I read the faqs, and guess this might be an open ended question, but I am looking for some way to make an informed decision, other than wasting money.

I am new to recording voice. I have two books I want to convert to audio books and I actually prefer my own voice to the actors I can afford.

Currently using i7 dell xps lap top (totally silent) and blue snowball usb microphone+ click guard. I use Audacity to record / edit / adjust. (Computer software geek by trade)

I have constructed a recording ‘booth’ out of acoustic foam and I have just about achieved a reasonable quality, but if it was perfect I wouldn’t be posting.

I have invested in voice training, both live and an online course. Part of the online course suggests using a professional recorder (EG Marantz PD 6xx style).

The online tutor suggests a recorder will give better quality / ease of use / ambient noise.

As this is non-profit activity I am loath to spend unnecessary, but I do want the best quality I can sensibly achieve.

My issues with current set up are:
Still sensitive to ambient noise (EG rain or wife clatter)
Would prefer a ‘deader’ sound (Trying hard with Equaliser, but failing)
Spit clicks (I know – my problem (medication induced), doubt tech can fix that, but if anybody has a better suggestion than editing them out one at a time, I'm open to learn.)

The question.

I can afford a Tascam DR40X without too much grief. BUT I have no knowledge that will let me make a balanced/ educated decision on this. Hence, I have trawled the internet seeking help – and landed here.

Will I achieve a better quality from the Tascam?

Would I achieve better quality from something more expensive?

What tech specs are the things I should be looking for/ considering? I am only going to be recording one person speaking.

Thanks for reading this far

Just my two cents, but it sounds like your problems are more external to the recording equipment than the equipment itself. The difference in the recorder quality and your laptop will probably be minor compared to your sound-control problems. A "better" recorder won't do a thing for ambient noise, both systems will record what is there. You have to control your ambience first. As to ease of use, Audacity is as easy as it gets and is a remarkable piece of kit, particularly for the price (free). It does have a good noise reduction effect which will remove, not rain and voices, but the minor electronic hiss you may experience from USB connections and other low-level background nasties.

Isolating your "studio" --- a closet with a bunch of clothing hanging about is amazingly effective, if uncomfortable. The thick padded blankets movers use for furniture are cheaply available on this side of the pond and people often use them for isolation as well. I think you are talking about an environment without reverb from the surroundings as the "deader" sound you seek, this is one approach to eliminating that. It also goes to the external interference noise problem, it's apparent that your work area is not well sound-deadened.

A "pop filter," which is usually a fabric covered hoop placed between your mike and voice will help somewhat with "plosives" as will speaking not directly into, but across the mike at a bit of an angle.

Once you get your environment working, you can see how satisfied you are with your current recording setup. FWIW I've done voice-over with a setup much like yours for cable tv public service spots, and the result was entirely satisfactory. As an aside, stay off the equalizer until you are sure what you're doing, usually that does more harm than good, and it won't fix reverb. Best wishes!

Recording directly to your computer should sound good with basic recording skills and pro quality:
1. mic
2. preamp (most integrated sound card's preamps suck)
3. A/D converter (same as above)
4. environment (no extraneous noise and acoustically dead)
5. TALENT (if none exists, the above items won't help)

The DR-40 should sound decent along with items 1, 4 and 5.

You will get a variety of advice in this forum, it will not be entirely uniform, but it will mostly be quite good. In some cases you can discard the outliers and interpolate the rest.

I started working as a broadcast engineer over 50 years ago (OMG can that be right?) and have been involved with broadcast and/or audio since then. I am presently retired (i.e. not paid) but have been serving as a volunteer at the local NPR/PBS station for the past eight years. (I do announcing, train volunteer announcers, and do recording and production; the union won't let me do any engineering duties.) A lot has changed (broadcasters now have an IT department, but no longer have vacuum tubes) but the basics still hold true.

There is a difference between soundproofing (isolation from outside noises) and acoustic treatment (reduction and control of reflections from the desired source, e.g. your voice). This is an important distinction.

Realtors say "location, location, location." For soundproofing, architects say "mass, mass, mass ... and isolation."

Build a 10'x10'x8' studio with 8" concrete slab floor, 8" concrete block (with cores filled) walls, a concrete ceiling (dock plank or more). If your wife is chatting on the other side of the wall, little or none of her voice will get into your room. The mass of the structure (with all openings sealed) will stop the airborne sound transmission. If the slab floor extends out beyond your block walls, and your wife is walking around on that same slab with high-heel shoes, you will hear the footsteps inside your room; the continuous concrete will allow structure-borne sound transmission. (Solve that by adding some resilient underlayment, covered by carpeting, on your wife's side of the wall. It would be difficult to solve with floor treatment inside your room; once the floor in your studio is vibrating, you need to isolate the slab from the interior of the studio, which is a BIG challenge.) If enough rain is hitting the top side of the dock plank, it will make that concrete vibrate, which will transmit some of the rain noise into your studio. To solve that either construct an acoustically isolated roof a few feet above the docks plank, or else construct an acoustically isolated high-mass ceiling inside your studio. In summary, to stop ingress of unwanted sounds, you need a continuous sealed barrier of sufficient mass AND you need to avoid making that barrier vibrate. Now the room is "soundproof" and quiet.

(And remember to seal carefully. An 1/8" gap around the perimeter of the floor is 480" long, so that amounts to 60 sq.in. or a 6"x10" hole. That can let a lot of sound leak into the room! Admittedly this is an over-simplification; it's not a hole, it's an 1/8" wide slot which will introduce additional attenuation. But will still allow a lot of sound into your studio.)

