Your Recording Environment:"No, I'm not in a tin shed. Why?"
Dec 22, 2016 15:32:06 GMT -8
The Uncertain Man, mrbipolar, and 3 more like this
Post by duffyweber on Dec 22, 2016 15:32:06 GMT -8
A short, rambling essay on playing around with your recording environment to make your audio sound better.
Part 1:
Let's take a minute to talk about setting up a professional-sounding recording environment. You'll note I say professional-sounding; you can make a good recording space pretty much anywhere as long as you know what you're trying to accomplish.
Specifically, you don't want sound from three particular different sources. They are as follows:
--- Room noise
This is the general noise you hear standing in a room. Fluorescent light ballasts buzzing, computer fans whirring, creaking and footsteps from above/below, wind coming in through a screen, clocks ticking, and all the other things we've probably learned to tune out from living with them every day. This sort of stuff is why sound booths exist - to isolate you from this sort of background noise, but you don't necessarily NEED to invest in a multi-thousand dollar sound booth to achieve the EFFECT of one (see below, but first, let's also touch on...)
--- Reverb
Reverb is the sound of your voice as it bounces off walls, ceilings, floors, and other surfaces. In almost any room you stand in, you will hear reverberation when you talk.
In fact, you're probably able to tell when the person you're talking to on the phone moves from one room to another based on how the sound of their voice changes. If you close your eyes and listen to many amateur recordings, you can pretty accurately picture the size of the room they're standing in, thanks to -or rather DUE to- the presence of reverb.
This isn't good. Sound engineers can add reverb, but taking it away is next to impossible, and it doesn't do for one character to sound like they're in a bathroom stall and the one they're talking to sound like they're in the grand ballroom.
Luckily the remedy to this is the same as above. But before we get to that, let's take a moment to touch upon:
---Your Mic
Your mic generates its own sound while recording called "noise floor." Getting rid of it is easy, and there's another thread on dealing with that .
What we want to focus on here is your -pop filter. (We'll keep this bit brief.)
You need a pop filter. When you say words containing "P," "V," "B," "F," and almost any combination of a vowel and "W"/"Wh" you create a small blast of air called a "plosive" that, if it hits the mic diaphragm, it makes a "pop" that's REALLY hard to clean out. Luckily, for $6-$10, a pop filter means you don't have to worry about it, much. ALWAYS USE A POP FILTER. (The end.)
Your mic also has a -rejection axis
This is a bit technical, but when you're setting up your space (we're getting there, I PROMISE!) you want to keep the rejection axis of your mic in mind. Most mics have what's called a "polar pattern." Standing directly in front of the mic, your voice will sound great. Standing directly behind it (depending on your mic) it will either sound pretty great, or somewhat weird, depending on the style and polar pattern. Standing to the sides or top (on a front-address mic) means your voice will be VERY quiet and muffled. That's the mic's "rejection axis" - the areas around the mic that reject sound, rather than capture it fully. Knowing what parts of your mic reject sound, and what parts actively capture it helps you POSITION your mic for not only the best clear, crisp, quiet VO, but also to maximize the mics ability to actively record your voice and all its lovely nuances.
--- How to set up your space:
Your goal is to hear NO reverb and NO (or almost no) room noise in your recording.
You will have succeeded when you can create a recording that you cannot hear the room space, or the echo of your own voice in the captured audio. This is your ultimate goal.
Understanding why these things are in your audio is the key to keeping them OUT of it.
Good luck, and happy recording!
Part 2:
Now that you understand WHAT you're trying to do, here's a couple starter ideas on HOW.
(As always, if you're impatient, or lazy, and want to skim, hit the parts in bold.)
NOTE: Since this guide assumes you're not, in fact, trying to build an actual sound booth, but to simply try to adjust your space for better recording, we're going to stick with stuff you can try in a 100% amateur environment that: A.) does not require you to build anything, nor B.) to do anything permanent to your living space. In other words, we're gonna rig something up. ; )
Now I realize that none of this is a substitute for setting up a proper, permanent recording space, so why am I having you do all this? Well, maybe you're not ready to take that plunge yet. Maybe you're just testing the waters, but want to make your recordings sound as good as they possibly can. As you should! But when you ARE ready to make a professional space, you're going to understand SO much better about how your mics behave, and how to set up an acoustically CORRECT and FUNCTIONAL space so that you won't make costly mistakes with your materials, nor embark on a remodeling project that doesn't give you want you need.
