A book I find very useful is:
The Voice Actor’s Guide to Home Recording
Jeffrey P. Fisher and Harlan Hogan
C2005 by Thomson Course technology PTR
ISBN: 1-93114-043-X
It has extensive guidance on mics, amplifiers, environment, technique, etc.
Jim
4 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio
June 2nd, 2009Good audio is critical to your elearning success. You might be a great instructional designer and create the most engaging courses possible. But it all falls apart if the audio quality in your course is not very good.
In an earlier post we looked at when it makes sense to consider paying for professional narration. If you have the money, this is a viable option. However, many of you are like Old Mother Hubbard and your cupboard is bare. If you do have a limited budget (or you want to do the narration yourself) then here are some tips to help you do the best job possible.
Today we’ll look at the microphone and recording environment. And in a follow up post, we’ll explore ways to get the best sounding narration.
1. Invest in a good quality microphone
When it comes to microphones, you typically get what you pay for. A good mic is going to give you good audio quality. This isn’t to say that you can’t make do with an inexpensive microphone. I’ve worked for plenty of organizations that had no money and forced me to buy my microphones at an unnamed electrical store. For the most part, they worked fine, especially if you follow some of the tips below.
But the truth is that when you compare the acceptable low-quality audio with similar narration recorded with a better microphone, there is a noticeable difference. The good news is that you don’t have to spend a lot to get a decent microphone for recording narration. I’ve had success with a Plantronics headset and my Samson desktop mic. I think the Blue Snowball mic looks cool and it has also gotten very good reviews from those I know who use it.
Personally, I prefer a desktop mic because it gives me more control over the audio quality. Plus, I find it kind of gross sharing a headset mic if I have to record someone else. But that’s just me. Some of you grew up in the 60’s and probably don’t mind sharing mics. 
When choosing a microphone, your best bet is to go with a unidirectional mic. It records sound from one direction. This is great for recording narration because it only picks up the sound coming from the narrator, so you won’t get a lot of the ambient noise.
2. Maintain a consistent environment.
In an ideal world, you have a recording studio where you can control all of the sound. But since it’s hard to get your boss to fork over $5 for a stock image, you might not convince him to provide the money for a recording studio. In that case, you’re going to have to get creative when you record.
The more you control the recording environment the better quality audio you can record. One key is to develop a consistent routine for recording. It never fails that you’ll have to do retakes at a different time. By maintaining a consistent environment and procedures you’re better able to match the audio quality.
- Try to use the same room and maintain the same settings on your computer and the microphone set up.
- If you’re using a desktop microphone, use a mic stand and measure the recording distance so that the next time you record you have the same set up.
- Use a screen to help prevent the popping p’s that plague so many amateur recording sessions. You can even make your own in no time and little cost.
3. Get rid of as much of the ambient noise as you can
Unless you’re a member of Quiet Riot, you want to get rid of the noise. There’s very rarely a time when there is complete silence. This will be very apparent as you listen to your recording and start pick up all sorts of noise. In fact, there are some organizations that actually pipe in “white noise” to make it easier to concentrate and be less distracted by surrounding conversations.
In either case, you want to get rid of the noise you have control over.
- Unplug office machines. Turn off fans and air conditioners.
- Place your microphone away from your computer. You might not realize it, but your computer makes a lot of fan noise (not cheers as in celebration of you, but the actual fan that keeps the PC cooled).
- Tell everyone around you to be quiet. Put signs on the door. Hire an airplane with one of those banners to fly by your office telling people to keep it down. Do whatever you have to do to get rid of the noise. If that doesn’t work, consider the Hume technique. It’s based on actor Theodore Hume’s approach to quieting the recording environment. It’s a subtle, yet effective approach. It definitely gets the point across.
4. Dampen the sound
In a recording studio, the walls are designed to absorb the sound waves. You can do something similar. In addition to sucking the life from your bones, cubicle walls are designed to absorb sound. In fact, I’m generally pleased with my audio recordings and I just record it in my home office which has a small cubicle set up.
