Hello everyone! Just as the title says I’m curious if the audio I recorded sounds fine. My surrounding are currently set to make the least noise possible, but I do lack a windscreen for the plosives or some foam I can put under the microphone to stop the vibrations.
The microphone I"m using is the Blue Yeti and here’s the settings for it;
Windows Microphone Level: 20
Gain All The Way Down
Cardioid mode
2CH, 16-BIT, 48HZ
As for what settings I used on the audio itself
Microphone level 0.20
Noise Removal
Normalize
Equalizer: Bass Boost
Compressor: Threshold 12
Reverb: Vocal 1 Preset with the Room Size at 4
So yeah, is there anything I could do to improve it or does it sound fine? Thanks to all in advance!
We’d be happy to listen to your sound. Post a ten second mono WAV clip. Stay away from MP3 for sound production.
We’re also interested in the raw clip. What did it sound like before you messed with it? Most people overdo noise removal. We may be able to suggest better settings.
Can I assume you’re trying for ACX audiobook compliance?
You’re going to have to record louder. The post production clip has too much work done to it and the raw clip is way too low.
Koz
This is one recommended setup for live recording in Audacity.
Undock the meters and make them enormously bigger. Click the ribbed control strip on the meter left edge and the control corner in the lower right. Make sure the meters are set for about 60 on the left. I think it will actually read -57 or so. That’s the right sound range.
Change the range if needed in Audacity > Edit > Preferences > Interface: Meter dB range.
Then, while you’re performing, make sure your bouncing red sound meter regularly peaks around -6 and never goes all the way up to 0. Note my blue waves are generally the same size and don’t wander up and down by very much?
Yes, you do have to watch the meters and read copy at the same time. The board operator on the other side of the glass in a real studio is adjusting levels and watching the meters as you perform. Now you have to do that. You get used to not being wildly theatrical while you read.
The raw recording has a fair amount of 120 Hz hum that would be good to track down and get rid of if possible. To my ear it seems like it is an acoustic source… a fan or something in the room but it might be electrical in source as well. I can certainly be filtered out, as you did in your “with effects” sample, but the filtering does alter the timber of your voice a bit.
Unfortunately tracking down the source of hum can be a tedious process.
I think in my situation is not all that tedious. To actually fix it probably yes, but for locating it I think I might now what it is. I currently have a desk that has all my video game consoles in a side and on top of the desk there’s my PC and that’s definitely what does the most noise that I can actually hear (At least the fan for either the GPU or CPU or both). But the microphone surprisingly only picks up a small amount of it at any gain. It sounds like a muffled leaf blower in my room while just a hum in the recording. Anyway to completely eliminate this besides moving the PC? (Really don’t have much space around to do so).
You may have what I had. I have a power hum somewhere in my recording room. It’s not physical sound, but it shows up like a radiation problem. I can move the microphone and make it come and go. It’s not a fan. There are no fans in the room.
Anyway, I need to listen to the latest versions on a computer with an actual sound system.
Effect > Notch Filter: 120Hz Q=6
Noise Removal -1 Drag any segment in your quiet test > Profile
Noise Removal -2 Select the whole clip > 9, 0, 150, 0.15
Effect > Normalize > [X]Normalize to -3 [X]Remove DC
~~
– Noise is around the -60 range, but it doesn’t count because I can hear you moving around and I think I can even hear a TV set in the background. Don’t move and hold your breath for 2 seconds. Noise is very difficult to meet. You need to silence everything obvious and even then you may miss something.
– Sound peaks are at -3.
– Loudness of just the sound segment is -21.5 which passes.
If you can get rid of that hum and the background noises, we may not need the Notch Filter. Noise Removal may not be needed as much.
The Noise Removal I picked is very gentle. I bet you can’t tell what I did, except the clip is louder and the background is quieter. Noise Removal is the tool that most people go nuts over and it can damage your voice.
Attach #2 is Analyze > Plot Spectrum on the original clip (click on the picture). Note that one really tall spike at 120Hz measured along the bottom. In the US, that could be a fan or a compressor or other motor. It’s really annoying and I wish it wasn’t there.
There is another tool that can give an almost invisible quiet boost, but you don’t need it so far. The fewer tools the better.
Or you can not bother. The patched clip very nearly meets AXC compliance just sitting there.
60dB in English words is sound that is a thousand times quieter than normal speaking. So there’s nothing accidental about this. You need to go to some effort to make sure there’s no other sound in the room with you during the performance.
One of the posters on the forum lives in an apartment on La Brea Blvd. He’s taken to voice recording in the late evenings to get around traffic noises.