Assume it's a calm, sunny day, and your wife is barefoot. You start recording your voice tracks inside such a studio. The sound quality will be terrible. You'll have a huge amount of reflected sound from every surface: walls, ceiling, floor. The room is too "live." Now you treat the inside of the studio as follows. Add some carpet to the floor. Hang a lot of moving blankets from the walls (or, better yet, use something that has properly engineered acoustic properties so you can get the desired absorption at all frequencies). Add some acoustic ceiling panels in a grid (the quick and dirty solution) and probably put several inches or more of rock wool above the panels, to help absorb the sound that gets through the panels, before it reflects off the dock plank and comes back down through the panels. Now you have a room that is "dead" with proper acoustical properties.

Two entirely different concepts! Don't get them confused.

Of course sometimes you use sheet rock instead of concrete. Sometimes you use homasote. Sometimes you use resilient channel. But a few blankets or layers of foam will not stop the rain noise or your wife's voice ... at best the unwanted sound will be slightly attenuated. Details matter. There are books about these details.

Mr. Reineke knows his stuff, you can trust his advice! The DR-40 is a decent recorder. But the integral mics are no better than the Blue Snowball you're using now. (I use my DR-40 with a variety of external mics; they are hot enough to get by with the DR-40 preamp; otherwise I'd need to add that to my kit.) Besides, you should record your book (or any voice) in mono, so that rules out using the DR-40's integral stereo mics. No point in getting that or any other recorder at this early point in time.

I also agree that you will not get rid of room reflections ("liveness") or the rain or your wife by using EQ. Unless your voice or your mic is deficient, you should be able to get an acceptable recording without EQ ... then use EQ only sparingly, if at all, to slightly sweeten the sound.

I would hold off on buying any new recorder or mic at this point in time. Solve your acoustical problems first. If you have more specific questions, just ask!

P.S.: "Click guard"? There is such a thing as a pop filter, but pops (blasts of air, usually when pronouncing plosives) and clicks (originating inside the mouth, maybe including lip smacks, etc.) are entirely different things. As the mic gets closer and the voice gets quieter and more intimate, mouth noises will become more troublesome. If that's what you mean by "click" then I'd guess that's more of a voice coaching issue.

I think that answers perfectly.
Yes, pop filter is what I have, a fabric guard in front of the mike.

I am not totally ‘displeased’ with the current quality, but when the tutorial says this is wrong, I had to question what I was doing. However, I couldn’t see how to make a rational decision.

With computers, I can use numbers to make decisions. Disk speed ram access time cpu clock etc.
Looking at the audio gear, I was lost amongst the spec sheets but not seeing anything that said I would get a great improvement and the cost of the gear goes up fairly dramatically, especially just to capture speech.

More time fixing me and a bit more spent on the room will pay dividends. Fixing wife to be less noisy might take a little time. In honesty, outside of lock down I have the house to myself most of the time. And rain, hell I am in England it doesn’t rain that much … honest.

I had come to the same conclusion regarding the equaliser, I managed to waste a lot of time and just screw up what I had. Tweaking the bass and treble actually did a lot more for me. The downside of audacity is that the tweaks are destructive, so it is difficult to ‘play’ and find a good effect.

The only issue I have with you guys is that you stopped me buying a new gadget! And I am fairly certain new gadgets are pretty essential either side of the pond.

Serious thanks for taking the time to reply.

...There is a difference between soundproofing (isolation from outside noises) and acoustic treatment (reduction and control of reflections from the desired source, e.g. your voice). This is an important distinction...

Realtors say "location, location, location." For soundproofing, architects say "mass, mass, mass ... and isolation...

I also agree that you will not get rid of room reflections ("liveness") or the rain or your wife by using EQ. Unless your voice or your mic is deficient, you should be able to get an acceptable recording without EQ ... then use EQ only sparingly, if at all, to slightly sweeten the sound...

I would hold off on buying any new recorder or mic at this point in time. Solve your acoustical problems first....
I also claim a long list of credits and experience in sound for broadcast, production co., agency, and home studio recording. Most recently I was the owner’s rep for a studio remodel in which I recommended and we received the services of a professional engineer who specializes in acoustics. It’s now a wonderful production and learning environment.

I quite agree with the posts above, and wanted to highlight some of Greg Miller’s thoughts. So much that passes as training and tutorials is about how to buy gear, and what gear is newer and better than the gear you have. “Expertise” now seems to be about social media marketing skills and equipment reviews.

When operated correctly, an adequate mic and recorder in the right place will always outperform the best gear in the wrong place. You have adequate gear.

The internet suggests that sticking some acoustic foam on the walls solves acoustic problems. Well, it does help with mid and high frequency reflections. Rigid fiberglass or rock wool board with no facing absorbs reflections from low to high, and, helps with isolation. It helps with isolation because it has mass, or at least it has more mass than foam, which is light as a feather.

From there you go to more mass, more walls, more insulation, sealing doors, double doors, boarding up windows, etc.

There’s a lot of radio announcers working out of bedroom closets in these days of pandemic. The clothes are absorbtive of sound (way better than foam), closets are usually on interior walls, away from common living areas, and the bedroom door can be closed.

And/or, record at a time that the house is quiet.

Try the closet!

