|
Post by benedict on Jun 1, 2017 17:38:53 GMT -8
Not strictly a warm up / cool down question, but any tips for dealing with congestion? (Aside from the steam room at the YMCA, that is. No YMCA, and no steam room here.) I start off fine, not sick or anything, but about twenty minutes in it feels like I'm stopping up. Not sure if I've been fighting something I'm unaware of or if my sinuses just go into emergency stockpile mode whenever I'm in front of a mic.
Thanks,
Tom
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 22, 2017 10:16:54 GMT -8
Since you already read the other threads you've probably come across this, but one nice thing with both the Yeti and the AT2020 is that they're easy to come by on the used market. Flip that around: If or when you decide to upgrade, you know you can sell the mic you've got to fund the one you want. As far as headphones go, Duffy had some good ideas in this thread: voiceacting.boards.net/thread/694/advice-setting-studio-home?page=2I really liked the point about headphones that come in multiple colors and finding price breaks for the ones that aren't selling well, especially if it can drop the price of some $160 headphones to $60! I got mine for field recording, but from what Duffy said the requirements are similar: wide response range (10Hz - 22kHz+), flat response (no bass boost), and comfy. The comfy part is super important since you're likely to have these on your head for hours at a time. Past a certain price point, headphones tend to have replaceable ear pads. This is good to keep in mind when it comes to comfort since the ear pads dictate, to a large degree, how they sit on your head. If you don't like the pads that came on your headphones, consider swapping them out. The pads that came on mine were too thin to sit comfortably, so I replaced mine with some big poofy monstrosities that I can wear for long periods. Headphones rarely get mentioned by name so I'll toss out a couple. The Sony MDR-7506 run about $50 used and between $80-$100 new. Sony has been making variations of this set of headphones since 1971. I use a pair of Senal SMH-1000 headphones, which cost about the same. They use the same driver and look like they may come out of the same factory as the Sonys. The big difference is the Senal headphones have a removable cable. That matters for field recording, but may not be a big deal if they live in your home studio. Other nice ones are the Sennheiser HD 280 and the Audio Technica ATH-M40X (the ones my son uses). While you're lining up ways to spend your hard earned cash, keep in mind your recording environment. This comes up in a lot of threads but this one does a really good job of pointing out a lot of pitfalls and gotchas: voiceacting.boards.net/thread/94/recording-environment-tin-whyYou can take a really nice microphone and make it sound awful by recording in an un-treated space. Or you can take an affordable microphone and make it sound pretty darned good by recording in a treated space. Treating a room can cost practically nothing (blankets, closets, hiding under the duvet like I'm doing at the moment) or it can cost a fortune. That thread has lots of good ideas for keeping your room treatment on the cheap end of that spectrum so you can save your budget for your mic and headphones.
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 21, 2017 19:51:28 GMT -8
This is for a video game?
Try applying the filter on each line spoken rather than on an entire track.
I found that the filter is very sensitive to how much of the track is quiet. After playing around with the filter for a bit and thinking about the math, it makes sense. RMS is root mean square. If half your track is down at the noise floor, the RMS measurement will be low, but your peaks will remain the same. Only sample the parts where you're speaking, and the RMS measurement will be more representative.
This is also why I'm guessing the forums I was looking for answers on, primarily music forums, didn't run into the clipping issue. Songs tend not to have quiet bits in them that would throw off the RMS measurement.
But by all means check first, as Razzle said.
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 19, 2017 18:53:56 GMT -8
Yeah... Now that I've played with it some, I really hope someone who knows more about post processing (Duffy!) can chime in on this thread.
As far as using it goes, the RMS Normalize effect works a lot like the Normalize effect: Type in the dB value you want to normalize to, click go, and let it do its thing.
The problem I'm having is that when I try to RMS normalize a vocal track to the numbers you mentioned, -15dB to -18dB, I get massive clipping throughout the track. The peaks are just too hot compared to the RMS level. Compression helped some, but it took a couple of passes of each before I got rid of the clipping altogether. Applying effects iteratively this way feels really wrong, and I wasn't all that happy with the resulting audio.
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 18, 2017 23:33:48 GMT -8
There's an Audacity filter for RMS normalization, but it doesn't come with the stock installation: forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=89293Unfortunately that's about as far as my knowledge extends. I just installed it a couple of minutes ago after reading your question, and haven't had a chance to play with it.
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 18, 2017 17:05:16 GMT -8
Yep! Just do it. (The tougher part for me is to go back, play the files, and listen! ) For my part, I think I finally got all the bits and pieces ordered so I can record. Won't be here until next week, but I'm STOKED!
