Koz, many thanks for the detailed reply. I too checked with the recommended mastering tools (ACX check, RMS normalise, limiter) and found, as you did, that it passed technically. I did request that she hold her breath for those opening two seconds but I’ll reinforce the idea. And she is a fist-width from the mic so perhaps I’ll suggest either a bit more distance or a slight angle.
I can’t hear a low tone, but the laptop is actually on the desktop. Does the Mac have either a fan or a physical hard disk? (probably the latter, at least) so that might be the source. I’ll suggest a different placement.
The (very?) slight sibilance doesn’t bother me but that is presumably just a personal preference. As things stand, is it acceptable as far as ACX is concerned?
I’ll bet everyone thought all you needed was a pleasant, expressive voice and the rest of this would be a walk in the park, right?
You are about to meet a hidden Hollywood talent. Read this in your best theatrical style. Now read the whole book that way. ACX expects all your chapters to match and the beginning and end of the book have to match.
This is where live headphones can be handy.
Not all home recording systems support that. You can’t just plug the headphones into the computer and they have to be real headphones, not earbuds or earphones. If it’s convenient, you’re probably doing it wrong.
Note he’s about one fist (his) away from the pop filter.
As things stand, is it acceptable as far as ACX is concerned?
I’d say no, particularly because a sister posting to yours got rejected because of background noises. It seems to have passed ACX Test. We still don’t know what’s going on yet.
There’s a difference between natural, rain-in the trees (shshshsh) background sound and Something Causing Noises. You have the gentle rain sounds, too, but I didn’t have any trouble hearing that extra sound on my killer sound system, and ACX is looking for defects like that.
Does the Mac have either a fan or a physical hard disk?
If you mean classic, spinning metal hard drives, my last bunch of machines have had Solid State Drives, not spinning metal. Highly recommended if your goal is production.
Macs are dead quiet most of the time, but you can stress them and they will insist on cooling themselves. Make sure the recording is the only thing running. Restart and don’t let anything else start. Also, put the Mac on a book and towel and the microphone too, if applicable.
You can’t put the Mac directly on a towel because it’s trying to breathe through the hinge and you can’t block that. You may just have desk noises.
a sister posting to yours got rejected because of background noises
I think we found it. That posting had overall quiet background sound, but with clunking and banging mixed in. The clunking and banging may not turn up in ACX Check, but Human Quality Control would just hate it.
Yes, that was my meaning. Given the problem with the first laptop, the replacement was described as an older machine, hence my suspecting it didn’t use one or more SSDs.
Macs are dead quiet most of the time, but you can stress them and they will insist on cooling themselves.
That might well be what’s happening; thanks for the hint about not putting it directly onto a towel.
That posting had > overall > quiet background sound, but with clunking and banging mixed in.
Do you mean in additional places to the opening two seconds?
I show a low pitched tone probably computer fan sound behind the performance.
Four ways: on my desktop speakers (decent quality but hardly killer, and with my PC’s constant low noise not far away), on good quality whole-ear-covering headphones also on the PC; and both on speakers and headphones on my main AV system (the nearest thing I have to killer but still falling a little short). Most of the time I use the headphones on my PC, for quality and convenience.
This is the timeline at between 6 and 7 seconds. Note most of those blobs are little scribbles roughly centered about the mid point. That’s normal voice. But that thing between 6.6 and 6.7 is not. That’s the “P” in “Produced.” On a larger sound system, that sounds like someone hit you in the head with a pillow. Whomp!
You said the system has that cheese-grater to try and suppress pop and blast noises. The next step is oblique positioning. Try “B”." You don’t have to get closer. Oblique spacing is sometimes a handy way to get better volume with few if any vocal distortions. Your volume is fine.
Most P Pops go straight in front of your lips. Don’t put the microphone there.
Thanks very much: that does seem a distinct improvement. I’m not familiar with Couture so I’ll investigate that.
But the real cure is more acoustic treatment for the room.
Understood. But if that proves impractical then your “After” tweaking sounds to me like a decent alternative. May I ask exactly what parameters you applied?
Excellent, thanks, though that positioning does seem extremely oblique, with the voice directed not so much across the mic as away from it. I thought you meant leaving the mic where it is but rotating it some 30 to 40 degrees on its axis. But I’ll pass the picture on and we’ll try it.
Incidentally, I had no difficulty in interpreting your image, though Trebor’s added nose does give the speaker a more interesting personality.