P.S. You are listening with good headphones as you record? That’s how to learn to tame mouth sounds like clicking and breathing, as well as catching other performance issues.

Seth:

Your comment about headphones is of the utmost importance. I have heard some absolutely terrible headphones lately ... I am almost tempted to name them here to prevent anyone else from trying this brand.

Instead, I'll recommend what I think are the best bang for the buck: Sennheiser HD280 Pro. Very good sound, and good isolation, for around $100.00. My favorite for at least the past 20 years.

Eric:

If you want to buy a new gadget, get a set of HD280 Pro phones. You won't regret it.

I like a mic 3" to 6" from my mouth, roughly 45º off to the side of the front-back axis of my head. I aim the mic roughly at the middle of my mouth. But my mouth is NOT aimed at the mic ... that greatly reduces plosive pops. A cardioid mic is very sensitive to working distance: a decrease in distance will cause an increase in low frequencies. Pick a mic position that works for you, and then stick with it on every take. I'm working with volunteer announcers who are recording at home now, using anything from a $9.00 Philips voice recorder (well, it's a $99.00 recorder, but I found a great close-out sale) to a $200.00 USB mic. These same suggestions apply to everyone.

Also, ALWAYS save the original recording: "Me-chapter03-RAW.wav" Give the file read-only attributes so you can't accidentally alter it. Then as you diddle with various settings, take copious notes and save each iteration with a new name: "Me-chapter03-v27.wav"

ALWAYS save in .wav format. If you're going to make a large number of changes, consider saving in 32-bit. (However that's a minor detail compared to what has been said before this.)

There are countless small suggestions, now that the big basics have been addressed. Use gasketing around doors and windows. Single-pane glass is *very* transparent to sound; if you're stuck with this, screw some sheet rock (or at least homasote) over the entire window, frame, and trim. Be sure appliance motors aren't running. Etc. etc. etc.

If you post audio samples here, people may hear specific issues and will help you with appropriate comments.

Best of luck!

I had to smile on this one - I've got three pairs of Shure SE215 in ears and really like them, so I bought a pair of 425's Shure say how good they are, and the dual drivers give better reproduction - I hate them!

Headphones are very personal, much more so than speaker. I remember fondly over the years Sennheiser HD25 - loved them, and the 280s which sounded very neutral and not tiring, and I really like DT100s I've tried other Sennheisers and Beyers, like the 'better' DT150s, but I stick to the ones I know.

I've got three pairs of Shure SE215 in ears

Because ...? You have three pairs of ears? ;-)

My phones are on and off much too often ... I'm afraid I'll never try "real" IEMs.

Senny recently discontinued the HD202, which was a fantastic bargain for $20.00. Pretty much a universal jock earphone, disposable when the wire finally gives out. We have yet to find anything that sounds nearly that good for nearly that low a price.

And I'm still looking for replacement pads for my HD40s!

Eric,

In all things audio, be it simple or complex I teach people to think in terms of signal flow. Your voice is moving through a "system" like water flows trough pipes. From your mouth to the eventual binary code it becomes it gets manipulated along the way. Always know where it is going and what is happening along the way.

In your case the part I don't like is the USB mic. I can't speak for your model but I avoid them in general. With USB mics your not only dependent on the quality of the mic, they have their own codec built in. So the first two steps of your signal flow is dependant on a cheap mic. 1. Your voice hits the mic in the analog world (critical step). 2. The cheap mic then converts it into the digital world (critical step). No matter how many concrete bunkers you build or how thick your egg crates are all that money is wasted if the first two things your signal hits is weak. All good recording start with a good mic. Then that level of quality needs to be maintained as the signal flows. You will only be as good as the weakest link.

Welcome to the forum. You are already talking to some very knowedagle people.

Kind Regards,

Steve

Eric is trying to get his nice clean voice to "flow" through a small tank already contaminated with outside noise from the rain and miscellaneous household clattering. Then it hits the walls of the tank and reflections form (remember the ripple tank experiments in physics class?). A different mic won't uncontaminate his voice from all that pollution.

It's true that there are some terrible USB mics. The specific mic Eric is using (the Blue Snowball) has a reasonably good reputation for voice recording, podcasts, etc. It's not a mic you'd use for a feature film, but Eric is doing two low-budget audiobooks. I suspect the transducer, preamp, and A>D converter are in the same ballpark as something like the DR-40 that has been discussed. Steven, have you heard bad comments specifically about the Blue Snowball?

A better mic & pre might give him incrementally better recording of his voice ... AND a more accurate recording of the ambient noise and room reflections. I do not see that as a net gain. I think in terms of the ratio between wanted signal and unwanted signal. Based on Eric's initial comments, I think most of his unwanted signal is acoustic in nature, not contributed by his mic per se.

Eric has already told us he has problems with noise and room acoustics. He has not said he's displeased with the mic. I think it's reasonable for him to tackle problems he's aware of, before spending money on theoretical problems that he hasn't observed.

In a $50,000 room, a $5,000 mic & pre makes sense. Eric is probably in a <$500 room right now. Based on his question and description, I think it makes more sense to first spend a little more money on the environment. Then, when that audible pollution is gone, we can better evaluate the sound of the mic & electronics.

Eric could always post a sample recording and let us evaluate what we hear. Although then this forum will probably experience its share of noise pollution, too.

Seriously? You'd take a listen to the file. That is more than I expected.

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/demo.wav

Not sure how to include the file, but this is a link to a completely raw including mouth pops sample.