We once converted a storage closet into a makeshift recording room. We placed rails on the walls and hung some blankets from them. This also came in handy in case we were stuck in the building overnight.
I also know some people that built a portable studio using a PVC pip frame and curtains. They could quickly assemble the frame and then hung the curtains to it using shower curtain rings.
Another trick is to make a portable sound booth like the image above. Of course, you could always buy a Porta-Booth if you’re not comfortable with your knife handling skills.
Keep in mind, you’re building rapid elearning courses and not producing sound for a Hollywood production so you don’t need to be an audio expert. But you should learn a enough about audio and how to record to do a good job. This blog post is a good start, but it’s just the beginning.
Next week week we’ll look at how to do your own narration. In the mean time, what are some other tips about microphones and the recording environment? Also, what books or other resources would you recommend for those who wanted to learn more? Feel free to share them by clicking on the comments link.
Tidbits:
- I’m at the ASTD 2009 International Conference & Exposition this week. If you happen to be at the conference, swing by the booth and say hello. I’ll be doing some demos and can help you with some of those nagging rapid elearning challenges.
74 responses to “4 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio”
Great advice!
Opening one or two cardboard A4 files behind the PC, so that you have mic, PC, folders going backwards reduces echo too.
I reduce “popping” by turning my head away from the mic to the right, and then speaking the “P” word out of the left-hand side of my mouth. Looks strange, but very effective for me.
Bruce
I recorded voice overs for the first time last week using a headset microphone and while it was a good quality headset the recording varied over time due to different microphone positioning.
When researching the best microphones – I kept coming across the Samson and Blue Snowball mics you mentioned in your post. I think I will end up going with the snowball for it’s awesome looks
In my research I came across a post by @retrogrrl “Audio Recording Tips” that I highly recommend.
Thanks Tom, look forward to the next post!
I had a bit of budget and invested in a reflexion filter
http://www.seelectronics.com/rf.html
About £160 did a great job recording teachers in a weird building.
Hooked it to an old drum stand of my kids but it worked OK on the desktop as well
Great post Tom! Thank you.
Laughed till I cried over the 60’s, mic sharing comment.
For you younger kids, you had to be there… ;]
Thanks for making my morning a little lighter!
I run Win XP and have had nothing but trouble with the Samson USB mic’s. The recording volume is way too low and they pick up alot of white noise. Recently we’ve had excellent success with the SHURE SM58 ($90) and an M-Audio Profire 610 audio interface.
My question for Tom or anyone else is in reference to the portable sound booth picture, any tips on how to keep an 8 page script in front of you while your face is planted in a foam box? We’ve been using something similar, but I find it extremely exhausting for the arms to hold up a script around a foam box for sometimes hours. Just curious if anyone has found a solution????
I have a snowflake microphone and it’s very nice. Heavier than I would’ve thought. It does require a sound box or something similar or else you sound echoey.
Our audio recordings sound great UNTIL we publish the file in Articulate. Does anyone know how to use audio files with Articulate so they don’t sound like you’re talking in a tin can when published???
I would always recommend you go for the best mic you can afford, a good mic will reject more background and have less self noise.
In the reasonable bracket the Rode Podcaster is very good for its price and compares well to audio technica units I have at twice the cost. If you going to be doing it all the time Neumann are the best mics available today, they save me lots of time cleaning up audio.
If you want consistent level try using a pop shield as you can position yourself against it more easily than trying to figure out where you were last recording.
If you really need consistent audio something like Adobe Soundbooth lets you set items at the same perceived volume which can be useful if you record one item in multiple sessions.
Thanks for the article. I am using our trainig storage closet and my laptops built in mic (Sony Vaio). I have been very satisfied with the results. I might try to build a small sound both to see if that makes a difference. I have had to insert corrections on a couple of recordings and I can really relate to the “consistent approach” recommendation. You can barely tell the difference from the original and the insert. Thanks again.
