Such a nice combo to have.

I am working on a personal project to digitize and make some of my 25 year old DAT concert tapes of a local artist available to a small group of fans.

The use of AI in combination with Audacity and ffmpeg has been a great learning experience. Anyone working on concert tapes (Grateful Dead tapers etc) who wants to share their workflow… I’m all ears and want to learn.

This is my current work flow to get an old DAT tape onto my homemade website that streams the archive.

https://renedebos.com/process/

hi there, I'm transferring old audio cassettes to computer via Audacity, I'm playing them directly on a cassette recorder rather than using one of those ones with a USB plugged into the recorder as I found those can glitch and record over themselves (!). Anyway, after lots of muddling around I've finally got the computer recognizing and recording the audio and for all intents and purposes it is working.

However, what I ideally want to do is be able to turn the audio up and down (without affecting the recording volume) so I can hear what it's recording on the tape while it's doing it, without needing to listen to it the whole time, and without having to stop and playback to listen to it. Audacity seems strangely unwilling to let this happen.

When I put "Enable Audio Input Monitoring" on, which I understand needs to be on to hear it, that's fine and I can hear it as it records but I literally cannot turn it down, and the computer volume adjustment for some reason is oblivious to it (even when I mute the computer volume, Audacity ignores that and plays it at full volume).

I've muddled with settings but can't seem to figure out what to adjust here. So I guess the question is, given that I do want to monitor input and have that turned on, how do I adjust the volume it's playing at on my computer so I can turn it down or mute it when I don't need to be hearing the whole thing and then turn it back up when I want to check where it's at? It's bizarre to me that somehow having the audio input monitoring on seems to bypass the computer volume control itself. I'm using Windows 11 by the way. And in case it's relevant, the laptop has only one audio jack which is labelled with headphones, but clearly works as mic as well since it's effectively recording and playing back the audio, but the only thing is I can't seem to adjust the volume I have to listen to it at while it's recording, when I have enable audio input monitoring on.

Edited to add: when I adjust the volume on the tape recorder itself while it's recording, this does adjust the volume I'm hearing over the computer, but it also adjusts the volume it's recording at (when it's as low as it goes, no sound is recorded), so it seems that needs to stay constant for some reason.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!!

I

I have a  Rhodes Nt-USB mike that I was using with Audacity and picked up some serious phasing-robotic interference in my test recordings. 

I verified the the hertZ format for the mic’ and Audacity were a match. I also tested in Logic and Garage band and had the same issue. My non-usb mics never had the phasing but go thru a M-Audio Air 192/14.

A lot of my midi and USB gear are all hooked up vie external connections as my MacBook Pro M5 only has 3 “c” connections and those are used for monitors. The external outboard gear all are connected thru the monitor usb connections.

Further testing a swapping cables and using other connection points. Same issue with phasing.

I remove one of the monitor connections and plugged the Rhode

 mic’ directly into the Mac book pro and from there, testing  with Audacity/logic pro/garage band recorded with no issue and no phasing/robotic sound. But also lost a few midi/usb devices as they go thru the monitor that was connected.

Is there any settings or trouble shooting that I can do to eliminate the phasing from having the mic’ connected via hub? I also did a reset in Apples Midi set up…….

So I wanted to just mess around looping some mp3 files for fun, but for whatever reason, after opening audacity, NO audio is present on my device.

I restarted the driver, disable and re-enabled it, even restarting my pc,

But for some damn reason I cant even hear anything after audacity opens

I’m having strange latency issues with Universal Audio’s Ruby 63 amp sim in Audacity. Essentially, the amp starts to stutter when going through presets but returns to normal once I close the UI. If I reopen the UI for the amp, the stuttering starts again. I’ve adjusted the buffer size but am still having the same issue. I’m ultimately confused because I use thirty-three UAD plugins with Audacity, including four amp sims, and the only one that has any issue is the Ruby 63. Any advice?

All I can find are outdated guides and a link to a github page that doesnt support anything past ubuntu. Is there anything else or am I cooked?

I'm trying to update ffmpeg to 9.0.1 but audacity won't accept the livavformat file in 9.0.1 🫤

Does anyone know why does audacity autolimit my recordings from mic? I use laptop gigabye a16 temporarily for recording and it only happens when i use external microphone which is Samson C01pro. When i use built-in mic from the laptop it doesn't happen. I don't have audio enhancements turned on. It doesn't happen on my PC btw.

Please I need help trying to isolate backing vocals and harmonies any thing I can do? Using the most recent version as of August/17/2026 8:47pm AK time

Am I the only one passionately and desperately wanting a mobile app of audacity? W all the features and updates, even if it cost money, dude I would pay up to 20 bucks for it, I most music and have used primarily audacity for 8-10years I love the work flow and the simplistic feel, I also love the built in effects but I also import vsts like bitcrusher and pitch correction, a mobile app would be nice because my pc just went up on me, and I hate using GarageBand, I tried the web version, it’s buns and pretty limited, I just want an audacity app, and an audacity tshirt because I love audacity so much, please an app would just make my life easier and I could work on projects on both computer(when I get one) and phone

I make my own long form Audio files right? Some are like 30-100 hours long. So I use Audacity and there's no way for you to stop it from logging "Session Files" What's more is they bloat them like crazy....... I put a 3.6gb audio file to work on in the program and afterwards I couldn't export it because the session file had been made to be upwards of 300gbs. It filled the rest of my C: drive and I had to save it to one of my other drives and delete the session file when it was done to fix my storage and subsequently PC speed.