My normal cycle would be to:

Edit through for mouth pops and stumbles and gaps. Mouth pops are inevitable, I am on meds that as a side effect give a dry mouth. Its either work in very small takes, or edit. I am opting to edit at the moment

Normalise, Noise reduce, compress, reduce bass and treble, amp + 3db

I've left the boxes ticked that say embed links, but I'm betting this is not going to happen. My settings say I cannot include attachments

Edit: The snowball was the best reviewed of the price range I was looking at. It is always trying to judge what gives the best effect.

Eric, thanks for providing the sample.

I do not hear anything even vaguely like a pop. A pop is a big burst of low frequency caused when some fast-moving air is expelled from your mouth and hits the mic (as opposed to minute air vibrations from sounds reaching the mic). If you want to hear pops, put the mic directly in front of your mouth, 3" or 4" away, then record something with a lot of plosives, like "Peter Piper picked ..." or something with a lot of leading "B" sounds. You can also get some heavy breath sounds from leading "T" consonants.

I hear a few small clicks, which might be mouth sounds (although I can't definitively identify them as such, because of the other room noise). e.g. ~1.95sec, ~8.97sec. There's a bit of weirdness ~10.3125 but I'm not sure whether that's a mouth noise. Are these examples of what you are calling "pops"? If so, I would disagree with that label.

You can find lots of advice about mouth noises. Avoid milk & dairy before recording. Stay well hydrated but avoid drinking immediately before recording. Etc. If you've had voice coaching, that would be a good resource for advice. I can suggest Biotene (brand) Moisturizing Mouth Spray; I learned about it from one of our volunteer announcers who had recently undergone chemo and said the spray helped with his dry mouth.

By far the biggest problem I hear is the very reflective room. What to do? Some folks advise recording in a closet, and you can try that if you like. Indeed, a lot of fabric will absorb much of the high frequencies. But unless the closet is huge, you may have issues with lower frequencies that penetrate the fabric, then reflect off the walls, creating numerous standing waves. I have heard some incredibly bizarre closet recordings.

By all means I recommend a lot of absorption in your room!

How big is the room?
What is the ceiling, wall, floor construction and coverings?
Where in the room were you located?
Where was the mic relative to your mouth?

I hear some other minor noise, some mains hum, etc. That stuff can be dealt with at a later stage. First get the desired audio (your voice) to sound decent (mainly reduce the undesired reflections). Then, later, deal with remaining background issues.

Just my two cents worth ... or is that tuppence?

If I may suggest, the compression and eq-ing are probably not helping. What I hear most in your raw file that might help is a certain sibilance ("skin", etc) that is much like a hiss as the word is spoken. A good de-esser filter might be of help there.

Compression is often used in radio broadcasting to keep a certain overall level of amplitude, but the variances in intonation that make the spoken word interesting are often damaged in the process. You have a good voice, don't damage it by limiting your dynamic range.

You may be trying to eliminate the low frequency noise level and the sibilant harmonics with the eq, but eq needs a light hand or it interferes with the character of the voice. As I think all of us have agreed, you need to correct the audio ambience of your space first.

There are elaborate (i.e., expensive) solutions to this but I expect you need a fairly expedient solution, and absorbent surroundings, avoiding vibration pickup (traffic rumble, footsteps, rain) will have some positive effect. Don't go overboard with the effects, get a clean recording first. Again, my dos centavos.

In response to Greg's question, yes, this is a raw unedited file. My comments on the use of effects regards the OP's previous post on the effects he had been using, which may not be helping.

Cheaper than sound treatment for an entire room, putting the mic inside an acoustic porta-booth might make all the difference.

Harlan Hogan's Porta-Booth Saves the Day for CNN - YouTube

Andrew

If I may suggest, the compression and eq-ing are probably not helping.

Battle, Just to be sure I understand, I think you are *not* saying that the sample he submitted is processed. You're just discussing processing in regard to what he may have done in the past (*not* with this sample) or that he may contemplate doing in the future. Am I understanding you correctly?

It's my understanding that this sample is raw. But I hear so much short-delay reflection (e.g. :07.6 to :07.8) that the intelligibility is badly impaired. I almost get the impression that the reflections are louder than his direct voice some of the time. It's a nasty room!

Attached here is the audio with the echo removed in Izotope RX7. I think we could still do with better proximity of the microphone, which is why personally I don't think much of those snowball things.

I made an mp3 but it's not supported for file attachments so it's been zipped and uploaded as that.

Andrew

Thanks so much for the effort and comments.

All of the samples are 100% unadjusted. I would love not to have to adjust the sound at all, apart from the edits, but I think the noise reduction is going to stay with me.

The room is a spare bedroom/ office in a new build house. So, currently 2 walls plaster board 1 solid brick and one brick with window. Around a 12ft square. A sofa / desk / chair + a dozen 1 ft acoustic panels. These are currently used to make a booth similar to the one in the shared youtube video. Except, I have gone for one with a hole in as a front. The rest are on the wall behind the mike. This is on top of a bookcase to allow me to stand and speak. 8-10 inches from mike through the pop filter. The window is behind me.

The ’pops’ I talk of are indeed those at 1.95/ 8.97 They are spit clicks I will try to find the mouth lube you mention, as I have tried most of the ‘conventional’ wisdom. The meds do dry my mouth and I have to drink (water) pretty constantly. Of course being a computer geek my blood stream is coffee.