Great Tips! I am using a $15 headset that actually does a good job as long as I keep the settings consistent like you mentioned. However, like Bruce I have to tilt my head a little to avoid the popping P’s. If I don’t speak straight into the Mic it works just fine but this post has inspired me to look into some higher end mics.
Thanks for the post Tom. I’ve been using a digital recording device called the Zoom H2 and getting great results. The Zoom H2 has some amazing features for working with all kinds of recordings, and I’ve found it to be particularly great working with Articulate. It is a digital recorder that can be preset to record in a variety of .wav and .mp3 formats for those of us who like to pre-record and import narration and soundtracks. But it also serves as a fine USB microphone that does a splendid job of live recording. And it has some great bonus features: it comes with a windscreen, mic stand adapter and cables, it can record in 4-track surround sound, and for those musicians among us, it is a guitar tuner and metronome as well. I highly recommend it and it comes in at around $150.
I recently bought a mic and recording software from Andrea electronics and an extremely pleased at the quality and cost. Andrea has designed their mic for voice-recognition and it is very good. The software allows user configuration as far as sampling and quality. Some other folks at my company were using large, clumsy and much more expensive “studio” equipment with no better results.
Very cool article!
I recommend the new Snowflake by Blue to use in the Port-a-booth or self made “box”. The lower design fits nicely inside.
The best quality for educational narratives are clear, engaging/sincere and with no distrations of poor quality. So, it may be also important to highlight the need for hydration and mouth health to reduce that sticky mouth noise that really can distract the listener in a gross way. Sticky mouth? Clean it with the bite of a green apple.
Also…excellent posture and breath support helps to maintain a steady volume so learners don’t have to strain to hear the end of a sentence because the narrator ran out of breath..
plosives/overaspiration (popping p’s & b’s) – These can be reduced by SMILING to stretch the mouth while speaking. Also, many people use like to emphasize words with more air to send a stronger message…and it is a very ineffective and “freshman” error in voicing. You can place a finger or and outstretched hand of fingers in between you and the microphone if plosives are a HUGE problem and this deflects the air nicely
sibilances/fricative sounds with s and f – For the esses, tongue placement and air control really helps. I recommend a practice session in front of the mic to determine your particular placement necessary to reduce the loud HISS of an “S”. My findings are a flatter looser tongue toward the front teeth works best for me. For F sounds…lighter touch from the teeth to the tongue give the best results.
If I think of more, I’ll be sure to follow with another post.
Thanks again for the great article!
One thing I noticed helped reduce hiss is separating your cords from each other. Keep your microphone cord away from your power cord.
Great post! And just on time.
I am currently creating videocasts where I incorporate, film and screencast and we are struggling with the sound quality, specially with the screencast sound.
Could you give us a few tips on how to improve the sound when it comes from a powerpoint presentation instead of narration?
Thanks for your help!
Hello!
I have a strange question.
Please forgive me, but as I am not english native speaking, nor an audio specialist, I didn´t understand:
“Use a screen to help prevent the popping p’s that plague so many amateur recording sessions.”
What means “Popping p´s” ?
Sorry to bother you with this “child” question.
——————-
Paulo Roberto
Sao Paulo – BRAZIL
I didn’t get nearly as involved with my pop-filter – I just used a hanger and electrical tape!
http://www.mlcpreview.ca/misc/portable_mic_booth.jpg
PS: I’ve since purchased a retail pop filter, but only because I sometimes record with SME’s, and I didn’t think it was polite to have them speak through my wife’s nylons …
:^)
Thanks for both your tips and the suggestions made in the community comments. I like the foam porta-booth idea. I have used 2 small sofa pillows to create a wedge surround for my mic successfully. But I especially wanted to mention the free software, Audacity, which is a wonderful little audio editor. It has a function to remove the ambient noise for a very clean audio result. It exports from and imports to Articulate nicely, and has a number of other useful editing functions.
Another note … a friend of mine who owns a recording studio recommended that if you’re using a unidirectional condenser mic, it’s the ambient noise coming from BEHIND your head that’s more important to diffuse, rather than the sound behind the mic.
