tobyrho
Member
Posts: 13
I Am A(n): Aspiring Voice Actor
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Post by tobyrho on Sept 23, 2019 6:25:04 GMT -8
Hey there! I've been using Audacity with my Audiobox USB and my Neewer NW-700 and I've been experiencing a recording problem since forever that I couldnt troubleshoot since I somehow couldnt find someone with the same problem as me (but I'm not sure if it is a problem) My audio can't go over a certain threshhold no matter what I do. The end result always makes my recording too quiet or if I turn the gain up, just making the sound quality worse without increasing the threshold. Exxagerated it looks like this and I'm not sure if it's supposed to: I hope I explained my problem well and I'd be incredibly thankful if someone, who had more experience than I do, could help me. Thank you very much for your time!
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sensy
Member
Posts: 2
I Am A(n): Audio Engineer
Pronouns: Any OK
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Post by sensy on Sept 23, 2019 11:39:54 GMT -8
Hi! So this is a common problem with a lot of interfaces. With the audiobox, windows recognizes the inputs as a pair of stereo inputs (a left signal and a right signal) rather than 2 mono inputs. So Audacity will treat the audiobox inputs as stereo as well. Then when you go to select to record in mono, you record input number 1 (which windows recognizes as the left input). What you're hearing is a lot of distortion when you start to reach the 0.5 mark, this is known as clipping. Clipping is when a computer runs out of space to fit how loud something is so it hits a threshold, which is what you're seeing. Normally with a mono signal you would hit this clipping threshold at 1.0 (or 0db on the green meter up top).
The problem you're experiencing is that windows will reduce the signal by half when you record because it's treating the signal as stereo. So instead of clipping at 1.0, you start to clip at 0.5 (Since two signals, a left and a right, would add up to 1.0). To fix this, don't worry if your recordings look a little bit low as you're recording, and keep the gain on your interface such that you're not reaching the .5 mark on the audio track (or -6db if you're using the green level meter up top to check). After you're done recording use the -/+ slider on the track to boost the signal by +6.0db, this should bring it up to it's "real" volume.
Let me know if this helps or if you have any more questions!
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Post by robertddl on Sept 24, 2019 0:32:42 GMT -8
Or you record in stereo, and then use "Tracks" / "Stereo Track to Mono" to convert it to mono - that way, you can record with a peak level of (close to) 0dB (100%).
To make sure gain isn't set too high, speak really loud - so loud that you'll never be louder when you record - set the recording volume so that you get close to 0dB (100%), then stop, and zoom in at one of the loudest parts of your recording until you look at the individual waves. If the highest peaks are flattened, then the gain is too high, and you have clipping at the interface. (That's when you do NOT reach 0dB in Audacity. If the waves are flattened because they bump against the 0dB ceiling, then the recording volume is too high. Duffy has explained this well in her "Tech Tutorial: Gain, and why it isn't a volume knob" article in the "Guides: Technical" section.)
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tobyrho
Member
Posts: 13
I Am A(n): Aspiring Voice Actor
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Post by tobyrho on Sept 24, 2019 11:58:04 GMT -8
Hi! So this is a common problem with a lot of interfaces. With the audiobox, windows recognizes the inputs as a pair of stereo inputs (a left signal and a right signal) rather than 2 mono inputs. So Audacity will treat the audiobox inputs as stereo as well. Then when you go to select to record in mono, you record input number 1 (which windows recognizes as the left input). What you're hearing is a lot of distortion when you start to reach the 0.5 mark, this is known as clipping. Clipping is when a computer runs out of space to fit how loud something is so it hits a threshold, which is what you're seeing. Normally with a mono signal you would hit this clipping threshold at 1.0 (or 0db on the green meter up top). The problem you're experiencing is that windows will reduce the signal by half when you record because it's treating the signal as stereo. So instead of clipping at 1.0, you start to clip at 0.5 (Since two signals, a left and a right, would add up to 1.0). To fix this, don't worry if your recordings look a little bit low as you're recording, and keep the gain on your interface such that you're not reaching the .5 mark on the audio track (or -6db if you're using the green level meter up top to check). After you're done recording use the -/+ slider on the track to boost the signal by +6.0db, this should bring it up to it's "real" volume. Let me know if this helps or if you have any more questions! I interpreted the last part as saying I need to amplify my recordings by 6.0db which seemed to fix the problem that I was having. Thank you very very much for your advice! Also it gave me some really nice insight on how some audio-processing works!
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tobyrho
Member
Posts: 13
I Am A(n): Aspiring Voice Actor
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Post by tobyrho on Sept 24, 2019 12:02:44 GMT -8
Or you record in stereo, and then use "Tracks" / "Stereo Track to Mono" to convert it to mono - that way, you can record with a peak level of (close to) 0dB (100%). To make sure gain isn't set too high, speak really loud - so loud that you'll never be louder when you record - set the recording volume so that you get close to 0dB (100%), then stop, and zoom in at one of the loudest parts of your recording until you look at the individual waves. If the highest peaks are flattened, then the gain is too high, and you have clipping at the interface. (That's when you do NOT reach 0dB in Audacity. If the waves are flattened because they bump against the 0dB ceiling, then the recording volume is too high. Duffy has explained this well in her "Tech Tutorial: Gain, and why it isn't a volume knob" article in the "Guides: Technical" section.) I was already aware that I need to watch out for peaking even at my lower ceiling but thank you very much regardeless for your help! Luckily I've been able to fix the problem but I'm gonna check Duffy's channel out. I'm hoping to gain more knowledge about microphones, interfaces and audio editing so this might be a good first step! Thank you very much for offering your time again!
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