So, following the advice on here:
I first of all cleared a space in the closet and shifted my mic booth into that.

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/demcloset.wav

I reckon it is a massive improvement towards ‘dead’ sound. However, two big issues here.

(1) The room with the closet is the noisiest room in the house, over the boiler/ water heater, all water pipes appear to pass through it and an electrical hum from somewhere I haven’t yet tracked down, but I suspect that is the boiler as well.
(2) Reading a book in this position would cripple me. I could do a short record, but not an hour’s reading.

However, I have a rise and fall desk in the original room. This rises to almost 5’ and I can construct a duvet fort and move the tiles under there as well. (I could even stick some to the ‘ceiling’.) I can make this suitable to do an hour or more reading. Hell, if ‘she’ complains, I might be moving in permanently!

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/demdesk.wav

I think the under desk studio is getting closer. I think this is a massive improvement from where we started. There are a couple of bumps and clunks, but I can adjust my seating to stop those.

Is this getting cheeky? My next confusion is recording volume. I can reduce the input in Audacity and speak up. This tends to be better for covering mouth noise, but creates more echo. I can wind the input up and go quiet. At the moment (These samples) I am recording at “9” just below max of “10” and using a normal telephone to a deaf aunt amplitude of speech. I do public speaking, so can go all the way up to meeting hall volume, but I doubt that is what is needed.

Any thoughts?

All currencies accepted. Although I’m liking the matching pennies.

Andrew, thanks for the attempt to remove the echo. I agree that I think I need to achieve a better starting point before repairing. What do you mean by ‘better proximity’ for the mike. I am not 'wedded' to the snowball, but my original question that brought me to the forum was that if I am going to spend money, I want to do it based on the science and I haven't a clue what I am comparing with what.

Hi Eric,

That latest sample is so much better. By proximity I mean that the source of the audio (your mouth) is closer to the microphone. This will give a better sense of intimacy and a better tone to the voice that is being recorded. I reckon this is the next thing to do to achieve a better result.

Oops/update: I've just had a listen to the recording of your voice at a higher volume and I think I can hear a kind of distortion in it, which I am guessing might be from the plastic(?) enclosure/structure of the snowball mic.

Anyway, I've attached a spectrogram of the audio file from within Izotope RX7 for whatever you can get out of it. What you can see in there is also reflected in the zipped mp3 file that is also attached - the supplied demo audio followed by a copy of it with the "dialogue isolate" plugin applied in an effort to clean out non-vocal sounds.

What I'm hearing in the original audio that is bothering me, I can only best describe as a plastic sort of nasality when you are speaking. You'll need to listen to the before / after with some headphones as it's a comparatively subtle thing. I'm suspecting that the only way forward will be a better / non-plastic microphone. Others here may have a better idea.

Andrew

Thanks Andrew, I haven't clue what I am looking at in the spectrograph. However, I suspect that I will need to to get a lot better. If you would point me in a 'learning direction' plus a couple of clues, I will try to make sense of what you have sent.

In reality, the objective is an audio book. The quality I had (once tweaked) is, believe it or not, about equal to some of the full price audible books.

They are at best played over car systems, but more usually earbuds. But, I also have a lot of tweaks I can do to my duvet fort. It might actually be the poratble sound booth giving that effect, or it could also be a reflection off the kindle I am using as a script.

I am wondering about a 'real mic and pre-amp' but that once again starts the gadget trail.

Thank you so much for taking the time on this. I do really appreciate it.

No worries. In terms of 'good stuff to bad stuff' ratio, you are doing quite well. There's some very low frequency rumble you can see along the very bottom of the untreated left side, and that's about it. The level of background noise is very respectable on that recording.

Andrew

Andrew,

I do hear that nasal quality you mention. It is much worse in the "desk" sample, not nearly so bad in the "closet" sample.

Eric,

Unless the book is a rip-roaring drama, I'd say read in a normal conversational voice. Don't force it. And if the closet will be physically uncomfortable for any extended period, best to avoid that if we can find a suitable alternative.

I believe your mic has two possible modes: omni and cardioid. Which mode are you using?

Are you sure you're being consistent in terms of having the mic pointed toward your mouth ... not your nose, not your chest?

How was the mic held in the two samples? In your hand? On the desk?

Exactly what do you mean by "one foot acoustic panels"?

I would like to better envision the layout of your room, where you are within the dimensions of the room, what direction you're facing, etc.

Biotene is a company that sells toothpaste, mouthwash, and spray (and maybe other products) here in the US. If you can't find that brand, ask a pharmacist for an equivalent product. Or describe to your pharmacist that you want a spray to prevent your mouth from drying. A pharmacist should know what's available in your area.

PS: As a personal favor to me, please quit using the word "pop" to describe something that the rest of the audio world does not call a pop. Call it "mouth noise" generically and I think everyone will understand what you mean. You could call it a "click" but clicks can originate from various mechanical sources, even from electrical sources; so "click" is still a bit imprecise.

[QUOTE=Greg Miller;1959186]Battle, Just to be sure I understand, I think you are *not* saying that the sample he submitted is processed. You're just discussing processing in regard to what he may have done in the past (*not* with this sample) or that he may contemplate doing in the future. Am I understanding you correctly?


Yes this is a raw sample, I was commenting on his post concerning his use of effects.

Thanks. We're in complete agreement. Processing (while it can do a lot of amazing things) will not get rid of all the nasty reflections.

