I’ve been asked by a friend to listen to her recordings for possible submission to ACX. I’m fairly familiar with Audacity 2.4.2 and have used it for my own work but this is my first time working with material recorded by someone else. The sample recording I’ve received is too low and in stereo, both of which I can easily change, but the actual vocal quality has something of a boom to it. I’m attaching an eight second sample, exported as a WAV file from the original m4a.
My question is: is this a serious fundamental fault which I should ask my friend to rectify at source, or can I successfully equalise the signal using Audacity? If so, I’d be grateful for any basic guidelines: obviously I’ll experiment myself but informed suggestions will be very welcome.
I’d bet ACX are not going to accept that because of the loud reverberation in the room.
There’s no way to fix that in post production.
The only cure is to re-record in an acoustically treated, room, (or car).
Thanks for that. My friend supplied two samples, one recorded further away from the mic than the one I posted: I attached this one because to my ears it sounded better.
My understanding is that she recorded in as dead an acoustic as she could contrive, but I don’t know the details. I’ll find out.
I do like the voice, but everything else could use work.
loud reverberation in the room.
What he said.
It’s a shock to discover how hard it is to produce studio conditions in your house.
That almost sounds like recording in the bath.
There is a fuzzy rule for spacing.
One Hawaiian Shaka without a wind screen…
… or a power fist with one.
If you don’t use a pop and wind screen (the black tennis racket), getting close may cause P-Popping and other mouth and breath noises.
But that honking is a little unusual. Post how they did it. If somebody had a gun and forced us, we could probably fix that in effects and filters, but it’s a lot of work and it might damage the voice. Much better to record “clean” which, of course, is the reason people write checks to sound studios.
Many microphones have "tricks, so it’s really important to know the microphone and other parts of the system.
Koz, many thanks for those replies. I knew about the preference for mono but I wanted to post the sample exactly as I received it (apart from converting from m4a to WAV). I’ll change anything to mono in future, or ask that the original be made that way.
My friend has sent a picture of her setup, which I’m attaching.
The mic is a Rode NT-USB (which seems to get pretty favourable reviews for a budget model) but I don’t know what distance she was working from it: possibly a lot more than would be ideal, in view of the sound. I think those are Scan acoustic tiles.
.
Sorry, I forgot to address this: I don’t know what she’s using for the rest of the chain, but I believe she’s recording on a laptop (and possibly a Mac since she sends m4a files?). I can enquire tomorrow.
The sound is so off it would be worth checking to see if they are actually unintentionally recording from the computer’s built in mic, rather than from the Rode USB mic.
Gently tapping each device whilst recording will enable them to tell which of the mics is live.
Trebor, that’s a possibility which certainly hadn’t occurred to me. My friend sent two sample recordings, made at slightly different (unspecified) distances from the mic and they do differ in level as well as quality with the closer being louder, but I suppose it could still be possible that the laptop mic is the active one. I don’t know where it was during the recordings.
Is it even conceivable that both the inbuilt and an external mic could be live at the same time, I wonder? That would play merry hell with the sound quality.
Ah - it’s just occurred to me: wouldn’t a laptop have only a mono mic? The recordings she sent were in stereo and with both legs equally balanced.
I’ve asked her to do another test making sure she’s just four to six inches from the mic. Depending on how that sounds, I’ll ask her to explore the wrong-mic possibility.
Yes, the fact that the Rode is a mono mic really should have occurred to me. So the resultant double-mono recordings must be down to my friend’s software. Thanks.
In your case, you may have more than one active. Depending on the machine, “recording from the internet” activates everything. In the Audacity setups, you should be recording from one single “real” device.
Note that in this home studio setup, there is a heavy blanket on the table.
That’s not an accident. You can get reflection sound distortions from a hard table and a simple tripod stand.
Just to cover it, most microphone of that type are side-address (talk into the side) and you speak into the company name. It looks OK in the pix, but checking is nice.