(For the more serious of you, I'll do a guide later about building a cheap, semi-portable PVC-based modular sound booth when I can get pictures and materials lists together for you. Also, for professionals reading this - this essay is NOT perfect, nor comprehensive. It's aimed at people just starting out, and playing with their equipment to understand better how to use it, and how different spaces affect it. It's to help people trying to get the most out of their equipment, and do it with what they've got on-hand, and is by no means an endorsement of using this as a full or fully feasible replacement for actual recording space setup. That said...)
Let's get going!
First, identify a place where you can comfortably set up the mic stand, and have room to stand in front of it. Ideally, this will be a place that resembles a corner or alcove, or some other area that will be easy to pad/treat, but in all likelihood, you're already eyeballing your closet.
Large closets, or even small closets - if you're not enough of a clothes-horse to where they're completely chock-full of outfits - are PERFECT to experiment with. And if you do have quite a few outfits, they can actually work REALLY well as soundproofing. ; )
Since they're the most common structure on the planet, we're going to assume you've chosen a bedroom closet for your "booth." (Alcove people - we'll get to you in a bit.) Clothing, blankets, and other items stored in the closet will probably provide a lot of the internal padding you need to kill a lot of sound, but you have a LARGE room behind you - which is a HUGE problem!
If you're facing the closet, the rejection axis of the mic is facing the closet and the door(s), and the mic's hottest, most active pickup is facing INTO THE LARGE, UNTREATED ROOM.
There's two ways to deal with this.
One: Get the mic as FAR BACK INTO THE CLOSET AS POSSIBLE. If it's feasible, prop a large sound screen (don't freak out - keep reading) behind you. The closer to your back, the better. The thicker, heavier and floofier, the better. This can be a big folding screen (or a towel rack, or some PVC, or a dowel rod balanced over the closet doors, etc. etc.) covered in eggcrate, quilts, comforters, bedspreads and/or other heavy materials that are probably lying around that absorb sound well, or - as I've done when visiting relatives, prop a 2x4 over the closet doors, and hang a few quilts and the like behind you. It's not PERFECT, and you have to fiddle a bit, and watch your volume, but it does alright if you're diligent.
Basically, your "sound screen" is anything you can prop behind you and pad to kill sound bouncing out into (or back inward from) the room.
Be sure to drape something over the closet door, as well - your voice reverberates off of that, too.
The second way - which takes up more room, is somewhat fiddly, and only works really well for short people (*raises hand*) is to point the mic TOWARD THE CLOSET.
You will still need the sound screen shielding you from the room - in fact you'll need to pay even more attention to it. Off-axis rejection in mics is not perfect. (You will also be standing inside the closet, which is another downside to this approach.)
If you're still hearing reverb and room noise in your recordings, then keep adjusting things, changing materials, orienting your mic in different directions until you don't. Some closets work better if the mic is in the center. Some work better if it's tucked into a corner.
Just BEWARE of the closets - especially the small ones - with a lot of exposed wall space. They make this weird, metallic ringing noise when you shout, or even talk normally, so be sure there's PLENTY OF PADDING. Cheap eggcrate for dorm room beds lining the wall eliminates a lot of this problem. Full closet good, empty closet BAD. A stylish and well-rounded wardrobe is your friend here. ; )
Hardwood floors could also be damped with a rug or towels inside the "isolation area."
FINAL NOTE: Pay attention to your own voice. If you can hear it reverberate off a wall, so can your mic. Be aware which way your voice is going when you are recording, and how the room makes it sound/how it's coming back to you. All rooms are different so you have to fiddle with it and find what works best in your space.
ALCOVE PEOPLE: Alcoves are difficult. They tend to make more noise than they block. I've never really had good luck messing with temporary setups in small, square, plaster-walled alcoves. Your best bet here is permanent - or at least semi-permanent - installations of soundproofing foam, standing screens, rugs, floofy bits, and eggcrate in multiple layers.
ALSO, WARDROBES!: IF you can lay your hands on a large, two-door wardrobe and pad the living daylights out of the inside, and the inside doors. All you'd have to do then is make sure the screen behind you is set up properly. And you can store it in the wardrobe when you're not using it. ; )
Oh, a final thought on wardrobes: Wooden wardrobe good, metal wardrobe bad. Probably very, very bad. Plastic/composite.... prrrrobably really pretty decent? Let me know!
BATHROOMS: DO NOT SET UP YOUR RECORDING AREA IN A BATHROOM. I can immediately think of about 15 good reasons why not, and I'll bet you can, too.
Cheer, and happy recording!