So joking around, we came up with the idea of a “foam-brero” … an acoustic foam sombrero that you wear while recording narrations. HA.
Haven’t designed or tried yet, but it’s on my to-do list sometime.
Using a boom stand with the mic facing downward is also effective for reducing the plosive p’s and b’s. Position the mic so that it is above your mouth and slightly to the side. This way the air released goes under the mic and not directly into it.
Like Kat says, make sure you take a nice deep breath before you speak, but take that breath off to the side a bit so that you don’t get a big whooshing breath sound on your recording that you’ll have to edit out later.
As far a mic’s go, I love my AT2020 USB. It’s under $100 and has been great with a wide variety of voice types in our studio.
We purchased the Plantronics mic and it works sufficiently IF I place the mic in front of my nose and not my mouth. Of course, if your nose whistles, you may be out of luck! Any opinions on setting the volumes on the mic or in Articulate? I always set mine at maximum but I’m not sure if that is a good idea or not.
Great tips! Thanks Tom and everyone else. I am going to try out some of these.
I’ve read about Audacity previously. Is it really easy to use for a total audio amateur?
And…does anyone have a suggestion for getting rid of mouse clicks (other than using the touchpad). I’ve tried gloves unsuccessfully.
When will someone invent the silent mouse…
While I know you often have to re record segments, I do my best to record the entire audio in one file at one sitting. Then separate it out into audio to go with the slides.
I also found a program called Levelator from the Conversations Network. It is great if you have an audio with two people and one was closer to the microphone. It will bring the two closer to the same level, much easier than using your audio editor to try to adjust the one louder person.
I use Audacity and am always learning something new.
I have found the perfect recording studio in my home: a nice walk-in closet full of clothes. I have just enough room for a folding chair and a card table, with my laptop and my Samson microphone. Works great, at least until the cat wants feeding and starts meowing at the door.
I would like to hear about recommendations for recording software. My brother records his own music and uses ProTools, but it works best on a Mac (it says PC compatible, but his experience has been very shaky) and I don’t have several hundred dollars to shell out for software and a Mac, then compatible hardware. I don’t mind investing a little if for nothing else than to get away from the basic Windows recording software. Perhaps open source software (does anyone have experience with Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ???) so I can allocate more to quality hardware?
Great idea of making a portable sound booth. At times, I will have someone else do the recording, like the SME. I always preferred that they record in my office, which was good for recording. At times it was not convenient and had to go to the SME location. A portable sound booth will probably be a help. Especially for those downtown offices with outside street noise getting through.
Another great post. Thanks Tom.
I use a Plantronics headset, and it works well for the price and convenience. One addition I made though, I went to the local airport because I found a small foam filter there for the headset microphones used by pilots. I wrapped this around the headset mic with a small rubber band and I usually place the mic below my mouth level and it helped reduce the pops and noise pretty well.
[...] Tom Kuhlmann (Rapid eLearning Blog) provides some excellent basic pointers for recording high quality audio. [...]
Here is a good blog on the subject . My biggest issue is the sound clean up by WavePad or Audacity. The free versions seem to cause what I call computer noise, and they drive me nuts. Looking into Adobe’s Soundbooth and Audition.
Thanks!
http://retrogrrl.blogspot.com/2008/06/audio-recording-tips.html
Ditto on Audacity. It’s a great, free program.
For a mic, I found this one at Radio Shack. It had many online recommendations, and it’s under $50. My tests have shown that it’s a very good cardioid voice-over mic for the low end price range:
Radio Shack Technology Plus
Super-Cardioid Vocal Microphone
Model No. 33-128
I bought my desktop stand at Radio Shack, too.
I’ve taken two voice-over talent workshops and attend my coach’s workouts. Use your favorite search engine to find voice coaches in your area. Or, take a Radio/TV/Film class at your local two-year college to learn the “acting” aspect of voice overs.