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 16, 2017 12:15:35 GMT -8
I was doing a project in college where we had to make our own animations. I used the campus' recording booths and I REALLY started to get into being able to put so much energy and enthusiasm into the roles and the joy of entertaining people no matter how ridiculous or cool you look in the process. If I had known I'd have this much fun with acting in general, I should've made it my college major and my graphic design as a minor. And that's what got me into voice acting. I was able to take an acting class in college during my senior year and I get involved in any available voice acting workshops that I'm able to afford and attend since then. That's cool! My only exposure to the campus recording booths was a particularly disastrous project in my Japanese class. By the time I was done I had a subconscious fear of recording booths. I'm over it now, but what a lost opportunity!
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 11, 2017 12:34:00 GMT -8
Don't kick yourself too hard. It leaves bruises and makes sitting down painful.
I don't have experience with either mic, so take all the rest of this with a huge grain of salt:
If the microphone capsule and amplifier electronics are the same between the two, and the only differences are the bit depth and sampling rate, the overall sound shouldn't change. So unless you're running into a specific problem with your AT2020 USB Plus mic that can be tied back to bit depth or sampling rate, I wouldn't sweat it too hard.
Here's a short bit about sampling rate and bit depth. It touches a little on sampling theory, so feel free to skip over this if it's not interesting:
In order to fully resolve a signal with a frequency X, you need to sample it at a rate of 2X. So if you've got a 20kHz source, a 40kHz sampling rate will fully resolve it. If you've got a 30kHz source, a 40kHz sampling rate won't fully resolve it, but a 60kHz sampling rate will. Going back to the specs on the two mics, the "+" should be able to fully resolve sources up to 24kHz, and the "i" should be able to fully resolve sources up to 48kHz.
To see if this affects you, try recording a track in your software and look at the spectrum. Try this with every voice you use. If you've got non-background sound up around the 24kHz range, you might benefit from the faster sampling rate. If not, it may not buy you much.
As a quick aside, nature recordists who record bats will often record at really high sampling rates (192kHz is typical, though specialty systems can exceed 300kHz) and then pitch-shift the tracks down into the human hearing range in software afterward. For this kind of work the high sample rates are a must.
Bit depth is a little trickier. Its importance will depend a lot on how you set your gain while recording and how you process the track afterward. Each bit of digital audio equates to a 3dB change in signal. Setting aside the characteristics of the microphone capsule and amplifier electronics, the bit depth will define the dynamic range of the system. A 16-bit system can't have a dynamic range greater than 48dB, and a 24-bit system can't have a dynamic range greater than 72dB.
Where this starts to matter is when you look at head space. To avoid clipping, it's common practice to set the gain on the preamp so that the signal never goes above some value, say -12dB. That's essentially four bits of head space. On a 16-bit system that means there's only 12 bits of information left in the signal. On a 24-bit system that means there's 20 bits of information left in the signal. Leaving large head space essentially compresses the dynamic range of the system.
Even if you boost the gain later during processing, you can't get those bits back. An extreme example of this is recording at some really low level, say -24dB, then boosting that to -3dB in software. It'll sound yucky no matter what your electronics are.
Having extra bit depth is always nice, but if you know your mic and you don't leave excessive head space when recording it may not have a huge effect on you.
And that's what it'll all boil down to: Are you happy with the sound you're getting out of the gear you have?
Just to throw a different wrench in the works here's another thought: The AT2020 USB+ retails for around $150 and the AT2020 USBi retails for around $200. A used AT2020 XLR is between $70-100 on Ebay (oooh! just found one listed for $50), and a 2nd generation Scarlett 2i2 interface on Ebay is around $120-$150. So for around the same cost as the AT2020 USBi you can make the jump into XLR mics, pick up the USB version of a mic you're used to, and still get the 24 bits and 96kHz sampling rate.
Having said all that, though, now I feel a little bad. As careful as I have to be with budgeting my own equipment costs, I hate telling other people how they can spend their money. (Now I'm kind of kicking myself...)
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 4, 2017 16:08:33 GMT -8
Thank you, Razzle! Your walker blanket fort idea is brilliant! My closets are only 2' deep so the walker route may be my best bet. If not a walker I bet I can build something with PVC that would serve the same purpose.
I've got a no-fan solid state drive laptop, so I can probably build the fort with the idea of using the laptop.
Thanks a ton. I've got stuff to try when I get home tonight!
