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June 13, 2012 5:44 AM

Why is my mp3 voice recording riddled with skipping?

A friend and I are recording about an hour of discussion every week. We are communicating on Skype, with both of us separately recording our own voice on Free Sound Recorder. I then merge the two mp3s together. His mp3s are fine, but mine are riddled with skips like a scratched record. What could be causing mine to crap out?

posted by Frasermoo to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

For recording live sound, you need a good amount of free space on your hard drive. Be sure you have at least 10% of your drive free. If you do, then:

First guess is your computer is stretched to its limit during processing, and the sound recording gets the lowest priority, causing the skips. First quick fix to try is to install Process Lasso Free version, it will control the machine to smooth out processing. Choose the correct 32 or 64 bit version, just install and reboot. The defaults it installs with are all you need, you do not have to try to adjust anything. The techie screen could be interesting to watch in real time, but if you don't understand it that's OK. The free version is all you need, don't pay for the Pro version.

What it does: If there is some program running continuously which is using the processor too much, Process Lasso automatically holds it back a bit and lets the recording proceed smoothly, then Process Lasso lets go. This all goes on continuously every millisecond. Process Lasso will probably make all programs appear to work more smoothly on your machine, including Youtube and other videos.
posted by caclwmr4 at 8:20 AM on June 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: thanks, i'll check all that out. I hadn't even considered my hard drive space which I know is near its limit.
posted by Frasermoo at 9:01 AM on June 13, 2012