We’ve found that it’s better for breathing and on the diaphram to stand up for narrations and editing in Audacity. You’d need a boom mic and a music stand for your copy. But, if reading the narration in Presenter, then, of course, that won’t work. 
http://www.Voice123.com/jenisecook (My demos)
As usual, thanks for such a great post Tom! These are really simple tips but make for vast improvements in recording. Nothing ruins a great course like crummy audio. I had figured out some of these things over the years after obtaining less than stellar results. But now I really want to build my own Port-a-Booth! Or perhaps get my hands on Shane’s foam-brero.
In addition to Audacity, Wavepad is another great (free!)recording/editing program for narrations. It has filters for minimizing the pesky popping p’s too.
Excellent… as usual. A timely post as I am putting together some casts and voiceovers right now… Think I’ll make a sound box
Great tips as always. Thanks Tom!
One point I don’t think anyone has mentioned is ergonomics. We did some very intensive e-learning last year for a firm-wide software rollout and I got dreadful OOS (RSI) from leaning into a desktop stand.
Now I’ve sorted it out with an adjustable floor stand (sitting on the desk behind my PC and pointing down) it’s a lot more comfortable.
I think it’s really important not to neglect this side of it.
Great post, I just wish I would have had this information when I started recording. I have played with several microphones and I do have a favorite from Radio Shack. It was already in our equipment when I started so I have no idea how much it cost. I recently began using a pop filter to get rid of those P’s and B’s and it does work great. I purchased it at Muscian’s Friend online for around $15 and it saves me a lot of editing time on my audio clips. I am looking forward to the next post. Keep them coming!
Great ideas Tom. I ordered the mike and materials to make a sound booth. Anyone have ideas on a good camcorder to produce video clips for your elearning?
I’m a longtime Snowball owner/user and was always happy with my results, but in a recent mic test I found it to sound inferior to some offerings from MXL:
http://www.equixotic.com/2009/03/18/microphone-review-marshall-mxl-studio-1-usb-usb008-and-usb009/
(And have previous posts on narration recording as well, if you’re interested)
I’m now an MXL USB.009 fan. More expensive. Money well spent.
I’ve also heard good things about Samsons.
I personally have never heard great results from a headset mic – from myself or others. For me, a desktop mic and pop filter are mandatory.
Oh, and for the Mac users out there, GarageBand (free with your Mac) is a great app for narration recording.
Hi Tom,
You must have been reading my mind – last two days I’ve been looking for some good opinions on mics for podcasting that won’t break the bank. As a novice podcaster I’m sure I’m making all of the common mistakes (popping p’s and unstructured scripts anyone?), so looking forward to reading the next instalment.
Cheers,
Mark.
Great post again, Tom — yours is the one blog I *always* read.
Based on a lot of recording experience, I recommend the Rode Podcaster http://www.rodemic.com/microphone.php?product=Podcaster.
As Diana wrote, speak across (or under) the mic, and you won’t even need the pop filter. And I just love the headphone socket built in.
Pay attention to the earlier comments about posture — most VO professionals do short sessions standing, and long session on nothing lower than a bar stool so the hips are not fully folded. Keep the diaphragm ‘open’.
With a directional mic (like the Rode), there’s little/no point in putting the foam around the mic (unless you are much too close to a much too noisy computer). Shane is right — it’s the noise around/behind you that’s the problem, not stuff from behind the mic. So Tom’s right about controlling the environment, and Suzanne’s ‘closet recording’ solution is great for that. In the office, you may be able to find a small store room — ours came complete with rolls of fabric left over from something ancient that we could use to deaden reflections. Mattresses are good too, stood on end behind the person speaking.
Software: you can’t beat the price of Audacity, and it’s pretty good. Protools (I use the real one for top-end jobs, but there are lower cost versions) is definitely overkill and not for amateurs at all. Sound Forge, now published by Sony (after a corporate acquisition) is very good and not too hard to use — we have amateurs recording with that every week with only a few minute’s introduction. And on the Mac platform, I quite like Wave Editor http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/waveeditor/ which I also use weekly for editing recorded material into podcasts. And they give great support! But if you have a Mac and you want *simple*, just use GarageBand in it’s Podcast mode — easiest multi-channel mixing on the planet!
