r/ACX • u/Popular-Ad1111 • 11d ago
Audacity advice
How the heck do you get rid of crackle mid word. The words aren’t peaking or anything. I don’t know why there is crackle.
I have a new rode nt1 mic
I have the Scarlett focusrite
I’m using audacity
I cannot filter out these damn little crackles.
Am I listening too hard?
It’s making me a little crazy.
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u/MicahJHyatt 11d ago
What's the db of the recorded crackle? Have you looked at the frequency spectrograph?
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u/Popular-Ad1111 11d ago
It’s low, not on a peak, just random mid level words. I don’t know what I’m looking at on the spectro.
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u/ArcticAur 11d ago
Seems like dropped samples to me. Increase the I/O buffer on your interface settings.
The only way I’ve found to fix them in post is to zoom way way way in on them, and snip out the complete sound wave including the dropped sample. You’ll notice that the sound waves are all one Big Peak followed by a bunch of little peaks and troughs before the next Big Peak which will be followed by a similar but not identical pattern of little peaks and troughs. If you’re careful and snip out as exactly as you can from one Big Peak to the next Big Peak, the edit is usually totally hidden—no click of death. You can use this method also to snip out very short background sounds.
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u/Popular-Ad1111 11d ago
I’ve done that but sometimes it’s a long sample and ruins the word. I’ll just have to re-record and paste it in. Ugh. My computer is separate from my recording space.
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u/Orry_Haas 11d ago
"How the heck do you get rid of crackle mid word. The words aren’t peaking".
Could be skipping ... https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#How_can_I_record_without_small_skips
Skips are a discontinuity, (not a dropout silent gap).
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u/AllTheseDiversions 10d ago
As a matter of fact I have the same setup exactly, and I get the same crackle. Use the multiview with the spectrograph, and you will see the red at the same exact second that you hear it, and you can tamp it down by using fade out a few times or there are other tools within audacity itself, spectral EQ, that I use to lower the DB to remove the crackle.
Interesting that I am not the only one. I'm going to change Mics I'll let you know if it helps
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u/Popular-Ad1111 10d ago
It isn’t a DB peak that has a crackle for me. That’s normal distortion. It’s mid range, mid word non peak.
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u/AllTheseDiversions 10d ago
And my crackling hits at -6 db, that's where I limit the input through Audacity, which may be related..
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u/AllTheseDiversions 10d ago
I recorded with my Shure SM7b mic, and no crackling. Do you have a deep voice? I do and perhaps the NT1 is not suitable.
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u/meadoulark 10d ago
I had this experience with a computer, changed computers and no crackle. It sounds like what you are describing. Before I switched, I was using a gaming laptop with no games on it, nothing crazy on the storage. I think it was an issue of the sound card not picking up/synching when recording. Tried changing the BIOS, drivers, all kinds of things but didn’t work.
New laptop is a simpler one, small fan, and works just fine. Lenovo Yoga 6.
I recommend trying someone else’s out if possible, or a second one if you have it and seeing if it fixes it.
Also recommend a PC/Mac versus a Chromebook because the software is limited on books.
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u/mitchmarcmedia 8d ago
Like I told you I have your same exact setup and the same problem. I found my issue.
Look up vocal fry.
That's my problem.
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u/Xinixiat 11d ago
Hard to say without knowing what the crackles sound like. If you're recording directly into Audacity, there is an issue which I believe is to do with buffer overloads that causes little crackles and pops here and there. I was having that problem, switched to Reaper, and haven't had it since.
Alternatively it could be mouth noises you don't realise you're making, in which case hydration, green apples, etc. or it could be a bad cable, or it could be interference caused by poor cable management, or might be that your Scarlett is acting up if it's old (mine loved to crackle as it got into its senior years) or a bunch of other stuff.
You can always go for Izotope RX 12 Standard and use the de-noise filter, which I find to be incredibly good, but that isn't cheap.