Randomly Records Static

[Guppywarlord]

I have the Audacity 1.3 beta, although this problem happened just as frequently when I had the previous version. I'm running on XP on my laptop. I don't really know that much about computers so you'll probably need to guide me through what specs you need.

But anyway, as my time using the laptop progressed, the quality of recording would get worse and worse. There'd be more and more static in the recordings and then finally the big kicker began happening. I'll be recording something and at any random time, Audacity will begin recording white noise that fills up the entire track. It's very loud and anything I'm recording during this white noise attack will be replaced with the loudest static ever.

I'd like to know how to fix this, as I am a budding musician and I need to be able to record things.

[kozikowski]

You missed the whole front part of the question.

"I'm playing a Gibson #3 guitar and singing into a Sennheiser 665 microphone connected to an Arts Dual Pre USB adapter connected to my Philips Voyager laptop."

Correct any of that that isn't right. I'm assuming you're trying a live capture -- being a musician.

Koz

[whomper]

i would assume his hd has filled up
and needs a good cleaning out and then defragit

[Frithsamur]

This is happening to me, only not so badly. But as you layer tracks the static builds up.

[steve]

Frithsamur, I suspect that the problem that you are hearing is distortion (clipping) due to the combined audio level being too high. When you mix multiple tracks together it is necessary to reduce the playback level of each individual track so that the combined mix (the sum of the tracks) does not exceed 0dB. You can adjust the playback level of a track using the track volume slider on the left end of the track.

Tip: use your mouse to drag the ends of the meter bar to make the meter bar wider - the playback/recording meters are much easier to read if they are full screen width.

[Frithsamur]

^ Okay thanks, I'll try that. I used "Noise removal" in the effects bit, and that actually cleared it up quite a bit.