And on that multichannel note, I wouldn’t like to share mics either (and I *was* there in the 60s!). I vastly prefer laying different speakers/people separately (I’m referring to “laying tracks”, people!), giving each their own track, and trimming levels/editing later. Excellent control over amateur things like teeth clicking, throat clearing, coughing etc when the person stops talking, as well as compensating for level differences. Even if you have to do a conversation in real time, I would always try to give everyone their own mic, their own channel, and expect to clean up afterwards. Also makes it easy to drop in theme music, stings, and so on — as well as chopping up into segments for training content.
Sound Quality versus file size!
Anyone found the right balance between sound quality and file size. Are you saving as MP3? What quality do you use – stereo mono etc..
Thanks in anticipation
Pat
I started out with a no-name headset mic actually intended for voip phone usage. It was… OK.
Then I bought a Samson C03U (that’s a zero, not a letter O) USB mic, and now I have the deep, sexy resonance of a late-night FM DJ. I record in Audacity, which lets you edit out errant noises and the ever-present hiss. I love both of these tools.
I really think that the most important factors for sound quality are at the beginning and the end – the microphone and the headphones.
Something to note about the Samson mic. It has the driver built in that self loads onto your computer the first time you plug it in. Be careful to give it time to load everything – there are long pauses – before you jump in to use it, or it doesn’t all load. Then removing the drivers (so you can reinstall) is hard. An annoyance, but once it’s working well, it’s a beautiful mic.
Great info as always. I read somewhere that placing the mic to one side and talking past it was the way to go, we use this method and are happy with the results, ‘no Popping’.
Another thing to add for budget conscious is your end users may only have general computer quality speakers that don’t pick up all the noise you hear during production and also don’t pass on the quality of expensive mics.
I was looking to get a better mic and you have helped confirmed my choice.
Thanks for the great article on audio recording. I was surprised there was no reference to noise-reducing microphones. I used a Jabra USB headset with “Digital Signal Processing” and it does a good job of reducing ambient noise. A future article with a few tips on setting and maintaining consistent recording levels would be useful. In Vista, finding and using the recording level controls can be tricky, and it seems that Vista “remembers” the settings for each separate USB that you use.
[...] 4 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio | The Rapid eLearning Blog Good audio is critical to your elearning success. You might be a great instructional designer and create the most engaging courses possible. But it all falls apart if the audio quality in your course is not very good. (tags: Audio eLearning Podcasting) [...]
[...] here: 4 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio – The Rapid … Categories : [...]
Great article, and I will have to try out a few of the tricks in here. Dampening the sound is something I didn’t consider yet, but also something which might be hard to do if your microphone is on a Mic stand.
Still, I will have to check a few of these things out.
Regards,
Stefaan
@ Peter Westhorp:
Any thoughts on the SE Electronics USB2200A? Outrageously expensive (for the USB mic category anyway, cheap compared to “real mics” I’m sure), but I’m seduced by its retro vibe and higher-quality-audio implications (I need all the help I can get).
Someday I’ll figure out a way to justify buying one of these things…
I’d love to hear the thoughts of someone who’s tried both the MXL USB.009 (my current favorite) and the SE Electronics USB2200A…
[...] is probably the best choice which is highly recommended by Articulate (here <-best and here and here). Second, among the desktops, the Snowball is probably the best choice with high recommendations [...]
While in theory a more expensive mic should equal better sound, I have had great luck with a $30 Logitech usb desktop mic. We have a $200 studio mic in out office and the college has an audio studio that has an $500 mic, but given equal environs and software, you can’t tell which is studio and which is Logitec. No, I don’t get any kickbacks for this statement.
An awesome post Tom, thanks for your inputs.
Lessons learned (Using Samson USB mic and Audacity)
Use a microphone boom and speak standing up for better breathing and posture.
Use a pop screen unless you’re really consistent at plosive avoidance.
Record a few seconds of ambient noise at the beginning of each session to be used by the noise reduction feature.
