Fledgling voice artist seeking counsel.

[steve]

the lowest being "whispering in a library"

Have you tried it in a library?
I'm sure that the main library in the city where I live is much louder than is usually quoted.

[kozikowski]

Mine, too. It does OK, but it's right next to a busy street and we're serenaded with the soft whirr of laptops using the free internet.

There's one library on the west side where the building is between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Venice Blvd.

I have an SPL meter. I should try it.

There is a subjective way to know of your sound proof room is working. You close the door and your ears pop as they suddenly realize that there's no "background" any more and you start to hear your heart pumping. If you're prone to tapping or grinding your teeth, that becomes the major music in your head.

There is a parallel post to this one where the voice performer is noticing all his little quirks and noises.

Of course, if you have any tinnitus at all.....

Koz

[Robert J. H.]

Mine, too. It does OK, but it's right next to a busy street and we're serenaded with the soft whirr of laptops using the free internet.

There's one library on the west side where the building is between the eastbound and westbound lanes of Venice Blvd.

I have an SPL meter. I should try it.

There is a subjective way to know of your sound proof room is working. You close the door and your ears pop as they suddenly realize that there's no "background" any more and you start to hear your heart pumping. If you're prone to tapping or grinding your teeth, that becomes the major music in your head.

There is a parallel post to this one where the voice performer is noticing all his little quirks and noises.

Of course, if you have any tinnitus at all.....

Koz

Sigh, I always have such a sine tone settling in when the environment is very quiet.

I've recently seen a smart method to "calibrate" the volume of the computer.
It was in connection with a test to determine your threshold of hearing. The test plays sounds at different levels and you write down which number you can't hear any more.
In order to start with a level that is comparable soft, you have to do the following:
You rub your palms against each other in front of your nose.
At the same time, the similar sound is played on the computer and you turn the volume down until the levels match.
The interesting thing is that the sound is practically constant in volume, fairly immune against strength and speed variation of the rubbing.
I guess it is about 40 dB Spl--you could measure it.

Has anyone another idea of a common sound that could be used for a rough "calibration"?
For instance, tearing paper apart?

[MichloIW]

This just in from ACX:

Hello Ian,

I have reviewed your recently submitted sample and would like to offer a few notes. This is a great read over all, your narration is well paced and even. Great work.

First, the file is in WAV format. As a reminder, all files submitted to ACX should be 192 kbps or higher CBR Mp3s. If you choose to submit stereo files, please encode them using stereo interleaved encoding.

I also recommend using a bit of EQ to take out a bit of a resonance. I found that taking a bit out around 600 Hz helped smooth out some of this issue. I also used a compressor with its threshold around -8dB, and ratio set at 4.5 to 1 to reduce the dynamic range a bit. This especially helped with the louder peaks of exclamation “Let’s Go!”

Over all, these are minor details. I found your sample to meet our requirements. If this was encoded correctly, and the rest of the title was of similar quality, I’d see no issues with this production.

Thank you for taking the time to submit your sample for review. Kindly,


I am so relieved!

Cheers.

[steve]

Congratulations MichloIW.

First, the file is in WAV format

Doh!

I also recommend using a bit of EQ to take out a bit of a resonance. I found that taking a bit out around 600 Hz helped smooth out some of this issue.

I thought it was a little lower than that (around 450 'ish but I didn't check) and I note that Robert's Eq curve has a dip at around 500, but we're all picking up a bit of resonance in the low-mid range.

I also used a compressor with its threshold around -8dB, and ratio set at 4.5 to 1 to reduce the dynamic range a bit. This especially helped with the louder peaks of exclamation “Let’s Go!”

Yes, and we all picked up that a few expressions were standing out a little. This is a careful balance as you don't want to squash all of the expression out, so if you do use compression the ratio needs to be kept reasonably low. Take care not to lean forward toward the mic when you emphasize words and you may not need to use dynamic compression at all.

Allow yourself plenty of time between reading and listening back, and plenty of rest periods for your ears. It's difficult to remain objective when listening for long periods.

Once again, well done, and thanks for your continued feedback.

[MichloIW]

Thank you so much, Steve.

I promise I am going to find a way to mention Audacity and the team in the published version. I'm sure the author would be amenable.

Cheers.

[kozikowski]

I thought it was a little lower than that (around 450 'ish but I didn't check) and I note that Robert's Eq curve has a dip at around 500, but we're all picking up a bit of resonance in the low-mid range.

It's possible when you start rolling in money you can get more soundproofing panels and you won't have a gentle honk peak down there at all. Remember at the beginning when you were using your cardboard studio that rain barrel effect was pronounced?

You may through experience not need the phrase-by-phrase corrections or compressor, either. Any time you lean in to make a point the sound levels punch. If you're relatively close to the microphone any spacing change may qualify as a percentage and that can cause significant volume shifts.

I'm not advocating backing away, you may not like the way that sounds and that could also give you volume problems on a USB microphone. You just need to master what you got.

There is, as usual, a trick. Crumple a sheet of LA Times in front of you in the studio — roughly where your head normally is. That's as close to "white noise" as you can get with a tool you can buy at 7-Eleven/Tesco. I have samples of this test (somewhere) and I use it to indicate differences between microphones. That's how I certified the asian knock-off of the Shure SM58. You may be able to use it to see where your honk peak is.

Koz

[kozikowski]

We have general pictures of your studio. Did you put anything on the floor?

Koz

[Robert J. H.]

I thought it was a little lower than that (around 450 'ish but I didn't check) and I note that Robert's Eq curve has a dip at around 500, but we're all picking up a bit of resonance in the low-mid range.

I certainly would have lowered at 450 Hz but as there is no way to do that in graphical mode, I had to make some compromise.
It is essentially a comb effect, the higher harmonics are also pronounced, especially at about 1300 Hz. At the same time, there are several troughs inbetween.

[kozikowski]

Comb effects indicate microphone proximity to a hard surface or just a little of the room left in the recording. The room is required to suppress the environment/neighborhood, so maybe you shouldn't have taken all the winter coats out of the studio.

Again, we never saw what you did to the floor. You can use multiple layers of carpet remnants or, in my case, furniture moving pads down there to suppress one more contributor to sound reflections.

Koz