Wavepad is auto leveling my recordings in a weird way

bnwflix

I recently attempted to record audio from a youtube video. It was of chiming bells. They chimed, then the sound of the chime slowly and evenly diminished. But when I recorded it with wavepad, the diminish suddenly dives down in volume about halfway through the diminish. You can see it in the wave in the recording. It's slowly diminishing, then it just dives down. It happens no matter what volume I record it at, and it definitely is not what the original does. In fact, I can record it accurately with the soundtap. But why can't I do it with the wavepad?

N_C_H_Isaias

Dear @bnwflix

I understand what the situation is, in Soundtap the audio is recorded from a filter installed in your system, so that means that the same audio that is being send to your speakers is being captured digitally by the filter and ends up being recorded in Soundtap; but Wavepad does not have that characteristic, so most likely you are recording what your speakers are playing through a microphone built-in or external, which is most of the cases will not be able to capture the sound exactly as it is being played by the speakers.

By saying that, I will recommend you to use Soundtap for your online streams or if you want to record whatever is being played through your speakers. And Wavepad for editions and recording but from a microphone.

Regards,

bnwflix

The wavepad device is (default sound in) and the input is 'Windows Record Mixer'. I'm running the sound back from my receiver. I'd be surprised (but I'm not an expert) if I'm recording on Wavepad via a microphone. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[deleted]

Hi bnwflix,

As Isaias said, the reason that SoundTap records correctly is that this process never leaves the digital domain. The digital samples are directly intercepted by SoundTap so you end up with a perfect copy.

In the case you are describing when you record from your receiver, there is a digital -> analog conversion as the signal leaves your amp, followed by an analog -> digital conversion as the signal enters your computer's soundcard. The result and quality of these conversions will depend significantly on your hardware and can be influenced by a number of things. Most importantly it will be affected by the impedance on your inputs and outputs. The effect you are describing could be due to a high impedance on your soundcard input causing weaker (lower volume) signals to be attenuated in a non-linear way which would explain the faster than expected fades you are hearing.

Regards,

Ben

bnwflix

Thanks, Ben. I'll just use the Sound tap.