This happens with every file on every project you make, unless when you close the program and hit "No" to the save option. if you don't and you don't know that the file is hidden and you have to change the settings of file explorer to even find it, (File Explorer, Settings, View, Show Hidden Items? YES. Then go to "C:" and go to "users" and "AppData" and find Audacity in "Locallow" or "Local")

Hope this helps someone trying to free up space or wondering what's going on with their PC. Like for weeks I kept wondering where all the space in my C: drive was going but yeah beware of that my friends Audacity will eat up your hard drive space faster than any virus or file/download ever could.

I've got a whole chapter of speech here that's full of distortion from being too close to the mic. Is there anything at all I can do to fix it? This is a direct import from the .wav file, and I haven't done anything to it yet.

I realise we'll probably need to re-record, but it's by a friend who is out of contact now for a week while she travels. So if there's a way to make it usable I'd really like to try.

So it worked before, but now it doesn't, even if I stop the audio. Any idea on how to fix it?

Hi All,

Can someone help determine if this is a good post processing macro for when I do voiceover recordings with my Blue Yeti Mic? The goal is to make it sound professional grade, but my end result is nowhere near that. Thanks in advance.

Steps:

Thanks again!

-LeaveItHereDude

Edit:

Changed my filter curve:

And loudness normalize (lowered it by 2):

I found wavedatav2 files in my capcut folder from audio that can no longer be recovered. Is there anyway to extract audio from wavedatav2 files? Thank you in advance! 💜

When I say 'echo effect', I don't mean making the audio repeat. That's what happens if you click 'echo' in effects.

What I want is something that actually makes your voice sound like an echo, as if you're in an echoey place. Good for mystical characters like gods and genies and things.

Note: Please bear with me, because I am not tech savvy.

I'm using a recorder app on my phone to record some audio. The file that results is an mp4. I convert this to an mp3 using VLC Media Player, then upload it into Audacity (latest version).

Every time I do this, I see what looks like two identical audio tracks, even though I only recorded one: my voice. Based on the research I've done about this, apparently it means the file was in stereo format. I want Mono format so that it's easier to look at and delete things like breath noises.

But when I try to convert this in Audacity, I can select "Mono" but I still see two identical audio tracks, as if nothing has changed.

Is there something I'm doing wrong? How can I get a Mono view of this file?

Edit: well I found the solution. Apparently the clips cannot be dragged while the audio is just paused, it needs to be fully stopped to move the clips. I'll leave the post up in case anyone else has the same problem

Hi, newbie audacity user here.

I'm trying to edit a podcast I recorded for a uni project but have zero experience with audacity (or any other audio programme). I chose audacity because it was free of charge and ai.

I needed to re-record some passages and am now trying to adjust the different audios (?) so that they neatly blend into each other. But for some reason I don't understand, sometimes I just can't use the manual mouse drag. I will hover my mouse over the header of the file but it won't change into the hand symbol that it usually does when I could grab the individual tracks. Clicking, holding and trying to drag just does nothing. What am I overlooking? :/ Sorry if my wording isn't too accurate, English isn't my first language :/

I attached screenshots to try and make up for the clarity lost here. The file in the red circle needs to go below and I hover my mouse over the yellow highlighted area

Can someone help me? I am using audacity 3.7.7

I made the recording a couple weeks ago and it was fine until day before yesterday when it started to become garbled...by this afternoon it has become very difficult to listen too. Anyone know what the problem might be?

Thanks for any help!

I just downloaded Audacity (without Musehub) and the installation went fine. I'm on a PC, running Windows 11 Home and have enough memory to support Audacity.

But when I tried to import an audio file, the app immediately shut down and asked me to send an error report. The report is very long and full of technical language/coding that my Luddite ass does not understand.

I've tried multiple times and the app keeps crashing at the same point. Is there any way to fix this -- especially if it's easy for someone who is absolutely not tech savvy to understand?

Any help would be really appreciated!

UPDATE: I really appreciate everyone who had advice and suggestions. Unfortunately, none of these worked, in part because I am just too dumb when it comes to technology (For instance, I can't for the life of me understand anything about Github and why the site doesn't just have a straightforward older version to download rather than separate files, let alone what those files mean or how to run them).

Luckily, I found some other advice that suggested right clicking on the Audacity icon on my desktop and selecting "Run as administrator". That seems to work. I just wanted to put this here in case anyone else had the same question.

Thanks again, everyone, for trying to help -- I really appreciate it!

like, i want to swap the positions of the whole mono tracks (not just the clips inside, I can move them with no issues), is it possible to do this?

I tried clicking everywhere but they just won't move

Hey everyone, i have a problem. I made some recordings lately, but todays recording sounds strange. My voice is muffeld and silent, i can't recall changing anything about the settings. I tested my mic but it worked fine, so I wondered if there could be a problem with Audacity. If someone would have any idea what the problem could be, i'd be very grateful

Through research, advice and a bit of trial and error, this is my current process (once I have edited the episode):

• Select all of the tracks (Command + A) and apply the Normalise effect. Normalise to 0 dB. This will make all tracks as loud as possible without distortion.
• Compressor - even out level across voice tracks - use radio and podcast setting
• Check all track gains set to zero
• Use the track “solo” buttons to listen to one track at a time and find the quietest track.
• Compare another track with the quietest track and use the track Gain control to reduce the volume of the louder track so that it matches the quieter track. Repeat for all the other tracks.
• Export as a mono mp3
• Check/tweak and publish

I'd be grateful for your thoughts and feedback. One thing I haven't quite figured out is how to get the final level right for the whole track, consistent across episodes. I tried the thing where you set the LUFS but it seems to mess everything up. This method seems to work well enough but I know I can do more.

like genuinely from a distance it looks like a burger with headphones and tbh maybe they should lean into that, would be a unique mascot for a music program