___________________________________
P.S., Let me know what works well for YOUR portable/home/semi-pro setup! Even professionals have to record from hotels, family homes, and on the road, and every tip, trick, and remedy is well received and appreciated! ^_^
Part 1:
Let's take a minute to talk about setting up a professional-sounding recording environment. You'll note I say professional-sounding; you can make a good recording space pretty much anywhere as long as you know what you're trying to accomplish.
Specifically, you don't want sound from three particular different sources. They are as follows:
--- Room noise
This is the general noise you hear standing in a room. Fluorescent light ballasts buzzing, computer fans whirring, creaking and footsteps from above/below, wind coming in through a screen, clocks ticking, and all the other things we've probably learned to tune out from living with them every day. This sort of stuff is why sound booths exist - to isolate you from this sort of background noise, but you don't necessarily NEED to invest in a multi-thousand dollar sound booth to achieve the EFFECT of one (see below, but first, let's also touch on...)
--- Reverb
Reverb is the sound of your voice as it bounces off walls, ceilings, floors, and other surfaces. In almost any room you stand in, you will hear reverberation when you talk.
In fact, you're probably able to tell when the person you're talking to on the phone moves from one room to another based on how the sound of their voice changes. If you close your eyes and listen to many amateur recordings, you can pretty accurately picture the size of the room they're standing in, thanks to -or rather DUE to- the presence of reverb.
This isn't good. Sound engineers can add reverb, but taking it away is next to impossible, and it doesn't do for one character to sound like they're in a bathroom stall and the one they're talking to sound like they're in the grand ballroom.
Luckily the remedy to this is the same as above. But before we get to that, let's take a moment to touch upon:
---Your Mic
Your mic generates its own sound while recording called "noise floor." Getting rid of it is easy, and there's another thread on dealing with that .
What we want to focus on here is your -pop filter. (We'll keep this bit brief.)
You need a pop filter. When you say words containing "P," "V," "B," "F," and almost any combination of a vowel and "W"/"Wh" you create a small blast of air called a "plosive" that, if it hits the mic diaphragm, it makes a "pop" that's REALLY hard to clean out. Luckily, for $6-$10, a pop filter means you don't have to worry about it, much. ALWAYS USE A POP FILTER. (The end.)
Your mic also has a -rejection axis
This is a bit technical, but when you're setting up your space (we're getting there, I PROMISE!) you want to keep the rejection axis of your mic in mind. Most mics have what's called a "polar pattern." Standing directly in front of the mic, your voice will sound great. Standing directly behind it (depending on your mic) it will either sound pretty great, or somewhat weird, depending on the style and polar pattern. Standing to the sides or top (on a front-address mic) means your voice will be VERY quiet and muffled. That's the mic's "rejection axis" - the areas around the mic that reject sound, rather than capture it fully. Knowing what parts of your mic reject sound, and what parts actively capture it helps you POSITION your mic for not only the best clear, crisp, quiet VO, but also to maximize the mics ability to actively record your voice and all its lovely nuances.
--- How to set up your space:
Your goal is to hear NO reverb and NO (or almost no) room noise in your recording.
You will have succeeded when you can create a recording that you cannot hear the room space, or the echo of your own voice in the captured audio. This is your ultimate goal.
Understanding why these things are in your audio is the key to keeping them OUT of it.
Good luck, and happy recording!
Part 2:
Now that you understand WHAT you're trying to do, here's a couple starter ideas on HOW.
(As always, if you're impatient, or lazy, and want to skim, hit the parts in bold.)
NOTE: Since this guide assumes you're not, in fact, trying to build an actual sound booth, but to simply try to adjust your space for better recording, we're going to stick with stuff you can try in a 100% amateur environment that: A.) does not require you to build anything, nor B.) to do anything permanent to your living space. In other words, we're gonna rig something up. ; )
Now I realize that none of this is a substitute for setting up a proper, permanent recording space, so why am I having you do all this? Well, maybe you're not ready to take that plunge yet. Maybe you're just testing the waters, but want to make your recordings sound as good as they possibly can. As you should! But when you ARE ready to make a professional space, you're going to understand SO much better about how your mics behave, and how to set up an acoustically CORRECT and FUNCTIONAL space so that you won't make costly mistakes with your materials, nor embark on a remodeling project that doesn't give you want you need.
(For the more serious of you, I'll do a guide later about building a cheap, semi-portable PVC-based modular sound booth when I can get pictures and materials lists together for you. Also, for professionals reading this - this essay is NOT perfect, nor comprehensive. It's aimed at people just starting out, and playing with their equipment to understand better how to use it, and how different spaces affect it. It's to help people trying to get the most out of their equipment, and do it with what they've got on-hand, and is by no means an endorsement of using this as a full or fully feasible replacement for actual recording space setup. That said...)
