I need to go back and figure out what I listened to. I went to the hosting site with two different computers and I think I got a different order of clips. Everything is there.
There’s only one non-raw clip, right? That’s the one that will not pass noise without Steve’s high pass filter. I would use his work instead of a home-grown high pass filter. That’s the rumble and hum filter.
EQ LQ Rolloff for speech import
I don’t remember that one. What’s that for?
“Because I think it makes me sound good” is dangerous because we’re immediately going to start quizzing you on your speakers and listening environment. I thought you sounded fine. You can tell it’s getting there because I kept getting stuck in the story instead of paying attention to what I was doing.
Ringed with thermo-nuclear explosives? At least they never had to actually bury anybody. Your options are burial, cremation or lunch.
Messing with quality may throw some of the other settings off.
I need to step through it. Chapter 1 wav is just Chapter 1 raw with your settings, right? It’s still slightly too noisy. You may have picked the wrong filters. That hum thing is very critical.
I need to step through that and see what happened. I’m doing a non-audio job and I’m a little fried right now…
speaking of putting a face to the name, the mate who was visiting took a few shots of the room with this rather good camera. I’m still waiting for most to come through but here is yours truly.
Unless you have a specific reason that we don’t know about for recording at 48000 Hz sample rate, I’d suggest that you set the recording preference to 44100 Hz.
“Edit > Preferences > Quality” → Default sample rate = 44100
Yes, still a bit low.
The first track is your “raw” recording.
The second track shows what it would look like at the recommended recording level.
The remaining hum is mostly 60 Hz mains hum.
60 Hz is very low pitched, and is easily filtered out without affecting the voice.
The more damaging effect is if there are harmonics at 120, 180, 240 … Hz as these would overlap with voice frequencies.
This spectrum plot is from one of your unprocessed (raw) silences. You can see that there is a large spike at 60 Hz (reported as 59 Hz), but thankfully no big spikes beyond that.
and here again, but at an almost insignificant level, after applying the “LF rolloff for speech” Equalization:
(It could be reduced further using the “Notch Filter”, but I don’t think it needs it if you are using the “LF rolloff” and a little “Noise Removal”.)
Be encouraged, we’re picking at details now. It’s starting to sound very good
These are the settings that I’d use:
Record in mono. Sample rate 44100 Hz.
Normalize to 0.
Equalization: “LF rolloff for speech”
Noise reduction:
12
0.00
200
0.15
Look for any parts that are noticeably louder or quieter than the rest, and manually adjust using the Amplify effect or Envelope Tool.
In “Cattle - Chapter 1 (Raw)”, apply:
about -3 dB from 8.5 s to 11 s
about -2 dB from 5:49 to 5:58 (and fix the clicks at 5:48.035 s and 5:58.065)
Normalize to 0.
Limiter(2)
-4
10
Amplify to 3 dB
Export as WAV.
Export as MP3. 192 kbps CBR.
That gives an RMS level of about -22 dB, Peak level -3 dB and noise floor way below 60 dB (even as that police car goes past at 4:34 ) and most importantly, it sounds good.
When I’m up there accepting my first Voice award I shall be sure to mention you all.
But seriously, it would have taken me forever to figure all of this out so I really do appreciate everybody’s generous help and I hope this thread helps others in my situation. And your compliments mean more than you can know.
I’m going to be recording again this afternoon to try out the new (definitive?) settings.
Be encouraged, we’re picking at details now. It’s starting to sound very good
What he said.
I’m in favor of using the LF Rolloff for Speech at the top because that handily gets rid of many of the problems ahead of further processing. Noise Removal, for example has less work to do and more likely to be successful without damaging the show.
Cattle Chapter 1
I’m beginning to connect the title with the content. This isn’t a Disney show, is it?
Fear not, I shall try to get you all copies when it is published.
I would highly recommend that you first read these from the same author, however. Whilst Cattle isn’t a sequel per se, it is set in the same world. I’ll be voicing all of them eventually but I’m not sure in which order at the moment. Cattle was also the first I edited for him.
Now, as to my voice work, the last (hopefully) problem I seem to have is those mouth clicks! I’m trying the apples and warm (not cold as I previously thought) water and that really helps along with breath control but they still sneak in there. At the beginning or end of a sentence is fine but now and then I hear them in the middle and that isn’t so easy. I know Audacity has a click removal option but I’m not sure how to work it. Obviously I’d rather take care of it at the source so I’m continuing to practice but does that feature help?
And now, for something entirely different. My cousin Martine challenged me to that meme which makes the rounds about English pronunciation. I took her up on it and decided to record it. You will find it here:
Nice try. Pop and click removal is used to remove cat hairs from vinyl records. Those pops are usually distinctive enough to allow software to find them. Not so mouth noises. Those “look like” the rest of your show and voice and don’t have a significant signature.
I’m remembering we got someone else past mouth noises a while back. It wasn’t pretty. I think an elf designed custom software for his voice. I don’t remember the outcome. Searching.
…apparently isn’t a word.
Who transcribed it? Or did you do it from memory?
~~
I think you’re overthinking this mouth noise thing. You suddenly start to obsess over the little oddities that you can only hear when you’re under studio conditions. The rest of us on, for example, La Brea or hiking in Baldwin Hills will not be hearing that.
Aye, perhaps you’re right. I’ve been getting tension in my shoulders from obsessing on it (I do most of my work standing). I am thinking of trying one last thing, however and that is a humidifier since I already have one. I just need to wait for the cleaning agent to come since I’ve not used it in a year.
Hmm, interesting thread. I’ve added a comment to it. Why are you ducking?
And WHEN are you going to stop by? Seriously, you’d be welcome to use my room but also you’d probably spot things I could improve or we could just chill with a film. I can treat you to my home theatre room as a thanks for all your help.
Part of that discussion was the idea that the “defects” should not be removed. They’re part of the natural voice and many people speak like that. Further, anything you do to the presentation has to be done every time. Post production editing as a fuzzy rule takes longer than the actual show — sometimes may times longer — and adding production tools and processes that may or may not be valuable is not welcome.
This won’t hit you until weeks into your career when your fame and fortune pile up, but your time allotted doesn’t.
Any problems or complaints of sound quality means you have to go back and revisit the whole show and make sure everything is as you intended. How many times can you stand to sit through an hour show to make sure your mouth clicks and pops didn’t have a bad reaction with the noise removal process?
“I got a call from HarperCollins. They want you for the voice of Charlie the Cat. They reserved time at Paramount Studios on Melrose in Looping Studio 7 (the one by the Commissary — try their French Dip). That’s not a problem, is it?”