This one?
My built-in microphones will mount either stereo or mono. Knowing the machine is good. What is the machine?
The laptop is recording from the built-in microphone and the laptop is sitting on a wastepaper basket which accounts for that severe resonant honk. The basket is made of metal, is blue, and has pictures of sailboats.
I’ve asked my friend to make another test recording, ensuring that she’s around four inches from the mic. If this shows the same effect then another mic being active is something I can have her investigate. Unfortunately she can’t try again until after the weekend.
Note that in this home studio setup, there is a heavy blanket on the table…
That’s not an accident. You can get reflection sound distortions from a hard table and a simple tripod stand.
That is a splendid setup. The hard desk top possibly being a problem had occurred to me, but would reflections from that and the stand be enough to account for that poor quality?
Just to cover it, most microphones of that type are side-address (talk into the side) and you speak into the company name. It looks OK in the pix, but checking is nice.
I shall.
My built-in microphones will mount either stereo or mono. Knowing the machine is good. What is the machine?
Are you familiar with the game “telephone?” That’s where many of you sit in a line and start a message at one end and each person whispers it to the next person? You see what comes out the other end and hilarity ensues.
Any reason we’re doing this second or third person?
Read down the blue links, they’re very short and they address common mistakes.
We have pre-baked audiobook mastering and testing tools, but it’s really good to have a clean studio first.
The little three-legged home microphone mount is insanely convenient from Marketing and Publicity’s view, but it’s probably the worse place to put a microphone to actually record anything. Sound reflections from the desk can give you a little talking into a wine glass voice (Comb Effect). There is a sound example I haven’t recorded yet. Start with the microphone flat on the table and then, while announcing, lift the microphone straight up. Right about 5 to 7 inches (12cm-18cm), you get odd tonal shifts, missing from flat on the desk and elevated. You can get around most of that distortion with the heavy blanket or towel on the desk, but most home users did exactly what your presenter did. Bare desk and tripod mount.
would reflections from that and the stand be enough to account for that poor quality?
Nobody wrote you can’t have more than one problem. It’s such a pronounced effect that it’s likely there is more than one problem.
you speak into the company name.
Sure enough, there is one (1) home microphone available with the company name on the back. That came up in the forum postings. Just when we thought we had a convenient rule.
Chinese Whispers
Any reason the actor/presenter/performer isn’t in these messages?
Thanks for that; I’ll read through it and the links with interest.
We have pre-baked audiobook mastering and testing tools, but it’s really good to have a clean studio first.
I fully appreciate that.
Nobody wrote you can’t have more than one problem. It’s such a pronounced effect that it’s > likely > there is more than one problem.
I understand. As I said, it will be interesting and instructive to hear the result of a test made with the speaker definitely working very close to the mic - considerably closer, I suspect, than hitherto. With luck this might eliminate some - perhaps the bulk - of the problems, if there are more than one, and narrow down the field for investigating the remainder, if there are any.
Chinese Whispers… Any reason the actor/presenter/performer isn’t in these messages?
Ah, now I understand the reference, thanks for clarifying. She’s not particularly technical-savvy (which is why she asked me to listen to her tests in the first place) and is perfectly happy for me to make these enquiries on her behalf and report her results back to the forum. I’m confident that this three (or more)-way exchange hasn’t and won’t introduce any Chinese Whispering-type complications.
I have more experience in this area than she, though not so much that I don’t need the sort of help I’m getting here, for which I’m very grateful.
I sprung for a de-reverberator by Acon (https://acondigital.com/products/deverberate/) because the audio that I work with since COVID, generally comes from a laptop mic and camera so it is usually not that great. Anyway, I ran the clip through that and am attaching it.
Ive only had the plugin for about a week and haven’t had time to mess with it, so I pretty much used a default preset for this. Not sure if it would help in this case or not, but I’m attaching the audio. Some of the reverb has been removed - so if I knew what I was doing, I might get better results
