Suggestions for improving quality?

Help for Audacity on macOS.
Forum rules
ImageThis forum is for Audacity on macOS 10.4 and later.
Please state which version of macOS you are using,
and the exact three-section version number of Audacity from "Audacity menu > About Audacity".


Audacity 1.2.x and 1.3.x are obsolete and no longer supported. If you still have those versions, please upgrade at https://www.audacityteam.org/download/.
The old forums for those versions are now closed, but you can still read the archives of the 1.2.x and 1.3.x forums.
Post Reply
audionewbie12
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2020 5:15 pm
Operating System: macOS 10.15 Catalina or later

Suggestions for improving quality?

Post by audionewbie12 » Wed Jun 24, 2020 8:48 pm

I've been having a really hard time figuring out how to get good sound quality for my podcast. It seems my closet is the best spot in the house and I even put a blanket on the hardwood floor and one over the door. I'm using Audacity 2.4.1 and Mac Catalina. after recording I amplified, compressed, and applied the filter curve, all using some guidelines I found. I don't know my mic brand - admittedly not high end - there's a pop filter and I'm about 3 inches from it. I tested this setup yesterday and could have sworn is was pretty good, but today I tested again and the sound still has a tinny quality. Any suggestions for improvement or does this sound good enough for a podcast?! Sample attached. thanks in advance.
Attachments
v3audio.wav
(309.29 KiB) Downloaded 4 times

Trebor
Posts: 9852
Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2008 5:22 pm
Operating System: Windows 8 or 8.1

Re: Suggestions for improving quality?

Post by Trebor » Thu Jun 25, 2020 12:39 am

audionewbie12 wrote:
Wed Jun 24, 2020 8:48 pm
... I tested this setup yesterday and could have sworn is was pretty good, but today I tested again and the sound still has a tinny quality. Any suggestions for improvement or does this sound good enough for a podcast?! Sample attached. thanks in advance.

Attachments
v3audio.wav (309.29 KiB)
There is a phaser effect, as if the sound is leaking (bleeding) from the headphones and being picked up by the microphone,
the effect is changing (sweeping) as you move your head, changing the mic-headphone distance.

Here is a cheap cure for headphone bleed ... https://youtu.be/1Gd0AsPNqMo

kozikowski
Forum Staff
Posts: 68941
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:57 pm
Operating System: macOS 10.13 High Sierra

Re: Suggestions for improving quality?

Post by kozikowski » Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:59 am

If you were on Windows, we would send you off to Windows Enhancements and voice processing—to turn most of it off.

Did you use Zoom or Skype between the two recordings? Is it still running there in the background? Bad idea. Both of those apply voice processing and what you want doesn't matter.

Restart the Mac and don't let anything else start when it wakes up. Try a recording.

If it still does it, don't give up. There are other things to try.

No, that's not normal and it's really unusual for a cheap microphone to actually kill a show. It usually has help.

Koz

Post Reply