Let's get going!
First, identify a place where you can comfortably set up the mic stand, and have room to stand in front of it. Ideally, this will be a place that resembles a corner or alcove, or some other area that will be easy to pad/treat, but in all likelihood, you're already eyeballing your closet.
Large closets, or even small closets - if you're not enough of a clothes-horse to where they're completely chock-full of outfits - are PERFECT to experiment with. And if you do have quite a few outfits, they can actually work REALLY well as soundproofing. ; )
Since they're the most common structure on the planet, we're going to assume you've chosen a bedroom closet for your "booth." (Alcove people - we'll get to you in a bit.) Clothing, blankets, and other items stored in the closet will probably provide a lot of the internal padding you need to kill a lot of sound, but you have a LARGE room behind you - which is a HUGE problem!
If you're facing the closet, the rejection axis of the mic is facing the closet and the door(s), and the mic's hottest, most active pickup is facing INTO THE LARGE, UNTREATED ROOM.
There's two ways to deal with this.
One: Get the mic as FAR BACK INTO THE CLOSET AS POSSIBLE. If it's feasible, prop a large sound screen (don't freak out - keep reading) behind you. The closer to your back, the better. The thicker, heavier and floofier, the better. This can be a big folding screen (or a towel rack, or some PVC, or a dowel rod balanced over the closet doors, etc. etc.) covered in eggcrate, quilts, comforters, bedspreads and/or other heavy materials that are probably lying around that absorb sound well, or - as I've done when visiting relatives, prop a 2x4 over the closet doors, and hang a few quilts and the like behind you. It's not PERFECT, and you have to fiddle a bit, and watch your volume, but it does alright if you're diligent.
Basically, your "sound screen" is anything you can prop behind you and pad to kill sound bouncing out into (or back inward from) the room.
Be sure to drape something over the closet door, as well - your voice reverberates off of that, too.
The second way - which takes up more room, is somewhat fiddly, and only works really well for short people (*raises hand*) is to point the mic TOWARD THE CLOSET.
You will still need the sound screen shielding you from the room - in fact you'll need to pay even more attention to it. Off-axis rejection in mics is not perfect. (You will also be standing inside the closet, which is another downside to this approach.)
If you're still hearing reverb and room noise in your recordings, then keep adjusting things, changing materials, orienting your mic in different directions until you don't. Some closets work better if the mic is in the center. Some work better if it's tucked into a corner.
Just BEWARE of the closets - especially the small ones - with a lot of exposed wall space. They make this weird, metallic ringing noise when you shout, or even talk normally, so be sure there's PLENTY OF PADDING. Cheap eggcrate for dorm room beds lining the wall eliminates a lot of this problem. Full closet good, empty closet BAD. A stylish and well-rounded wardrobe is your friend here. ; )
Hardwood floors could also be damped with a rug or towels inside the "isolation area."
FINAL NOTE: Pay attention to your own voice. If you can hear it reverberate off a wall, so can your mic. Be aware which way your voice is going when you are recording, and how the room makes it sound/how it's coming back to you. All rooms are different so you have to fiddle with it and find what works best in your space.
ALCOVE PEOPLE: Alcoves are difficult. They tend to make more noise than they block. I've never really had good luck messing with temporary setups in small, square, plaster-walled alcoves. Your best bet here is permanent - or at least semi-permanent - installations of soundproofing foam, standing screens, rugs, floofy bits, and eggcrate in multiple layers.
ALSO, WARDROBES!: IF you can lay your hands on a large, two-door wardrobe and pad the living daylights out of the inside, and the inside doors. All you'd have to do then is make sure the screen behind you is set up properly. And you can store it in the wardrobe when you're not using it. ; )
Oh, a final thought on wardrobes: Wooden wardrobe good, metal wardrobe bad. Probably very, very bad. Plastic/composite.... prrrrobably really pretty decent? Let me know!
BATHROOMS: DO NOT SET UP YOUR RECORDING AREA IN A BATHROOM. I can immediately think of about 15 good reasons why not, and I'll bet you can, too.
Cheer, and happy recording!
___________________________________
P.S., Let me know what works well for YOUR portable/home/semi-pro setup! Even professionals have to record from hotels, family homes, and on the road, and every tip, trick, and remedy is well received and appreciated! ^_^