A picture tells a thousand words

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/mic-scaled.jpg

Originally, I had the mic enclosed in a full box of the foam squares. Having seen the video, I have used a handy fold out canvas bag to make up something similar to the ‘portabooth.’ You can see a couple of the acoustic squares in the picture.

I suspect a lot of the difference between closet and desk will be from Mic position. I have kept it in its enclosure. In the closet, I suspect I was above the mic and tried the suggestion of setting it at 45 degree. This was with the ‘booth’ sitting below the clothes on the shoe shelf and me kneeling in prayer position in front of it.

Under the desk, I was probably more directly aligned but there is more clear air around me under the desk. I suspect my mouth was closer to the mic in its booth, under the desk. It was on my office chair with the desk draped in a duvet.

Neither time was it hand held. The switch is in ‘1’ which says for speech (Cardoid) and it really does sound way off if I try either of the other.

On both I did have the square with the hole engaged across the front. I confess, whilst I hear a slight difference between the two, and I think the closet is ‘deader’ I think there is more mileage under the desk. Both for the more controllable noise factor and comfort. I will have the house to myself on Monday and will be able to take more time on set up and test.

Plan of room also here. The bookcase is around 5’2” so the snowball was just about level with my mouth.

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/plan-scaled.jpg

Never an incorrect categorisation of mouth noise will occur again!

Thanks for the images, they are very helpful.

To be sure I understand the mic enclosure:

• The folding canvas bag seems like a good idea. The canvas won't cause any reflections back into the mic, and it holds the foam squares well.

• Is there also a foam square in the back of the bag, behind the mic?

• Do you also place foam under the bag, so the bag is not sitting directly on a hard reflective surface? (You should try to avoid secondary reflections e.g. from your mouth to a hard desktop to the mic. Those will cause phase problems with the direct mouth-to-mic signal.) "Ideally" the mic should be on a floor stand, same height as your mouth, not near anything reflective, e.g. not near a hard desktop.

• I suspect that placing that much foam in close proximity to the mic could alter the directional pattern. However, if it helps deaden all the room reflections, it's a small sacrifice.

• I think I would try *not* having the foam-with-hole in front of the mic. Leave the front open as much as possible.

I've cobbled a sketch to clarify the desired position of mic to your head. If the mic is off to the side, not only will it eliminate real "pops" but it will not "see" clear to the back of your throat so this may reduce some of the mouth noises. Of course the mic should be at the same elevation as your mouth. Honestly, I tend to work about 3" - 4" from the mic, but I don't have that box to contend with, my mic is on a boom. It's hard for me to imagine where the copy will go when you are dealing with that box.

Definitely leave the front open. Not sure why someone would want it closed off - that's a new one to me.

Andrew

I got the idea of the front with a hole from trying to emulate the eyeball enclosure. That has the hole in front. I had looked around for something like the portabooth and not found anything other than the eyeball.

I didn't have it standing on a square. Will add that to the plan.

Just updated my previous post with a sketch.

Thanks Greg, not wedded to the box, it has been part of the evolution. Sunday is a house clatter day, so doubt I will get much achieved. I will run at least three tests in my duvet fort: no box, open box and closed (with hole). If I can get a good sound without it, it would be much easier. I think I have kept a greater distance from the mic to reduce mouth noise. Ordered biotene mouth spray.
It is all compromises with convenience v quality. A permanent location on the bookcase gave easier recording session. Having to build the fort requires more planning. I suspect the room would need too much attention to ever work. I liked your description as ‘nasty’. It is never going to be a permanent studio, I’m guessing at around 6-8 weeks recording. I did consider moving the wardrobe, but then it would be in the nasty room. Full circle, again.

Not sure I could work a boom under the desk, but the chair is fairly adjustable for height.

Thanks for all the input - still no gadget purchased!

Don't forget to check your email address associated with your DVinfo forum account.

Andrew

Sorry, didn’t understand this post. I am getting emails when people post on my thread.

Could you give me a brief explanation of the spectrograph? Checked the cost of the software you used... that’s not going to happen!

Here are some quick photos of a "COVID home studio" I threw together in a few hours so someone locally could record voice tracks at home. Luckily the room was carpeted to begin with. (Note the alcohol and disinfectant wipes on the table beside the keyboard.)

This was a spare bedroom, so fortunately we had a supply of mattresses and quilts. I stood up a mattress covering each of the two windows; this will slightly block outside sounds (luckily this is in a quiet neighborhood). Then I placed another mattress in the corner between the first two. For good measure, I draped quilts over all three mattresses. Most importantly this will deaden two sides of the room so will cut down significantly on reflections.

The talent stands about six ft. from the nearest hard surface, and faces toward the dead corner of the room. This is nowhere near the mid-point of either axis of the room, so it avoids possible problems from standing waves. Copy sits on a conventional folding music stand, so no hard surfaces there to reflect the talent's voice. The mic is on a boom, it's perhaps 30 degrees off the central axis of the talent's head, so pops are not a problem.

Note that the mic is facing into a closet (which is behind the talent). This is the mic's most sensitive direction (it's cardioid) so it's important to reduce unwanted sound from this direction. The clothes rod in the closet is draped with quilts, and the upper shelf is loaded with quilts and pillows. Thus the mic will pick up very few reflections from this area. The mic's back side (its least sensitive direction) if facing the corner between the windows; this may perhaps slightly reduce pickup of any outside noise.

