47.png (13.45 KiB) Viewed 985 times

I'm using Mint 18.3/ Mate 32 bit. and Audacity 2.1.2. when I record with a mic, in mono mode, it records voice, but on the upper side of the scale is a massive amount of white noise.Mic is a Cermic ER-M3. Not an expensive mic, but it should work, it did before I installed Mint 18.3 from 18.1.

[steve]

Mic is a Cermic ER-M3

Is that a USB mic?

it did before I installed Mint 18.3 from 18.1.

Are you able to test it with anything else to establish if it still works?

[kac43]

It is not a USB mic, a mini plug.

[kozikowski]

That is so broken. Are you sure it's plugged all the way in? Pull it out, rub the plug with a little alcohol or Window cleaner, dry it and put it all the way in.

You have an odd cross between the soundcard battery system which only goes up and the microphone sound system which goes both up and down. That should never happen in a healthy sound system.

I had a soundcard that seemed to plug together OK, but when I pushed just the slightest bit more, it clicked into position. A bad connection can put battery where the sound should be, or mix them.

Koz

[kac43]

Cleaned and reconnected mic, same result, when I use normalize, it centers it, but still noise.My voice records ok, just trying to find why the noise. I have another sound card in the computer, but it does nothing when I activate it, using the built in sound now.could it have anything to do with the upgrading the OS from 18.1 to 18.3?

[steve]

could it have anything to do with the upgrading the OS from 18.1 to 18.3?

We've not ruled that out, but it is not the most likely reason.
The first thing that I would be checking is the microphone. If you have a smart phone, you may be able to test the mic with that.

[kozikowski]

when I use normalize, it centers it, but still noise.

Remove DC in the Normalize tool just removes the "up" offset part of the damage. It just turns it into different damage. It's likely that removing that damage in this instance may have also damaged the sound.

Further, if Remove DC seemed to help, it just screams battery damage in the analog microphone system. It's very, very remotely possible that's a data error, but very, very highly unlikely.

Koz