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

Scarbo · Post by **Scarbo** » September 29th, 2020, 11:42 am

Does importing and exporting a file in and out of Audacity a lot cause the sound quality to become lossy? I've had to do...a lot of editing to a recording I'm working on, and I seem to notice that the older sections sound a little hissy compared to new sections I've had to edit in.

Post by **TriciaG** » September 29th, 2020, 11:43 am

Exporting to MP3 and re-importing from it, multiple times, will cause a degradation of quality. Exporting to and importing from FLAC or WAV will not - they're lossless file types. (FLAC ends up as a smaller file size than WAV.)

Scarbo · Post by **Scarbo** » September 29th, 2020, 11:53 am

Ah, OK, thanks! I'll use one of those formats from now on.

loon · Post by **loon** » September 29th, 2020, 1:52 pm

Scarbo wrote: ↑September 29th, 2020, 11:42 am Does importing and exporting a file in and out of Audacity a lot cause the sound quality to become lossy? I've had to do...a lot of editing to a recording I'm working on, and I seem to notice that the older sections sound a little hissy compared to new sections I've had to edit in.

And, of course, you can save your project in the Audacity native format (.aup).

Kalamareader · Post by **Kalamareader** » September 30th, 2020, 8:21 pm

I am having problems with Audacity and flac. My main question is: is there anywhere in Audacity that shows you exactly what file you have up on the screen?

Wayne

loon · Post by **loon** » September 30th, 2020, 8:26 pm

You can do a File >> Save As. It will default to the directory your file is in and the exact filename. You can cancel out of the save if it is what you expected.

Kalamareader · Post by **Kalamareader** » September 30th, 2020, 9:10 pm

Shasta · Post by **Shasta** » October 1st, 2020, 11:44 am

Every once in awhile when I am attempting to edit a recording, I apparently accidentally click on something that makes the whole track drop down so that only the top half of it is visible. In other words, the "zero" level (at the left end) is at the bottom instead of the middle. Then I have to go through all sorts of machinations to have the track where is belongs. Usually I have to save the whole thing and then past it into a new, empty track. Is there a way, when this track problem happens, to easily move the track back up where it should be?

pschempf · Post by **pschempf** » October 1st, 2020, 11:54 am

The first option under the Edit menu in Audacity is Undo. I'm not sure it will solve your problem, but it would be worth a try.

Post by **Rapunzelina** » October 1st, 2020, 12:03 pm

Shasta wrote: ↑October 1st, 2020, 11:44 am Every once in awhile when I am attempting to edit a recording, I apparently accidentally click on something that makes the whole track drop down so that only the top half of it is visible. In other words, the "zero" level (at the left end) is at the bottom instead of the middle. Then I have to go through all sorts of machinations to have the track where is belongs. Usually I have to save the whole thing and then past it into a new, empty track. Is there a way, when this track problem happens, to easily move the track back up where it should be?

This sounds like a zoom issue. If it happens again, try right clicking on the space with the numbers (0 level, 0.5, etc) and choose "Zoom reset" to see if it helps.

Post by **TriciaG** » October 1st, 2020, 12:23 pm

Shasta wrote: ↑October 1st, 2020, 11:44 am Every once in awhile when I am attempting to edit a recording, I apparently accidentally click on something that makes the whole track drop down so that only the top half of it is visible. In other words, the "zero" level (at the left end) is at the bottom instead of the middle. Then I have to go through all sorts of machinations to have the track where is belongs. Usually I have to save the whole thing and then past it into a new, empty track. Is there a way, when this track problem happens, to easily move the track back up where it should be?

You left-clicked the vertical scale on the left. Right-click it. (It takes some extra clicks one way or the other.) I do this all.the.time.

EDIT: Rapunzelina says the same thing, easier than I did.

Shasta · Post by **Shasta** » October 2nd, 2020, 2:34 pm

Thank you for your suggestions regarding the wave drop. I haven't yet figured out the solution, but at least I know where I made my mistake and where i may be able to correct it.

Now I have another question about another annoying problem. I use an iMac computer for doing my recording and record with a Yeti (Blue) Multidirectional Stereo Microphone. Much of the time everything proceeds pretty well and then, out of the blue, I get this error message:

"Error opening recording device.
Error Code - 9997 Invalid Sample Rate."

There is a link that gives more information about this error code. For this code number is says that I should be sure that my Audacity "sample rate" matches the sample rate of my "device". The Audacity sample rate 44100 Hz. The recording device is my Yeti (Blue) Stereo Microphone and, at the moment, I have no idea what its "sample rate" is, if it has one. It is certainly nothing that I have fiddled with that should cause this error message to pop up.

Shasta · Post by **Shasta** » October 2nd, 2020, 3:18 pm

I think I found the solution. When the error problem comes up, if I simply Quit Audacity and then bring it back, the fresh Audacity window doesn't come up with the error message when I try to record.

pnagami · Post by **pnagami** » October 10th, 2020, 10:02 am

Hi Everyone,

I have upgraded to a new computer (Lenovo Yoga C740 running Windows 10) and have downloaded the latest version of Audacity. Everything was working fine, but while editing a file, I noticed that the volume had gone from 89 to 75 db and when I tried to amplify it back, I couldn't do so without clipping. I must have touched something wrong on the touch screen. Any ideas?

My best,

Pam

Post by **TriciaG** » October 10th, 2020, 10:28 am

Did you bump the little Gain slider on the left side of the track?