The mic is USB; the headphone plugs into the mic for zero-latency monitoring. The laptop w/ editing software is within arm's reach of the talent, sitting atop a dresser. A heavy blanket is hung on the front of the dresser, and hopefully should help with at least high frequency reflections.

I feel I have taken enough of your time, but I am truly grateful of the assistance.

Once my desk fort was built I did a whole series of tests moving closer / further back box no box.

I would like to convince myself that the no box recording is better, as it is one less thing under the desk.

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/nobox.wav

However, I think the box does deaden the sound a little.

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/inbox.wav

As per, these are both untouched by edits or tuning. I can here that 'nasal' qulaity you talked about. I am not sure if that is a sound issue, or an impending sniffle which is definitely about to arrive.

Next time I rebuild the fort I will take a picture. I have knocked it down to get on with the day job for a couple of hours.

Eric,

Don't worry about taking up time. If I didn't have time to check the forum, or thought this was becoming non-productive, you wouldn't hear from me. ;-)

You've mentioned so many different room configurations that I'm honestly confused. By all means, if you reconstruct your space at some future time, please take a photo or two to accompany your description.

The two latest samples sound much better than the earlier ones. Most of the room resonance is gone, and the intelligibility is better. Of these two, "inbox" sounds a bit better to me. Definitely more dead, and a bit less of the resonant(?) nasal(?) quality. The room problems are reduced to the point where, indeed, subtle differences in mics may become more important.

A friend has a Blue Yeti, which she uses for scores of commercial broadcast tracks every day, and I just listened to some of those tracks. They definitely do not have the somewhat resonant quality that I hear in your files. This characteristic possibly might be your mic ... or it might be reflections under the desk (I hear the sound more in "nobox" than I do in "inbox"). Or it might be a peculiarity about your voice.

By the way, there are multi-layer sheet goods, with foam outer layers and some heavier inner layer (originally lead, but now sometimes other materials instead). These are intended for soundproofing of vehicles, boats, etc., but might be more effective than foam-only products ... for example if you want to abandon the small "box o'foam" configuration, but need some sort of treatment under the desk.

IMHO you've made a lot of progress thus far. Good luck! Hope to hear back from you before too long.

The Yeti is supposed to be a better mic than the snowball. It does cost more. The snowball was my first purchase of sound gear and so might not have been the best choice. However, as you have proved, it isn't really the limiting factor at the moment.

However, I am wondering if the nasal thing might be the snowball foam cover. I will try removing that next time I am recording. I have also ordered a boom to try getting up close and personal to the mic. That is assuming I can get it to work upside down under my desk!

I will also search out a couple more cushions to add to the fort. Will keep you posted.

I'd guess that you'll have trouble fitting a boom under your desk. You might consider a flexible gooseneck instead. I imagine they are available in various lengths.

Carry on!

Hi Eric,

Here's a handy explanation of how the spectrograph / spectrogram thing works, giving you a much more informative visualisation of the audio you are working with.

A spectrogram is a detailed view of audio, able to represent time, frequency, and amplitude all on one graph. A spectrogram can visually reveal broadband, electrical, or intermittent noise in audio, and can allow you to easily isolate those audio problems by sight. Because of its profound level of detail, a spectrogram is particularly useful in post production—so it’s not surprising that you’ll find one in tools like RX 7 and Insight 2.

More at: https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/understanding-spectrograms.html

Andrew

Update:

Scissor arm arrived. I have now got my under-desk studio working. It’s a rise and fall desk and so I will also play with the working height, but it is a perfect reading location. So much more natural than any other configuration I have tried to date.

Works well once beloved goes out or starts watching TV. I can live with this.

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/desk.jpg

No box or clutter, so it is quite easy to convert in a few minutes. I am happy with the sound. It isn’t quite as dead, but it is also less nasal and a few more cushions are on their way. The blue duvet rolls down to close off for use.

Link included to a sample.

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/demboom.wav

Just in case you wondered why I am doing this, here is a screen dump of a message. These thanks go to you folk on this forum:

http://monkeyonmyshoulder.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/why.jpg

I have no doubt I will add to my ‘studio’ over the next few recording sessions, but I now think the next requirements are ‘skills’.

AND I suspect you all know the addiction. ‘Oh, a mic with a pre amp that converts to USB’ Hmm, can I sneak that onto budget somewhere…

Isn’t this where we started!

Awesome help and forum. I looked at some of the posts and really haven’t a clue of 99% of what is being discussed here.

Mate, welcome to the forum. This is where we all learn stuff. Amazing bunch of talented people hang out here and there's not much that can't be answered.

Andrew

I've been listening to all the recordings as they come in, and for my ears, demboom.wav is perfectly listenable, and sounds OK.

A few things concern me in the process. Having sat behind the glass for many recording sessions, one of the biggest problems comes from matching end of day 1 recordings with start of day 2. In difficult spaces, mouth to mic distance changes make massive differences.

The popular voice over mics in good voice rooms tend to be placed a little further away, and the room's acoustics make this perfectly doable. This also makes session to session matching much easier.

For VO artistes who work from home permanently, repeatable acoustics are vital. From the recordings I suspect you are working a little close - for practical reasons and 10mm can be critical to enable matching. I also wonder about your processing. It's very common for newcomers to recording to not get the capture right, then spend ages trying to fix it. The professional voice over artistes rarely tweak or process their audio at all. They sit down, press record and the little template they use adds their preset treatment and that gets sent off. Their headphones are of sufficient quality that any errors or problems can be heard.

