audacity tips?

liverlipsyyz

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hi. i just started recording some of my songs using audacity. does anyone have any audacity tips that will make the audio sound better? it sounds okay as is but i'm wondering if there's any simple audacity settings that i can apply to the audio that will make it sound fantastic. i noticed aldrine's stuff always sounds like there has been some audio manipulation but i'm not sure exactly what. i've fooled around with gverb a little bit and it sounds pretty cool but i'm looking for even more cool stuff to do. i'm only recording on one track (for voice and uke). thanks!
 
The best feature of Audacity, in my opinion, is the Noise Reduction filter. Cutting out background hiss can make a home recording sound worlds better. First you select a part of the track with no sound, like at the beginning or at the end. Then click Noise Removal and the Get Noise Profile button. Next, select the entire track, go back to Noise Removal and move the slider so it removes the noise, but only just. If the slider is too far to the right, it'll distort the audio, so keep it toward the left. When you have five or six tracks, each with a little hiss, it really adds up.

Also, when you have a track which has gaps in it (like a break in the vocal track where the solo is) silence the track in those areas. Select the part which should be silent, click Edit, then Silence. This will remove unwanted little noises like breathing, chairs creaking and the like, as well as hiss.

That's my advice. Hope it helps.
 
I agree that noise removal is helpful, but be careful in how you use it. If you are trying to remove too much background noise the result will be an alien-like sound, so watch out for that. Also, if there's background noise in the first place, see if you can get a better mic, especially if you're using the one that comes built-in to most computers. If you have one plugged in but the sound isn't changing, go into the settings and make sure the mic you have selected is the one you want to use.

Good luck!
 
I usually normalize all my tracks individually. Then when I mix, I always mix by turning down the gain on tracks. I never move the gain slider on a track above 0db.

I use left/right panning to put some space between the tracks, so that everyone isn't piled on top of each other in the center, aurally speaking.

Once I am happy, I save the project, then delete any muted tracks and select all the remaining tracks and quick mix it down to a single stereo track before I export it as an mp3. I don't save this final mix down, but in the past I had some projects where muted tracks found their way into my final mp3, or mp3 files that just didn't seem to have all my mix settings. Doing the last mix down seems to clear up that problem for me.

As far as effects on tracks, I don't use much of them. I have gverbed a few, but other than normalizing, I don't do that much to them.

I wholeheartedly agree with the upgrade your microphone suggestion, if you are using a cheapy, or a built in. My snowball made a world of difference in recording quality.
 
hi. i just started recording some of my songs using audacity. does anyone have any audacity tips that will make the audio sound better? it sounds okay as is but i'm wondering if there's any simple audacity settings that i can apply to the audio that will make it sound fantastic. i noticed aldrine's stuff always sounds like there has been some audio manipulation but i'm not sure exactly what. i've fooled around with gverb a little bit and it sounds pretty cool but i'm looking for even more cool stuff to do. i'm only recording on one track (for voice and uke). thanks!

Have you looked here?

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Audacity_Wiki_Home_Page

They have a quick cheat sheet for Gverb settings that I like.
 
I think it also depends a lot on what microphone you are using.

I use a USB Condenser mic (Samson C01U) which gives a good, clean recording that I don't need to touch much settings in Audacity.

What are you using?
 
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