Sound Gets Fuzzy After Noise Removal

[jeffadt]

I need to record some audio. It's basically me reading off a book. The problem is after doing background noise removal the voice in audio gets fuzzy. What can I do to prevent the fuzzy voice? Before the background noise removal it's fine.
Oh and in my environment there really is no background noise its just when I record a hiss comes in the recording.

I've also tried replacing my microphone with a new one.
Thanks in advance.

[kozikowski]

If you're recording with the microphone plugged into the pink computer Mic-In, then the noise may be coming from the microphone amplifier inside the computer. And yes, hiss is rough to cure.

Be sure you're using Audacity 1.3 and not 1.2. Audacity 1.2 had very basic and simple noise reduction and sometimes didn't work very well. The reduction tools in Audacity 1.3 are much better, although nobody can do a good job with rain-in-the-trees hiss.

Which microphone did you buy and how do you have it connected?

Koz

[jeffadt]

I'm using a nexxtech desktop microphone. I got it from a radioshack or "the source" as we call it here.
Using Audacity 1.3
It's connected to the audio input on the front of my laptop
The thing is the voice doesn't get fuzzy when it's recorded, it's only after I do a noise removal for the blank noise that the voice part gets a little distorted.

[steve]

The Noise Removal effect is designed to deal with low level noise. If the hiss is too high it is near impossible to remove without causing serious damage to the audio.

Here's the manual page for the Noise Removal effect http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Noise_Removal
Note that the illustration shows a noise reduction level of 24 dB - this is a very aggressive setting and will cause noticeable damage to the remaining audio. If you start with a low level of background hiss, then a small amount of Noise Removal (say 8 dB) can do a very good job of making the noise substantially less noticeable with virtually no damage to the remaining audio. Getting a good "Noise Profile" also makes a very big difference to how well the effect works.