I've done a fair few products for visually impaired folk - and once you get the physical setup sorted and made repeatable, the speed of recording can be pretty impressive. Few pops to edit, the occasional clonk where something gets kicked - that kind of thing.

The rise in podcasting seemed to generate new microphones, and I don't quite understand why? I suppose cost, and USB connectivity (in my humble view, not remotely a positive feature).

A modest audio interface and one of the budget condensers create capture equipment usually better than the 'new' products labelled ideal for podcasting - when inside is a very standard dirt cheap electret element that will change timbre between batches. I wonder if a manufacturer buys 5000 elements from China, and when they run low, they buy another 5000 that are physically the same size, but perhaps are a totally different product. Happens all the time with LED lighting that I also import. I buy 20, they're great. Order another 20 to discover they look different!

Buy Shure, AKG, Sennheiser, or the German products and a twenty year old one sounds the same as a new one.

That last recording for me is perfectly workable. Perhaps a little gentle and repeatable EQ, and some light compression, again - repeatable, and you're done.

EDIT - blind cheap mic shootout.
This just arrived in my inbox, quite interesting.
https://youtu.be/7lWzJYKaPPQ

Hi Paul, thanks for the input. A couple of under desk tweaks mean the mic is fixed distance from the wall and I am leaning in a comfy position to do a two hour read. My ideal is no tweaks, but I need to use the noise reduction and knock off a little bass. I’d guess 2 inch from pop filter and 6 inch from mic.

I think I now have a repeatable formula, but this is the skill building I now need. As this is non fiction, then no voices to keep track of.

I have decided to press forward to get all of the chapters done and then loop back to the beginning to fix the first few sections. Hopefully by the end, I will have a routine. I hope to have my first stable files ready to go by the weekend, depending on wife’s clatter schedule.

I am not going to change the mic, regardless of how tempting the gadgets are. Until, maybe the second book.

But I am actually happy with what I am cutting at the moment.

A couple of under desk tweaks ...

I can remember when that meant something entirely different.

Oh no! Two nations divided by a common language! Certain words and phrases can do this.

I confess crawling into my duvet fort does feel like regression/ escaping our current situation. Hope we all have a life after covid!

Maybe now is the time to buy stock in a mask-making company.

A little hijacking...that porta booth box has me wondering how well it works at I occasionally record vocals for songs (non professionally), and doing some voice roles for a friend's project (think old narrative radio shows).

Right now I use a "booth" made of doubled up moving blankets hung on stands, and a blanket on the floor. Lately I've been doing a triangle shape...I only have enough for three "walls" and the floor.

It's terrible room...square (mostly), hard tile floors. No carpet in the entire place. Results are okay to my ears, though you can hear some room. Honestly the voice roles sound very clean to me, but singing excites enough room sound so that it makes it in and washes out the voice a little.

I have not tried the closet, also in same room. Wondering how that would work if I threw those blankets over the exposed surfaces, one over the inside of the door, closed door during takes. Hmmmmmmmm.

I made something v close to porta booth. It did give an incremental improvement, but once I built the under desk space, it actually added its own ‘flavour’. In closet was probably the best, ‘quick’ fix. And I tried to work it, but reading a book is around 8-12 hours recording I find best done in 1-2 hour sessions. Not viable crouched where this was. I guessed if I moved the closet to the other room, the problems would come back.
If it had been short pieces, I would have gone with the closet option.

The final under desk set up is speaking straight at the duvet. It takes me 5-10 minutes to set up. There are samples posted on this thread showing the different configs.

Guys on here were amazing.

Eric, glad to hear you're making good progress.

Unless you use a huge amount of absorption, the low frequencies will penetrate the blankets, bounce off the walls, back through the blankets, and back to your mic. So you can possibly have low frequency standing waves in the room. You want to locate yourself (and mic) to minimize that problem. Consider the floor plan of your room to have an X axis and a Y axis (ignoring the height). Avoid locating yourself at the midpoint of either axis! A better location would be closer to (but not exactly) 1/3 to 1/4 the dimension of the room, and different for the two different axes. In theory you will always have some standing waves but avoiding the dimensional midpoints, and avoiding symmetry, will reduce the worst of them.

This is why the "under desk" setup adds "flavour" to your recordings. Low frequencies are penetrating the blankets, bouncing off the hard panels of the desk, thence back through the blankets to the mic. Depending on the dimensions, this will create peaks and dips in the frequency response. If the desk panels are thin, your voice may even excite some panel resonance which will tend to emphasize those frequencies.

Also remember that you need treatment behind you. The mic is pointed at your head. The mic's most sensitive direction therefore extends past either side of your head to the area behind you. (Whereas the mic's least sensitive direction is 180 degrees away from that, the rear side of the mic's central axis.) It seems to me that portable mini baffles completely ignore this fact.

Look at the photo in post #33. If the talent were in that shot, they would be to the viewer's left of the mic, and would be blocking your view of the laptop. The mic is aimed toward the left edge of the photo, which is actually inside a wide, shallow closet (doors removed) behind the talent. The clothes rod is draped with double-layer thick quilts extending down to the floor; the shelf above the rod is full of pillows and blankets. The area behind the talent, i.e. directly in front of the mic, is as dead as possible.

I've been following this thread with great interest, some really useful info and great help - rather than hijack the thread I'll start another - I'm also in need of a few critical ears