The all-new "HELP! I have an Audacity problem" thread

Post your questions & get help from friendly LibriVoxers
annise
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 38572
Joined: April 3rd, 2008, 3:55 am
Location: Melbourne,Australia

Post by annise »

You need to be very careful merging tracks together ever - they may not be the same for a number of reasons - that's why you get warned :D

Anne
lurcherlover
Posts: 1206
Joined: November 10th, 2016, 3:54 am
Location: LONDON UK

Post by lurcherlover »

annise wrote:You need to be very careful merging tracks together ever - they may not be the same for a number of reasons - that's why you get warned :D

Anne
Are you talking about merging a stereo track into mono in Audacity. You could well be correct, I don't know how Audacity carries this out. It works fine in Reaper. However, recording using "mono summed" is usually fine and I do it all the time, using just one mic.

Peter
JayS
Posts: 138
Joined: November 2nd, 2017, 9:57 pm
Location: Las Vegas NV, USA
Contact:

Post by JayS »

Hi lurcherlover,
You are correct for most of the time. There is an exception and that is in regard to plugins. There are many plugins that when used carelessly will cause your mono track to suddenly go stereo. I am not sure of all the plugins that come with Audacity, but it is possible to use plugins from other sources. I have made that mistake with a Waves plugin in the stereo version in Audacity and it did indeed cause the change. So the method I prefer is the one I posted above in this thread because it overrides that possible mistake and saves frustration.

JayS
Jay Salam
Nothing sounds as good as audio! 8-)
lurcherlover
Posts: 1206
Joined: November 10th, 2016, 3:54 am
Location: LONDON UK

Post by lurcherlover »

JayS wrote:Hi lurcherlover,
You are correct for most of the time. There is an exception and that is in regard to plugins. There are many plugins that when used carelessly will cause your mono track to suddenly go stereo. I am not sure of all the plugins that come with Audacity, but it is possible to use plugins from other sources. I have made that mistake with a Waves plugin in the stereo version in Audacity and it did indeed cause the change. So the method I prefer is the one I posted above in this thread because it overrides that possible mistake and saves frustration.

JayS
Yes, I agree that careless use of plugins can cause problems. Generally I avoid using plugins unless I have to.
Carod
Posts: 148
Joined: June 20th, 2016, 2:36 am

Post by Carod »

Many thanks everyone for your suggestions, but...

No joy! :cry:

GrayHouse - when I click over my Pan slider it says "center"
The slider above it says Gain 0.0

The track info box at left of the waveform says Mono, 44100Hz, 32bit float (is that float bit correct?)

philchenevert, I've been into Preferences > Devices, and checked Channel is 1 (Mono)

JayS - I don't have File> Save Other, do you mean Save Project As? If I go through there I only get the option to save as Audacity projects (*.aup), nothing about bit rate, file type, quality etc. Please tell me if I am being totally, utterly dim! :(

I have restarted audacity, checked the above, recorded a completely different test track from the one I was originally trying to export, and still only get export options of stereo or joint stereo.

Can anyone suggest anything else which could be the problem? I am completely stalled in the middle of a solo project... :cry:

Thanks for anything anyone can suggest, I will follow up all leads.
dlolso21
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 4827
Joined: January 11th, 2011, 12:13 pm

Post by dlolso21 »

Carod,

Which version of Audacity are you using (open Audacity, then click Help, then click About Audacity) ?

Check your preference settings (see http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/import_export_preferences.html#export )
Accessed by: Edit > Preferences > Import Export (on a Mac Audacity > Preferences > Import Export )

David O
Carod
Posts: 148
Joined: June 20th, 2016, 2:36 am

Post by Carod »

Hi David

Many thanks for getting back to me on this so quickly. I have Audacity 2.1.2

I had already been through all the preferences at length, and all looked right, but I *may* just have found a band-aid (if not an answer to why this oddness is happening in the first place):

After finding comments on the Audacity forum from users having exactly the same problem back in 20112(!) I thought I would just try setting the import/export setting under Edit>Preferences to "custom mix". I then rather confusingly still only get radio buttons for "stereo" or "joint stereo" but after hitting Save I then get a box which allows me to shows the channel already at 1, and if I save from there, Checker seems to accept the resulting mp3.

This is odd and confusing though, and I don't understand why I should suddenly have to do this, having never needed to before, so if you are able to suggest how to fix the problem (rather than implement a work-around) I would be very grateful.

Caro
JayS
Posts: 138
Joined: November 2nd, 2017, 9:57 pm
Location: Las Vegas NV, USA
Contact:

Post by JayS »

Hi Caro,
I don't know if I can answer your questions, but I will try.
First, I am on an iMac running Sierra 10.12.6. Not High Sierra. For audio, it is always a mistake to update your OS too soon.
I have a number of DAWs, including Audacity, which I like better than some of the expensive software I have.
My version of Audacity is 2.2.0.
I tend to do my editing in Studio One as I am very familiar with it so I am faster there. However, If not using that, I might just edit in Audacity.
Studio One doesn't like to export a mono file, so once I have finished my edits I export to a stereo file on my desktop and then open it in Audacity.
Once there I go to Tracks/Mix/Mix Stereo down to Mono and employ that function.
The stereo file is now mono.
Then I always use Effect/Normalize in Audacity to be sure the levels and the bias are both correct. Be sure that "Remove DC offset" is checked, as well as "Normalize maximum amplitude to ???".
Then I use Shift,Command,E (all at once, this is the keyboard command for exporting.) In this resulting Save Box, do the following. Set the file name to the Librivox Protocols. No Caps, No Spaces, Use Underscores to separate words, etc.
In the Where box, select destination. I use my desktop since that makes it easy to find and once approved I can trash it.
Under File type: choose MP3 Files.
In the Format Options section:
1. Bit Rate Mode: Constant
2. Quality: 128 kbps
3. Channel Mode; Check Force export to mono.
4. Click Save

If you have done everything else right, the resulting file will be acceptable to the Checker.
If your file is too loud or to soft, adjust with Normalizer and re-export using the steps above.

