Advise me for Audio Book & ScreenCasting Narration Videos

[kozikowski]

I'll be back a little later. Those equipment choices all have stories.
Koz

[MGadAllah]

I'll be back a little later. Those equipment choices all have stories.
Koz

holding my breath

[kozikowski]

Just so you're not on the edge of your seat. That makes your legs fall asleep.

You mean it is better to use two dynamics microphones like re-20 & heil pr-40? or you mean that using two mics will result in getting half the quality?

Different quality. Two microphones on one instrument or voice is almost never recommended. It's too hard to control the physical placement and combining two different microphones can give unstable or undesirable sound. There are instruments like drums or pianos that have very different sound depending on location. Those are routinely double or triple miked. The best way to capture that is on separate tracks and mix down to one track in a quiet room in post production. "Cymbals are too loud. Pull down Mic #3 a little."

Microphones have a reputation for a particular working technique. The Shure SM57 has a reputation as a good drum or instrument microphone and the SM58 is used by rock bands all over earth for voice. The world will not end if someone sung a song into an SM57. I've shot physical effects [breaking glass, banging sounds] with a SM58. Many times it's just personal preferences or experience. Or what you have.

So you think it is better than the Hiel PR-40 ? I mean I've realized that PR-40 is sounded deeper and rich compared to RE-20 and I do not know if it is a matter of adjusting the mixer or it is something related to the microphone itself.

I do not have nor have I ever used an RE-20. I do know it is very highly thought of in the radio community and nobody will be shocked if they walked into a radio studio and found them mounted above the desk. Rush Limbaugh broadcasts three hours every day on radio stations across the US (and possibly elsewhere). In Los Angeles, he's on the powerful KFI 09:00 to 12:00. One of his catch phrases is using "The Golden EIB (Excellence In Broadcasting) Microphones.

He's far right-wing and I can't listen to him. But he does have an RE-20 and it is gold. I hope they took it apart before they sprayed it. Spray paint will ruin a microphone.

I don't have or have ever used a Heil PR-40. If you have and you like how it sounds, then we're done picking a microphone. There's a note about one of the diagrams at the bottom of this page. The blue line tells us how the microphone works with different pitch tones, lower pitched tones on the left. There is a "droop" in the blue line from 100Hz and to the left. That means the microphone is suppressing rumble, thumps and other "large vehicle driving by" sounds. When I shoot voice, I intentionally make that droop more extreme.

There is a gentle "haystack" rise in the blue line starting about 2KHz and falling around 10KHz. These are the "small child screaming on an airplane" and "tiny dog barking" sounds. It makes a voice performance "bright" and "crisp." If you have a crying baby on mic, it can drill holes in steel.

AM radio stops at 5KHz. That's what gives it that slightly muffled, muted sound compared to FM. FM radio goes up to 15 KHz. Much more open and crisp. Note the blue line has fallen seriously by the time it reaches 15KHz.

I will need a boom arm for the microphone so it is like those we see on the radio studio.

It's a good, stable, light-weight, general stand. We have two different stands. The other is the same size, but is of the older "Atlas" design with a very heavy, steel, round base. After you work with the lighter one for a while, you leave the Atlas home.

A floor stand doesn't have to go on the floor.

That radio shoot was in the Main Conference Room because it's dead quiet with no echoes. I had to be very nice to the people that schedule rooms to get it. I only used the lights that didn't make noise; some of the dimmers buzz. The quilt is on the table to cut table sound reflections. Reflections can affect the quality of a voice as the head is moved.

We had to completely clean up and leave by the time of the next meeting.

what about the other items in the picture?

The red thing on the left is a coffee cup. Decaf, as I recall. Behind that is one of the two Polycom sound modules the room uses for video conferencing (not related to us). If I had more time, I would have staged it better. As it was, the announcer started to tear down before I could stop him.

The computer is a MacBook Pro with Audacity. It's talent is a very high quality Stereo Line-In connection. Next is the Peavey PV6. Then the desk pad, microphone stand with microphone, shock mount and blast screen.

Next over is the protection recording. That stuff all belongs to the announcer, so I'm fuzzy, but I think that's a Rhode NT1 with shock mount, blast screen and room isolation panel assembly (fake studio). The headphones are Koss Pro3A and I don't know who made his. He was recording on Zoom H-something which he removed before the picture. I said several times the announcer could have recorded the whole thing in his office, but he said he wanted me to shoot it.

It is more than 1000 $$ .

The FP33 is $1300 usd. I didn't buy it. I was fixing it for a friend in Florida who called and said keep it, he was getting a new one. It only works on the Left. It's an extremely well behaved mixer and has very low self-noise (sssssssssssss). I use the one channel still working.

