Looking for Opinions / Advice

Hi all -

I found this forum and it has so much good information! I wanted to know if any of you have a moment to review my audio and tell me what you think, and what tweaks I maybe able to make.

These were recorded recently for 2 auditions and the process was:

-Recorded Standing in a home sound booth (Moving Blankets, PVC, pure determination)
-Mic: MXL Studio 1 Red Dot (USB) obviously recording into Audacity.
-Original stats: RMS=-24.3 / Noise Floor 42-dB

I applied the RMS Normalize to -21, and A noise reduction of -25dB after taking a sample. They have both passed the ACX Check

I worry that I’m losing the bass tone of my voice from the increased noise reduction but in the quietest of circumstances to ensure I don’t have to normalize so much the recording volume is set to 90%.

Any help or guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks!

https://soundcloud.com/user-31403696/sets/acx-auditions

-25dB is a lot of Noise Reduction:
-10dB is about the limit before processing artefacts become conspicuous, (e.g when you inhale).
IMO don’t use any more than -10dB noise reduction, if the noise-floor is still too high try couture expander plugin to push it down, (again -10dB is about the limit before it begins to sound weird) .

BTW notching 60Hz, & using a rumble-filter will reduce your noise-floor measurement quite a bit before any noise-reduction is applied …

before-after, Notch 60 & runble-filter.gif

OMG :astonished: That Notch fix is remarkable! I recorded a test, and applied the notch filter and it dropped the Sound floor -15dB! I only had to reduce by 5! Thats so awesome. I cant thank you enough.

Im sorry if this is a Noob follow up, but is there a Rumble filter for a USB mic, or would that only be for traditional set-ups?

Again, thank you!

I meant the rumble-filter in Audacity’s equalizer …


It removes infrasound which isn’t audible by humans, but will contribute to the noise-floor measurement.

I don’t see where it lets me download the file.

Did I miss a step somewhere?

Koz

No, “thepiperofseville” hasn’t enabled the download option on their SoundCloud tracks …

“thepiperofseville” hasn’t enabled the download option on their SoundCloud tracks

OK.

Koz

@thepiperofseville

Since live performances sometimes mess with ACX Check and some of the other tools, can you burn a 10 second voice test following this recipe and post it on the forum?

https://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/TestClip/Record_A_Clip.html

Thanks.

Koz