Tinny/distorted playback...

[Marc(o) Porno]

Hey all,

I used to use Audacity to capture stuff from Yahoo Music and it played back fine.

I recently upgraded PC and reinstalled Audacity (1.2) and now when I play the recording back it's crappy. I even bought a recording program (Pyro Audio Creator) and I have the same problem.

I thought that the sounds or music that were recorded are supposed to be the same way I hear them over my speakers, which sound great.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Marc(o)

[steve]

To record streaming media in Windows, make sure that you are recording from the stereo mix and not from a microphone.

[Marc(o) Porno]

Thanks for the response!

Yeah, my Adacity input is the stereo output. (No mic here). I have it set to two channel output. Should I change my sound card to four or six channel?

Thanks again for your help!

[steve]

Going back to your first post:

I used to use Audacity to capture stuff from Yahoo Music and it played back fine...upgraded PC...and now when I play the recording back it's crappy.

This tells us that the actual recording is likely to be fine, but playback is poor.

Some audio cards have various "effects" to "enhance" the sound of computer audio. Typically people will listen to highly compressed music on their PC through crappy little computer speakers, so these "enhancements" can improve the perception of the sound quality. These effects can include EQ, bass boost, "Wow" effect, reverb, "Environmental Audio". As these are applied to the sound output of your soundcard, they will not necessarily be part of the audio stream that you are recording.

For recording purposes, it is best to use good speakers (or studio headphones), and to switch off all enhancement effects that your card applies. Playing back the recorded sound from "stereo mix" should then be identical to how the original sounded.