We have many Mackie mixers at work. They're very inexpensive, but seem to work OK. Our constant complaint is they never made a simple one. Many times we use a mixer as a volume control. I don't mean change the volume of the flutes and violins in a complicated mix. I mean turn up the volume on your radio, or turn the volume of the room speakers down so you can answer the phone. One knob out of the thousands of knobs on the mixer. Many edit rooms in production companies have similar mixers doing similar jobs, so we just put up with it.


Nicer mixers have three places to control the volume of the performance. Taking them backwards. Main Mix or Master sliders -- sometimes red -- control the volume of the mixed and balanced performance as it is applied to the recorder, transmission service, or transmitter. If you pull those down, the whole show fades to silence.

On the left are the multiple channel faders. Eight, ten, twelve and up. Each microphone or single source of sound has one. You pull one of those faders down and only the violin goes down leaving everything else.

If you have a very loud instrument, its fader will be very low -- toward the bottom. If the singer is a weak-sister with no volume at all, then her fader may be pushed much higher to bring her up and form a pleasant mix with the others.


Many mixers stop there, but some mixers have trim controls -- usually way up on top next to where the microphone plugs in. Their names are sometimes different. They provide a way to, in effect, tell the microphone amplifier what kind of performance to expect so it can work the best that it can. Miss singing-quietly-in-her-beer can be made louder at the trim control instead of the fader, allowing the fader slider to return more to the middle of its range. The Diesel Air Horn performer can be trimmed back, so his performance doesn't overload the microphone amplifier and his performance better balances with everything else -- also with his fader more in the middle of its range.

So now you have a division of duties. The Trimmers pre-condition each instrument and voice for application to the Faders. The Faders change the balance between performers and the Masters control the volume of the whole show as delivered. See pix.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I'm only partially joking about the air horn performer. There was a performance of the "1812 Overture" on the Mall in summertime Washington, DC that featured actual cannons fired from Fort Myer across the Potomac River in Virginia.

"Cannons, right? I know the Director General at Edgewood Arsenal. I wonder how hard it would be...."

Koz

[MGadAllah]

The computer is a MacBook Pro with Audacity. It's talent is a very high quality Stereo Line-In connection. Next is the Peavey PV6.

So you are connecting the mixer to your computer using the output from the mixer and the line in for the computer, right?
does the mixer software enabled you to do any settings adjustments?

Next over is the protection recording. blast screen and room isolation panel assembly (fake studio).

You mean the black walmart behind the microphone that is holded on the microphone stand?

We have many Mackie mixers at work. They're very inexpensive, but seem to work OK.

But does the mackie mixer produce any kind of hssss or any kind noise after any amount of time?

Our constant complaint is they never made a simple one.

You mean something with one or two xlr input phantom powered socket? or you mean something else by simple one?

So now you have a division of duties.

So you think mackie mixer is better then Behringer ones? or any of them is suitable? I mean for the long run usage ... Also the result of connecting mixer to computer using line-in is better then these models with USB? I mean to connect mixer to computer using USB?

Thanks a lot and too much appreciated.

[kozikowski]

does the mixer software enabled you to do any settings adjustments?

The mixer has no software. It's a straight, uncomplicated, analog mixer.

You mean the black walmart behind the microphone that is holded on the microphone stand?

That shields the microphone from sound entering the back and sides. This is valuable if you're recording in a noisy room or one with echoes. It may not have been needed in this case because of the quiet, well behaved room, but that wasn't my shoot.

But does the mackie mixer produce any kind of hssss or any kind noise after any amount of time?

All amplifiers and mixers produce noise. In general it doesn't change with time. What kills mixers is the faders, knobs and switches. They get noisy as they collect dirt and wear out. We had one Mackie that failed because of a bad power supply. The sound started to hum. The mixer was many years old.

You mean something with one or two xlr input phantom powered socket? or you mean something else by simple one?

Not that kind of simple. All our mixers had 18 or 20 inputs. They also had multiple different ways to get between the individual instrument faders and the master faders, and it was very easy to get lost. They had sub-faders, sub-switching, channel assignments, effects-send switching, and monitor switching. Just having the right faders up was no guarantee at all that you were going to have sound. The illustration has one extra, light colored fader called "Alt 3-4." I have no idea what that does without looking at the instructions. I will probably never use it.

"We got a call from the Avid Five room. They can't hear their edit and they want you to help."

So you think mackie mixer is better then Behringer ones?

I've never used a Behringer mixer, but the rest of their stuff seems to be very well designed. Google "Behringer complaints" and "Mackie complaints."

