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I'm a newb (Clearly, I'm still using Audacity). I'm just getting into EDM and music making and the like, and my first project that I've been working on for some months now took a weird turn today. I really don't know what else to describe my problem as other than: I opened up my project, played through it once, and many of my sounds suddenly sound incredibly muffled and distorted since the last play through. I honestly have no idea what happened, I haven't even touched any High or Low pass filters that could have accidentally been applied to the whole project. Something happened between when I last edited it, and when I opened it again today. I haven't made any edits today either, I opened the program, played it, and my project sounded like someone wrapped a blanket around it threw the whole thing in a blender.

One thing I have noticed is that the last 3 times I've opened my project I've gotten a pop-up about Orphan files, which is strange because I haven't moved or deleted anything related to the Audacity program. I always choose to ignore them, but I doubt these are related to what happened to my sound.

My current way of getting sounds is recording what I play on a MIDI keyboard in the trial version of FL Studio with Windows WASAPI, which is built into Audacity. I have noticed this diminishes the quality somewhat, but is nowhere near what just happened.

Worst case scenario is that I'll have to make several tedious hours and re-record much of my project, but I want to avoid doing this. Obviously I'm not an expert and making electronic music is somewhat of a growing hobby of mine, but this project does represent a significant time investment for me, and any help is appreciated. Thanks.

P.S. I'd be happy to share the audio as it stands right now if that helps.

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  • Unfortunately, I don't know enough about Audacity to give a solution, but if you're planning to continue making EDM and hoping to stay with free software, check out Ardour. It's a fully featured, open-source DAW that runs on OSX, Windows, and Linux. Also, for an open-source alternative/version of FL, check out LMMS. – Linuxios Jan 3 '17 at 4:39
  • It would probably be helpful if you posted a short audio example (doesn't have to be your whole song) to help people figure out what the issue sounds like (clipping? lowered volume? filtering? phase issues? lossy audio compression?). – Linuxios Jan 3 '17 at 4:40
  • @Linuxios thanks for the tips, will check out Ardour for sure. I also just got Acid music studio as a (fantastic) Christmas gift so I'll most likely be using that from now on. My Audacity problem seems to have fixed itself. After deleting the orphan files, saving, and reopening my project several times everything was back to normal. I didn't change anything, I just saved it and reopened it about 5 times. Currently extremely confused, but I'll just keep my fingers crossed that it stays fixed. – Henry Wagner Jan 8 '17 at 22:50
  • That's strange, but I guess if it works don't fix it :) Best of luck with your music! – Linuxios Jan 8 '17 at 23:15

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