Now I will say that there are other ways to get the same result, but I have VERY good reasons for choosing this method. The more times you change an MP3 file, the poorer the quality will be. This keeps the file as near original as possible while still adhering to the Librivox protocols.

I hope there is something in the above that will help you.

Jay
Jay Salam
Nothing sounds as good as audio! 8-)
Carod
Posts: 148
Joined: June 20th, 2016, 2:36 am

Post by Carod »

Thank you for taking the time for such a detailed reply, JayS. Unfortunately I am a Windows user so I don't seem to get the same options as you. In particular, the options I get when exporting a file just seem to be completely different.

But you have included some very useful tips on sound editing. That is not where my skill lies, I am very much finding my own way with Audacity so far, so I will certainly try some of those things out. Thanks very much for the suggestions.

If I could ask just one cheeky question... I seem to get a lot of random, static-sounding clicks through my recordings, which don't relate to my speech. I am using a Samson C01U microphone which seems to produce a generally good quality recording and I don't know what is causing them. Can you recommend what tool might be best to remove those? I see there is a click removal tool but it seems not to affect them (or maybe I am using it wrong).

I think I would really benefit from some decent Audacity tutorials. Am I best to look on the Web for those?

Many thanks

Carod
JayS
Posts: 138
Joined: November 2nd, 2017, 9:57 pm
Location: Las Vegas NV, USA
Contact:

Post by JayS »

Hi Caro,
I can't recommend a specific tool without hearing the clicks. You could email me a file using my gmail account. jaysalam AT gmail.com is the address.
I will listen and maybe then I can figure a reason for the clicks.

Jay
email edited by admin
Jay Salam
Nothing sounds as good as audio! 8-)
tovarisch
Posts: 2936
Joined: February 24th, 2013, 7:14 am
Location: New Hampshire, USA

Post by tovarisch »

Just an observation - private discussions are useful, no doubt. However, a group discussion is usually better when a solution is sought.

Caro, if you need more knowledgeable people to try to help you with that sound, upload it to 'tests' or 'xx-nonproject' and post the link here. That was more will be able to listen and make suggestions.

Also consider searching the forum threads. There recently was a discussion on "mouth noises" or "mouth clicks" or something like that. A "de-clicker" plug-in was suggested. Some folks actually use it successfully, as far as I could judge.

Jay, if you aren't fond of spam, avoid posting your e-mail address in plain text. One of the pieces of data robotic crawlers (bots) look for is e-mail addresses to add to their mailing lists.

Good luck!
tovarisch
  • reality prompts me to scale down my reading, sorry to say
    to PLers: do correct my pronunciation please
JayS
Posts: 138
Joined: November 2nd, 2017, 9:57 pm
Location: Las Vegas NV, USA
Contact:

Post by JayS »

Thanks for the email tip tovarisch. I appreciate it.
One reason for having Caro send to me was for prevention of clutter in this thread until I could possibly discover the source of her clicks. Sometimes, using my RX6 Advanced software, I am able to figure out what kind of click it is. Electrical grounding clicks aren't the same as mouth noises or clicks caused by low computer resources or any one of many different noises. Once a source of noise is discovered, I am happy to post here with examples. I enjoy this type of work.

Jay
Jay Salam
Nothing sounds as good as audio! 8-)
Carod
Posts: 148
Joined: June 20th, 2016, 2:36 am

Post by Carod »

Thank you very much Both. If I am going about things the wrong way, I do apologise, please put it down to ignorance. JayS, you said a very interesting thing which might be a clue. My laptop computer is starting to creak a little bit through age, and I notice the odd "stutter"- e.g. in it displaying the waveform - while it catches up. I wonder if that could be a smoking gun? That said, the clicks appear both on their own and accompanying speech (which is otherwise ok)… :hmm:

Tovarisch - again, thanks, I have searched forums ad insanitum (I just made that term up, BTW :lol: ) and I have ended up removing each click individually or rerecording the sections where they occur. At the moment, editing takes several times as long as the reading part which is what I enjoy; a real chore :roll:

Having just conquered Audacity's completely inexplicable refusal to export a mono track to a mono MP3, I will be recording my next track soon and will forward an example for analysis.

Again, many thanks, your help is very appreciated. I will also go looking for in-depth Audacity tutorials, as I am sure I am missing a whole bunch of tricks currently.

Caro
tovarisch
Posts: 2936
Joined: February 24th, 2013, 7:14 am
Location: New Hampshire, USA

Post by tovarisch »

A search on "de clicker" yields, among others, this thread: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=872&start=165&hilit=de+clicker, in which you can find (among recent posts)
TriciaG wrote:Have you tried the de-clicker plug-in? viewtopic.php?f=23&t=52753
This is what I've referred to.
tovarisch
  • reality prompts me to scale down my reading, sorry to say
    to PLers: do correct my pronunciation please
Carod
Posts: 148
Joined: June 20th, 2016, 2:36 am

Post by Carod »

Many thanks, I'll take a look.
Post Reply