I used that particular mixer as a model because that's a "normal" mixer to me and it's easy to understand. People see all the thousands of knobs and become confused, but a mixer can be broken into sections. The strip between where the microphone plugs in and the fader associated with that microphone is one input channel. Most of the knobs and switches in the channel can remain neutral or off and vanish from the show. The right-hand side of the mixer has the sound meters, master output faders, and monitoring so you can hear what you're doing. The leftover knobs or switches can be left neutral or off and they vanish, too. I did a talk where I made the knobs actually vanish in my illustration.

"OK, you don't need the equalizer, turn those off, you don't need either effects send, turn those off, you don't need the Aux-In, turn that off....etc." It's a lot less intimidating that way.

Also the result of connecting mixer to computer using line-in is better then these models with USB? I mean to connect mixer to computer using USB?

That MacBook Pro has an excellent Stereo Line-In connection and it matches perfectly the Tape-Out connection of the mixer. Most computers have no Stereo Line-In at all and even some of the MocBooks don't any more, either. Stereo Line-In connections on desktop computers can be noisy because of the closeness to the electronics inside the computer. When you buy a high-quality sound card, they warn you to place it as far from the video card as possible because of noise problems.

An external USB adapter can be used. This is a Behringer UCA202.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/ ... Lenovo.jpg

Or you can buy a mixer that speaks USB directly. That's probably best.

Koz

[MGadAllah]

my friend ... i am really do not know which mixer to buy ... it seems that searching a lot is somehow negative.
honestly i am confused for which mixer to buy?

the last month i've failed into a loooooooooooooooooooooooot of technical details.
so please help me to make a decision because many options are available.
especially after you mentioned this uca202 (when I googled i've found there is a newer recent model :uca222).
i do not mean that i am lost but i mean there are really tooooooooooo many options so far.
please help.

[MGadAllah]

I've just got a reply from mackie technical support for the email I've sent:-
"I think the best model for your purposes will be the Mackie Onyx Blackjack:
http://www.mackie.com/products/onyxblackjack/"
And this model in particular has low reviews:-
http://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B003VZG550/

[kozikowski]

All we can do is tell you the differences and talents of the equipment and software and in some cases traps and known problems. And yes, in some cases, the choices will seem to be getting larger, not smaller.

Sometimes it's valuable to back away from the problem a little.

If you have a single microphone and want to do announcing in a known quiet room, you don't need a mixer at all. The mixer's talent is combining two or more sounds into one. It's main job is to mix.

I did an evaluation of a simple microphone to USB adapter. That's a Shure X2U.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/ ... verdub.jpg
http://www.shure.com/americas/products/ ... al-adapter

It contains everything I need to run any microphone that I have -- excluding the computer microphones. It is one of the devices that can be used for overdubbing -- recording yourself multiple times into your own orchestra.

I would never buy one again because the performance isn't good enough for what I want. It was designed to be small with enough controls to get the job done. I can't find the picture, but I have a shot of this adapter in my pocket.

~~

While you may have your microphone and other parts for a very long time -- the microphone I used for the stereo sound test is decades old -- that's not likely to be true of the mixer. They wear out and break. It may not be useful to buy your "forever mixer" right now. Buy something small to get you going and then as you become internationally famous, you'll have enough to buy a larger one -- and the experience to know what you want.

This is more in your neighborhood. The woman has a computer behind the glass, not a large sound mixing console, and there is just enough equipment to get the microphone into the computer (sorry, I don't know exactly how they did it).

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/AmmanStudio.png

I know most people who post on the forum are living in their parent's basement and have no friends, but it is valuable to see what other people are doing. Talk to rock bands and see what they use. I bet every rock band on earth has to tried to record themselves and even if it doesn't work out very well, their experiences and comments are very handy.

"I would never buy this mixer again. It's noisy and all the switches are broken."
"Our recording is terrible, but my brother has a very nice mixer, so we record at his house."

Also pay attention if there are no comments about their mixer because it just works day after day. I like those mixers.

From memory, I think we have had people post who use this simple mixer.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ ... fgodhm4AbA

It comes with very abbreviated sound level lights, but you don't need sound meters. You can use Audacity for that. After you find out where the overload and clipping points are by experiment, use the Audacity sound meters. They will undock from the program and expand.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/AudacityPanelFull.jpg

Koz

[kozikowski]

"I think the best model for your purposes will be the Mackie Onyx Blackjack:

While I think the Mackie may well be the better performer of the two, I'm betting because of its 2X2 label, the microphones only appear on one side. Microphone #1 only appears on the "Left" of the stereo show. Microphone #2 appears on the "Right."

You might want to check that. You can fix that in Audacity, but it's extra steps and takes longer.

You should not consider a "Y" cable to force one microphone to appear in both connectors.

Koz