Muffled Voice

[blemoine93]

The audio sounds muffled when played back, almost as if talking through a bubble. Is there some settings i could use to clear up the audio?

[barry.beattie]

Hi

"muffled" usually means there's a lack of clarity from the top end of the frequency range (treble) - full of midrange (and if applicable, bass).

if it was recorded like that, because the source is deficient, there's not a lot you CAN do.

First of all, are you SURE the souce recording is muffled - you've played it back on multiple speaker systems (including quality headphones) and it sounds bad on all of them? I'm just trying to suggest proof that it is NOT your monitoring system that's deficient.

So, if it was recorded "muffled", you need to ask yourself why to not let it happen again - poor microphone/source that was used? Poor placement of microphone (or incorrect setup of soundcard recording)?

But to fix the current problem... the only way I can think of is to boost the trebble frequencies to ridiculous amounts to promote the "intellegibility" of the recording. If it's muffled, you probably have no frequencies above, say, 6kHz-20kHz so there's no point boosting those frequencies.

There MAY BE just a little of the upper-midrange/lower trebble frequencies you could add stupid amounts of boost to - try all the frequencies from 2kHz to 6kHz, although if there's any background noise you run the risk of also boosting those frequencies so they can be heard clearer (unfortunately).

If that is doing something, but not enough, try also reducing the midrange and getting rid of some bass.

There is no point keeping frequencies below 120Hz - boomy bass contributes to a loss of clarity in actually hearing something. Also consider reducing some of the midrange frequencies around 400Hz - this is the "thick" part of a voice, especially for males.

The Nyquest equaliser plugins are well suited to do this work - the equaliser plugin for boosting the upper midrange and reducing the lower midrange, and the High Pass Filter for getting rid of frequencies below 120Hz. The help file and lots of experimentation will help you learn how to use them. Be prepared to use a plugin multiple times with different settings as you experiment with what frequencies to boost and what to pull back. As always let your ears be the judge - provided your monitors/speakers/headphones are giving you an accurate sound to help guide you... here's no point trying this on cheap little computer speakers... $200+ headphones (not gamers headsets) are much better suited to giving you trusted results.

Good luck
B

[Gale Andrews]

The audio sounds muffled when played back, almost as if talking through a bubble. Is there some settings i could use to clear up the audio?

Are you recording voice with a microphone? If so, see if this FAQ helps: Why do my recordings fade out or sound as if they were made in a tunnel?


Gale

[kozikowski]

You didn't post what you were recording. Is it your voice? What kind of microphone do you have?

Koz

[kozikowski]

This is a "Middle Of The Movie" forum post. We walked in to the movie with the popcorn, but it had already been running for 45 minutes and we're lost.

The question should read:

I'm using a standard Blue Yeti microphone to record my voice for an AudioBook. I'm recording in Audacity 2.1.3 in a Windows 7 GateWay laptop.Everything seems to work OK, but when I Stop and play back the track, my voice is bubbly and muffled.

Correct the parts I missed.

Koz

[pslacerda]

Hi, you can use the Effect "Filter Curve", go to the Manage and Preview some Factory Presets.

[steve]

Hi, you can use the Effect "Filter Curve", go to the Manage and Preview some Factory Presets.

Yes you could do that now, but in 2017 when this topic was written, Audacity didn't have a "Filter Curve" effect.