Tom
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 4, 2017 13:55:00 GMT -8
This is probably obvious, but if so then I'm missing the obvious answer. How do you juggle good mic technique while reading copy and wearing glasses?
I should probably have prefaced this question by saying I'm still trying to sort out the acoustics of my house. It really is pretty dismal: lots of hard surfaces and vaulted ceilings, tiny closets, coupled with living twenty feet from a highway. Right now I've had the best sound recording under the blankets on my bed, but I have a hard time getting anything far enough away from my face that I can actually read it. I also built a "foam in a box" micro booth, but by the time I'm a reasonable distance from the mic, the box fills almost my entire field of vision. (The field of vision afforded by my glasses, anyway.)
Last night I did a bunch of Google searches, trying to find pictures of people recording while reading copy so I could see what I was missing, but most, if not all of them were in a studio setting: mic on a boom stand, copy on a music stand, good lighting, lots of space, etc. I looked over at my pile of blankets and cried a little inside.
And yet there are voice actors who record this way successfully, so I've got to be doing something wrong.
How close are you to your microphone? Where do you hold your copy so the mic / pop filter / reflection filter (if you use one) doesn't block your view? If you're far sighted (like me!) at what distance does your prescription correct your vision? Any other pointers?
Thanks,
Tom
P.S. I already suspect I need to get new glasses. >sigh<
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 4, 2017 12:23:24 GMT -8
If your voice sounds strange to you on playback, after it's been recorded, it likely just takes some getting used to! Almost everyone thinks they sound weird when they listen to a recording of themselves, since your voice isn't rattling around inside you as well as getting to your ears through the air. Recording a lot, and listening to it play back a lot, and time, is the cure for that one. Razzle's right. This is really is the fastest cure for being uncomfortable with the sound of your own recorded voice. Since you already sing when you drive, record your drive-singing. When I'm working on a story I'll talk through plot points and dialog while I'm driving. (I can yak to myself for hours.) Even before I thought I'd get into voice acting I began recording myself while driving so I could go back later on and transcribe the useful bits. It's super awkward at first for all the reasons Razzle said, but after you've gone through a couple of hours of your own voice it just starts to sound like any other voice. If you go through the other forums here, there are a number of threads with warm-up exercises, voice acting practice routines, demo reel tips, etc. Try them all. But do it while you're recording. This does two things: First, you'll get more comfortable with the sound of your own voice when it's played back. Second, you get a record of how your technique improves over time. (Though at this point I should probably point out that I'm just beginning in VA, so take everything I say with a huge grain of salt!) Tom
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 3, 2017 15:06:29 GMT -8
I can toss out one of my favorites: reading aloud. That's been my path into voice acting. It's a heckuvalot of fun and if you volunteer at a local library you'll have plenty of exposure to appreciative audiences. If you don't mind some creative criticism, kids will also be brutally honest if you ask them for feedback.
I have to agree with Razzle about singing, though. Working up the nerve to belt out a tune in public and not stop when people start to look is all about voice confidence.
Tom
|
|
|
Post by benedict on May 3, 2017 15:01:07 GMT -8
Each has its charms. If you don't mind writing some vignettes based on your world building, try writing one as a narrative and one as a radio play. Read both. If you know who your target audience is, try reading live for that audience. That's probably the fastest way to get a read on how they'd like the world presented. Temper that with what you'd like out of the series.
|
|
|
Post by benedict on Apr 29, 2017 19:39:18 GMT -8
Aaaaah. Thank you, Duffy. I've got a pair I've been using for field recording, and I was hoping I didn't have to change. Comfy is a huge deal for me. When I was a kid I wound up tearing the cartilage in my right ear. Any sort of pressure on that side is excruciating. I got a pair of headphones with a really flat (aka "boring") response and swapped out the earcuffs for some extra deep wedged ones. They're not that exciting for music, but they give me a really good idea of what I'm recording.
Sounds like recording voice puts pretty similar requirements on the headphones.
I love the story about the pink headphones! I'm really not that picky when it comes to color, so I'll keep that in mind. That's a great way to save!
Cheers,
Tom
|
|
|
Post by benedict on Apr 27, 2017 23:08:25 GMT -8
Moses supposed his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously. If Moses supposes his toeses aren't roses, then what are his toeses supposes to be? Awesome! This brings back memories of reciting that entire scene from Singin' in the Rain with a friend of mine while standing in line at a Chinese fast food joint. We stopped short of tap-dancing, but still got our fair share of odd looks. I guess the take-away from this is that warm up phrases are best practiced while not in line at the Wok 'n Go?
|
|