Use the least aggressive noise reduction setting that you can get away with – don’t strive for complete silence between passages, because aggressive noise reduction will cause distortions.
Export as a high quality file (like .wav). Articulate will do the mp3 conversion for you, and meanwhile if you want to publish a high quality version (to CD, for example) then Articulate will have the high quality sound files available.
Great piece Tom!
[...] attention to what you’re doing and do the best job possible. Last week, we looked at some basic tips to record high-quality audio. Those tips leaned more on the technology. Today we’ll look at what you can do to get [...]
For Dana who wanted asked about a handy way of holding an 8-page script:
I use a music stand, not the fold-up kind, but the type you see at a symphony concert. They only cost about $40. We have an isolation booth so we don’t have to stick our face into a foam box, but it still might work. You do still have to turn pages, but I usually take a pause so any paper shuffling noise can be edited out.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com is a good site for purchasing music stands.
These tips are invaluable, but I would love to see a recommendation for a wireless USB mic. I would like to record SME’s as they present to a classroom, and it makes for a much better presentation when they need not wory about connecting wires. Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced wireless USB mic?
To Dana Thomas on where to put the script. If you have to work around the sound box, be sure your font is large enough for the distance your script is away from you, but in either case, I use a stenographers stand, similar to a book stand, or stand for a piece of artwork. This allows your script to stand upright so that you can sit up straight and focus on your delivery of the narrative you are recording. Hope this helps.
I was getting too much bounce off of my hard walls. Acoustical foam for my hard walls would be a good purchase but the cost was a little more than I wanted. My past life experience in recording studios indicated it would be good. I ended up on the cheap and found a $10 foam mattress pad at Wal-Mart with the eggshell part facing me provided adequate relief from the hard walls. I was also able to form them behind me to reduce the ambient sound.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the tips. The following link ‘make a portable sound booth’ in the cuurrent blog is not an accessible link. Please advise.
Thanks and regards,
rashida
I would like to thank you for sharing your tips. You are putting very good effort into the stuff you post. Keep up the good work.
I use a Rode Podcaster and my levels are way too low. (inaudible). Mac OS X MacBookPro. 10.5. I’ve maxed out the system pref input levels, but I still can not record a voice track. I am trying to record into Garage Band. Thanks for any suggestions.
Thanks for tips, so usefull i am using Microsoft Lifechat LX 3000 for recording it is not bad.
I have a question u might know a little about or know sumone who knows..
I have my recording gear set up: a mic into a USB recording interface. I record and it records fine EXCEPT it records the audio slightly faster and more high pitched. So when i play it back my voice sounds higher and its out of time with the music (its too fast).
Its not a problem with the interface coz i used it on the Mac computers at school and it worked fine, it just seems to be with Windows computers.
Any ideas? or know who i could ask?
[...] is probably the best choice which is highly recommended by Articulate (here <-best and here and here). Second, among the desktops, the Snowball is probably the best choice with high recommendations [...]
what sampling rate would you recommend ?
thanks in advance
[...] and convert formats. Tom Kuhlmann, in his Rapid eLearning blog, has published some excellent hints here and here. Share and [...]
[...] and convert formats. Tom Kuhlmann, in his Rapid eLearning blog, has published some excellent hints here and [...]
Great article. We do voiceovers here in germany since a long time. Waht about ISDN ? We do a lot of APTX or MP3 codecs for Radio and TV here and therefore you have to invest in a good APTX michine and at leat 1 ISDN line. Many voice talents just have this and work the whole day with it.
Bis bald from Berlin
Uwe Engel
[...] 4 Simple Tips for Recording High-Quality Audio [...]
Very nice. You should use a real cabin or recording booth and not such a “reflektor shield” as shown before.
Hello All – could someone help, I am looking for a free reliable virus free recording programme I can download to my pc to record and edit speech and voiceover material. Something which is not too technical to operate but will give broadcast quality results. Also wonderings what microphone is best to use in a porta studio a dynamic or condenser mike. I have heard good reports on the Samson Q1U – please help.
74
comments