Need help recording from my mixer

[kozikowski]

All that stuff is set in the Preferences panels. Let's see this is Windows, so yours would be Edit, Preferences, Quality.

It's two different numbers. 48K (48,000) analog audio samples per second resulting in any value you can represent by 16 computer bits. Generally, the more of each the better.

CD quality is 44.1K (44,100) 16 bit. Those numbers are magic because they were chosen to be electrically workable back when they wrote the Red Book CD standards (somewhere in the mid seventeenth century), and most people couldn't tell that the numbers weren't high enough. Some audiophiles still can't stand listening to CDs because of the audio errors. Most of the rest of us liked the fact that CDs didn't have background noise, pops, and clicks, and they weren't 12 inches wide.

Digital Video quality is 48K/16. That Mini DV camcorder you got for your birthday has better audio quality inside it than your CD player. The trick with a cheap camcorder is to get the quality in and out.

The accuracy of sparkling highs (snare drums, overtones on a live violin) are produced by a higher sample rate. Distortion and noise are lowered by increasing the number of bits.

Cool, crank them all the way up!! Well, as you do that, the sound files get bigger and bigger and keep in mind that as you multi-track, the computer has to play multiple stereo audio tracks at the same time. Sooner or later you run out. "How come my sound track skips while I'm doing flanging effects?" How many huge tracks are you trying to play at the same time?

I have been known to capture live voice at 48K/16 and that worked out OK. I probably should have been using 48K/24, although we should balance that against the fact that the computer was better behaved than my microphone, sound mixer, and announcer were.

It's all relative.

Some CD burning programs demand that the sound they get be at 44.1/16 or they won't work. Audacity doesn't do standards conversion well. I use a different program for that.

Koz

[djphaze]

ok i will use 48000 Hz as default sample rate and 16-bit as default format rate. hopefully this will give me the better sound. thank you!

[djphaze]

ive noticed when i record the left input level meter is a bit higher than the right one. is this normal? if not how can i fix it and make them even?

[kozikowski]

You can correct that with the L-R pan controls to the left of the Audacity track before you export for the final show file. You might also be able to correct that with the Windows Audio Panels. I believe each sound channel has a pan control.

Koz