Very low sound recording for interviews conducted via Skype

[MPCoach]

OS X version: 10.10.1
Audacity version: Audacity 2.0.6, via .dmg installer

I've recorded several interviews conducted on Skype through Audacity. My guest speaker's voice recording is always extremely quiet/low. I've been told my a sound editor that it seems like Audacity is NOT picking up the sound from my guest's end; rather it seems to be picking it up from my headphones/what I'm hearing. I'm not sure exactly what that means, nor what to do, as I'm very new at all this.

I'm attaching a sound clip here, as sample.

Would appreciate your help!

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity 2.0.6 does not officially support Yosemite so I suggest you use 2.1.0 from http://web.audacityteam.org/download.

I've recorded several interviews conducted on Skype through Audacity. My guest speaker's voice recording is always extremely quiet/low. I've been told my a sound editor that it seems like Audacity is NOT picking up the sound from my guest's end; rather it seems to be picking it up from my headphones/what I'm hearing.

Entirely to be expected - you're probably just recording your mic and whatever it picks up of the other person.

The correct solution is to buy Audio Hijack, Call Recorder or similar which are meant for recording Skype.

If you must record Skype with Audacity you have to use LineIn ( http://www.rogueamoeba.com/freebies/ ) and Soundflower ( https://rogueamoeba.com/freebies/soundflower/ ) using these instructions: http://www.macswitched.com/2011/02/reco ... -free.html. Your may hear your own voice after a delay. Let us know how well that works if you do follow those steps.


Gale

[kozikowski]

Your may hear your own voice after a delay.

So they don't bother to compensate for echo. That could be annoying.
Koz

[Gale Andrews]

Your may hear your own voice after a delay.

So they don't bother to compensate for echo. That could be annoying.

Only based on one vague report given here. Users who don't want to buy software can help us by trying those steps out and giving us a detailed report.

Also you could use Sound Siphon in the steps instead of Soundflower. Sound Siphon is to be preferred to Soundflower for recording computer playback on Mac, IMO.

Gale

[kozikowski]

Sound Siphon is to be preferred...

Because.......

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

Sound Siphon is to be preferred...

Because.......

For the reason I stated before. You can set system output to Sound Siphon to record computer playback then still hear that playback.

With Soundflower you have to run their extra "Soundflowerbed" app to hear computer audio in system apps while Soundflower is set as system output.


Gale

[cyrano]

Sound Siphon is to be preferred...

Because.......

Koz

There's no active development for Sound Flower anymore. And it doesn't work for everyone on the latest OSX versions. I have no idea why...

[kozikowski]

[puzzled look] I don't remember having problems like that. When I record from SoundFlower, I listen to Audacity. Anyway, good to know.
Koz

[cyrano]

In Snow Leopard days, I preferred SoundFlower over Jack because Jack was a little bugged. SoundFlower was maintained by Cycling '74 in these days. But Cycling '74 has abandoned this development and the binary is being offered by the makers of Audio Hijack as a free download now. The development has stopped, however.

If you google around, you might stumble on one of the older releases on cnet, softonic or other dubious download sites. I haven 't seen any malware in those downloads, but it wouldn't surprise me if I encounter one. Unfortunately, Source Forge is also a dubious site nowadays.

These download sites are a very big PITA, because they are good at one thing only: swamping Google with SEO pages. Poisons the search results. Using an alternative search, duckduckgo.com, fi, solves this mostly.

I find it harder and harder to locate the original developers' site these days. Of course, Apple's appstore is also part of the problem. And it seems Apple is preparing their own search engine now, because I've seen AppleBot showing up in my referrer URL's lately. I just hope Google will react in time...

[Gale Andrews]

[puzzled look] I don't remember having problems like that. When I record from SoundFlower, I listen to Audacity.

The main benefit is you don't need to change settings to record computer playback. You don't need to turn software playthrough on in Audacity, and after recording, you don't need to change system output back to built-in output (unless you want to).

Gale