JohnRoss Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 Is anybody else having problems with Audacity or Windows sound recorder when using Windows 8. When I listen to audio coming from sources like BBC Radio iPlayer or Youtube directly the quality of the audio is mostly fine. The same is true of music files I have transferred from my old machine running Vista and listening to them on the Windows 8 machine. Windows 8 on this machine is set up for English and French keyboard. However if I use Audacity or Windows 8 sound recorder to record audio being played on the computer on playback there is a strange distortion. Not so noticeable on speech but music sounds like it is coming from under water. I have tried changing recording levels and sample rates but with no good result. The same thing happens to known good recordings loaded into Audacity as a file and again on playback distortion. There is no question of acoustic feedback as there is no mic on the Windows 8 machine and the distortion occurs when the speakers are on or off during the recording. So any thoughts anyone?.................JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted September 4, 2013 Share Posted September 4, 2013 Use Linux [6] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnRoss Posted September 5, 2013 Author Share Posted September 5, 2013 Ok after much fiddling can now load files of music and edit and resave them with no obvious distortion. However distortion very obvious when playing back after recording streaming audio. Not too much of a problem except where you cannot download files as in BBC iPlayer radio. I notice that when recording streaming audio the slider at the top right hand side of the Audacity control panel with the loudspeaker symbol controls recording level which strikes me as being odd. The other slider with the microphone symbol does nothing but then I don't have a mic connected to this machine.........................JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted September 5, 2013 Share Posted September 5, 2013 Are you sure you can't download radio from iPlayer? I download TV programmes with get iPlayer which should in theory work for radio too... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnRoss Posted September 6, 2013 Author Share Posted September 6, 2013 No there are a few progs available, a banner comes up when you go to BBC iPlayer Radio, and they are talking about make downloading, I assume of all progs, available in 2014.............JRPS The daft thing is that if I download stuff and then transfer the file to Audacity all is well but if the audio is streamed from the net or from a file stored in the computer the distortion occurs. In other words it is only recordings of sounds passing through the computer that are distorted on playback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Araucaria Posted September 6, 2013 Share Posted September 6, 2013 [quote user="NormanH"]Use Linux [6][/quote]Norman - Windows 8 is such a disaster area that I'd love to do just that. I've downloaded Ubuntu, and managed to get it installed - which was many times more difficult than I expected, but the so-called "dual boot" doesn't seem to work (so I have to mess around in BIOS to switch), and Ubuntu hasn't found the laptop's Wireless driver - the suggestion appears to be to download it from the internet - tricky if the problem is that you don't have a connection .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted September 6, 2013 Share Posted September 6, 2013 The dual boot worked up until Windows 8. I believe that something was changed with that version which complicated matters, but it comes from the Windows side.I recommend making a bootable USB stick with Unetbootin and using that rather than a CD.You can run Ubuntu from that and then choose to install it or not.I have Ubuntu13.04 on 2 of my computers and 13.10 on the other, and that one has a dual boot with Window7.It is true that an ethernet connection to your box is a good idea when you first install and update, but I have never had a problem with the Wireless driver after that initial install. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Araucaria Posted September 7, 2013 Share Posted September 7, 2013 Thanks Norman. I'll try the ethernet connection eventually, of course - it was just very inconvenient. I may also try 12.10 if that is what you mean (I went for 13.04).Has 13.10 been released now? Aren't the numbers the year/month of the release? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted September 7, 2013 Share Posted September 7, 2013 12.04 was the last Long term release and will be supported for 5 years.I am on 13.04 BUT one one machine I am on 13.10 development version as I test things on it and it isn't my main computer.You are right about the numbers.13.04 was released in 2013 in the 4th month... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnRoss Posted September 8, 2013 Author Share Posted September 8, 2013 As an experiment I have downloaded a trial copy of Wondershare streaming audio recorder. This does not produce the distortion that I am hearing with Windows recorder or Audacity. So I can download music with Wondershare and then transfer the file and edit with Audacity but it is strange that Wondershare works ok in Windows 8 and Audacity and Windows own recorder has this problem.................JR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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