Need Help With Getting My Yeti To Work For Me.

Special Interest Groups Recording Techniques
1

Hey Guys, I am another youtubers guy who has no clue what he is doing. i really do need a hand though, i have looked around but i’m not sure what i am doing.

i use a blue yeti mainly because that is what i seen everyone use, so i thought it must be good, little did i know it wasn’t, so if you have any suggestions of any good microphone that doesn’t cost an arm and leg for, please say.
but apart from that, i have no clue how to set up my microphone position, edit the sound in audacity to make it sounds so much more immersive.
at the moment my yeti is about 18 inches away from me, in the cardioid position (pattern), the gain at the 10 oclock position (looking from the back) and my computer is 39/100 gain.
Any tips or advice on levels or placement etc. or anything I could potentially be doing wrong would help. I will link to a video I recorded the other day to help clarify what it sounds like. i would really appreciate any help. thank you :slight_smile:.

it starts roughly 45 seconds in. i made a special start to the video so i don’t really start talking till 45 seconds in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmKp1WFKesA

honestly any help, tips/advice is greatly appreciated, i just want the best sounding quality i can get :slight_smile:

2

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a Yeti, but shooting sound is far harder than you think.

Looking.

Koz

3

i understand it ain’t bad but it picks up a lot of background noise, i have a dog and her nails click on the floor a lot. so i was wondering if there is actually anything that is much better.

and thank you so much for the help :slight_smile:

4

edit the sound in audacity to make it sounds so much more immersive.

Who did the lead-in track? Do you want to sound more like him? I think there’s basically just a volume difference.

The position of the volume controls on the microphone don’t make as much difference as where the Audacity sound meters are. We recommend on live voice performances that the peaks of your voice land roughly at -6 on the red recording meters. You can make the meters much larger so you can see them easier. Click on the right-hand edge and pull sideways.

As far as being “more immersive,” you can post the track as stereo instead of mono, split them and delay one with respect to the other to get “fake stereo.”

If you have a mono track, in windows I think it’s Control-D to duplicate the track. Use the Time Shift Tool (two sideways black arrows) to push one track just slightly later than the other. It will start to sound deep when you hit it.

Then use the drop-down menus on the left of the top track to Make Stereo Track.

Export and edit the video.

You can also use Effect > Echo, but that’s harder to control.

Koz

5

Audacity doesn’t directly support the stereo tools in the Yeti. So if you got it to work in mono, that’s a good as it gets.
Koz

6

I did the lead in track, and i had to really change my voice and push my mouth right up against the yeti to get that effect, and i can’t hold that sort of voice change for a long time without hurting my throat.
what is the biggest difference between being mono and stereo? sorry i am really new in all this.
so what sort of microphone works with stereo that you would recommend?
so would you say i need to move the yeti closer?

thank you for the help :slight_smile:

7

i just looked into my audacity settings, i can record with the yeti in stereo settings. and have been the whole time :confused:

8

thank you so much for the help

I haven’t helped much yet.

There’s a difference between two channel and “stereo.” It’s not unusual to get a microphone to appear on two different Audacity tracks. I have a couple of microphones that can do that. But when you compare the two sets of blue waves, you find that they’re perfectly the same. So when you wave your head back and forth to get the ping-pong effect in your headphones, nothing happens. I understand you need ASIO software to get a Yeti to deliver actual stereo (different left and right tracks) and Audacity doesn’t directly support ASIO.

i had to really change my voice and push my mouth right up against the yeti to get that effect

I did a woman that way once. I’m normally a male bass. Lauren Bacall’s voice was lower than Humphrey Bogart.

i have a dog and her nails click on the floor a lot.

If you’re recording in a modern, bare-wall room with wooden floors, good luck. Those are considered hostile recording environments by pro recordists.

The cardioid setting for the Yeti means it sucks sound in from the front better than the back. Attached at bottom. Also known as “kidney pattern” for the obvious reasons. Aim the back at the dog.

The microphone in the picture is a lot easier to tell where to talk than an upright microphone like the Yeti. Make sure you’re talking into the Blue logo side.

If you are, then that’s as good as it gets with that microphone and a lot of others. It doesn’t matter how close you are to the microphone as long as you jockey the volume controls so you don’t overload anything. Never let the Audacity red recording meters go all the way to the right. That causes permanent sound distortion.

Now it’s hard. I would be solving this with one of two microphones. I have a theatrical headset microphone that is remarkably good at ignoring room noises, but it needs a microphone amplifier system or mixer and digitizer. None of them cheap. The other way to force this to work is a shotgun microphone used in interview configuration.

I believe that’s a Rhode microphone under the foam blast filter at several hundred dollars.

Many people determined to record with the microphones they have try to make a studio. That’s what Ian, another poster, did. He turned a broom closet into a studio by pasting sound proofing panels on the walls and heavy carpeting on the floor. He still has occasional microphone technical problems, but it works OK and I believe he’s a published presenter/announcer.

So there you have it. You can cheat, too. Heavy background music works wonders to cover up doggy noises.

Koz
Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 22.32.28.png

9

You can simply get closer to the Yeti and help with this. Bring the microphone to within 8 inches or so (or closer. Experiment.) and push it off to the side so you don’t start popping your P sounds like this.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/PPopping.mp3

If you can make the microphone look down on you slightly, that’s even better. Most of your mouth blast goes down. That’s almost impossible to do with a desk microphone.

Koz

10

you have offered to help me which is more than anyone else has done for me when i have asked for help (places like youtube and other tutorial places)

so to get a ‘fake stereo’ effect is to record two different mono and then move one slightly behind the other? and you are right about it being exactly the same as each other, i have never noticed.

i love that effect, ‘in a world…’ is just so much fun to listen to and create :slight_smile: it like the voice in the new ted 2 trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxuMC2pt3LI)

yeh i am, and as you probably know it really difficult to get a nice crisp voice, not airy and thin sounding. like does have blankets on the wall help with this?
i am recording on the blue logo side, i did read the user manual to help set it up as im relatively new to all this.

my farther has a audio-technica atw-t28 which he said i can use if that is going to be any better in just general quality, but at the moment i think if i can get my sounding to be as best as possible that may
just make everything that much better, move the yeti to a better position, play with it a little to make it not clip, not sure about this distortion thing, any tutorial you have to show me what you mean?
so like have you got any like homemade stuff for now as i don’t have a dedicated room to record, it just in my bedroom.

i try cheating a lot :stuck_out_tongue: but some games like alien isolation and other game of such, adding music really does not work :stuck_out_tongue:

i have a pop filter on my yeti to stop the popping as much as i could.

11

I’ve recorded in my bedroom by kneeling by and setting up on the bed. My bedroom has heavy carpeting and a cottage-cheese ceiling.

There’s also my old standby, furniture moving pads.

http://www.kozco.com/pictures/boothFinished/laptop-mic.jpg

Each wall is actually two pads back to back.

http://kozco.com/pix/oneWallKit.jpg
http://kozco.com/pix/partiallyConstructedWall.jpg

Most of that was Home Depot if you’re in the US.

I bought the pads from a furniture moving company.

You can get away with sound proofing only one wall of a pair. Bad echoes are caused by sound whipping back and forth between two facing walls. Kill the sound on one of each pair. That’s not perfect, but it goes a long way to muffle the damage with minimum quilts.

Don’t forget the floors and desk.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/JMASoundShoot-650.jpg

Koz