I’ve done recordings with it on and off. I had it on in early recordings (not in the video that you saw), but I was under the impression (YouTube tutorials), that I should leave it off, because it’s better to use if you’re doing (for example) a musical recording in a room. To which I’m not, and ideally I want something that has less ambience, and more of an intimate setting; in terms of sound.
When I had done this particular recording ( the video in the link), I was doing so in a very lightly treated room. I did most things incorrectly, in terms of how I was placing everything. I bought a bunch of foam panels a year ago, but I was under the impression that they should be placed on the wall that’s directly behind the mic. I also didn’t put much thought into the downside of reading my scripts directly off of my desktop monitor, with my mic placed just off to the side of it; surely sounds are bouncing off of the slick surface of the desk and the monitor. I also put myself in a tight space, with little room to move, probably tightening up the way I was speaking. I was also speaking a little too close to the mic.
And I shouldn’t overlook, that I think I did too much with the audio production; likely ruining everything that you heard. I devoted a lot of time, from November of 2021 through to June of 2022, doing trial and error trying to find the right audio-chain. I took a course, by Josh Meyer via YouTube, which helped me get up to speed, and I learned how to use the Filter Curve & Graphic EQ (or I at least have a decent idea as to how to manipulate it). But I don’t think his tutorials/courses are specific to videos on YouTube, rather he focuses on audio books and such.
Also, I’ve yet to be satisfied with any of the tutorials on how to use Audacity (via YouTube videos), how to get the right audio chain, at least for all of the dozens of videos that I’ve watched. One takeaway I have while watching their videos, is that I always ask myself, “Do you like the quality of the sound of their video?”, and the answer is always “No”.
They’re all over the place on settings, some have Normalization set to -1.0, others have it at -3.0. Some say on the Limiter, go with Hard Limit, others say Soft Limit. And they’re all over the place with their Compressor settings. And then I have all of the plugins that I bought, to help “correct” things. I bought Voxessor, and it sounds wrong to me. I use FinalLoud3 to make sure that I hit the Content Loudness -0.1 on YouTube, and it does just that, but I feel like I’m blowing up the audio, and it’s almost distorting it in the process.
The more I studied, the more lost I got, the more overwhelmed I got. So I started to trust my own ear, and did what made most sense (from everything I’d studied), and log everything down. But I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, that when you’re listening too closely for so many hours, and so many days, you’re not hearing straight.
I became so fed up, having to re-record, and not getting the sound anything close to what I’d consider “good”, that I just stopped recording altogether (June of this year).
Since then:
- I’ve purchased a Snap Studio Vocal Booth
- I’ve been practicing Chi-Yi for controlled breathing
- I’ve moved my vocal booth/set up to the basement, so I don’t have to do recordings just at night time when there’s less ambient coming from outside
I won’t be reading my scripts off of a computer monitor going forward (and all of that sound that comes with it), hopefully I can relax a bit more while reading (I was feeling very constricted speaking from my chest), so some of this should help out with my recordings going forward.