Final Recording and New Cover Art: Are These OK?

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on January 18, 2010 at 10:31am

Nice reading. Great pacing. Very good inflection.

I think the promo in the intro is unnecessary. I've already downloaded it. Tell me the story! :)

It's also monaural, not stereo. Just duplicate the track, and make it stereo by putting one on each side.

The BIG problem, tho, is the audio quality. There's some kind of artifact in the narration track. It doesn't show up in your bridge music, but there's an odd texture to the sound. A chirpy/ringy sound -- not quite an echo. Did you use post-production noise reduction? It gave me a head ache and muffled the edges of your voice so it was hard for me to understand your words.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on January 18, 2010 at 10:41am

I went back and listened to the first try again.

The level on the bed music in intro and outro is too high. You need to duck that down using an envelope tool to get it "under" your voice.

I can hear th sound floor in the original and reading the post up there I can see (and hear) what you did. If this were mine? I'd start over with a cleaner recording. That sound floor is impossibly high. The difference between ambient noise and narration is *really* small. It's killing your excellent reading.

What kind of noise is that? Computer fan noise?

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sharpe on January 18, 2010 at 11:24am

I've found that one of my PCs is so noisy that you can hear it though the walls, No really, you can. When recording, the noise of the fan was almost as loud as my voice.

Since I can't record in the next room with out asking my parents to leave home for a week. I had to use my laptop, with little hard disk space to record on. I'm glad that I can use another PC to edit. Well, you will hear the fridge.. since the only place I can record is the kitchen!

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Permalink Reply by Scribe on January 18, 2010 at 12:38pm

Sorry to be a total n00b, but what is a sound floor?

I don't think it's ambient noise, though, as my microphone is on a chord, and extremely far from my laptop. It must be just the gain on the microphone being set too high...It's also possible the microphone is just broken. :\

Anyway, thanks for all the advice. If you had to suggest a reasonable microphone, what would you suggest?

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on January 18, 2010 at 1:34pm

Oh. Sound floor is the base level of background noise in the recording. The "background hiss" ..

I COULD be that the gain is turned up too high. It could be a noisy mic. It could be the sound card in your lappy. It could be the cord itself is picking up noise.

It doesn't seem to vary ... so it could well be that you're not getting enough signal from the microphone to put your voice up above the background noise.

You can run some tests to see if you can get a better signal to noise ratio by speaking closer to the mic, checking to see if the mic you're using is omnidirectional or not and whether or not you're actually speaking INTO it instead of at it.

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Permalink Reply by R.E. Chambliss on January 18, 2010 at 11:03am

I'm sorry to say, but I probably wouldn't subscribe if this was the sound quality. I'm not very knowledgeable about all the audio tech stuff, and someone who's more of an expert can maybe give you some suggestions for how it can be improved.

But my advice would be to save up and get a new microphone, and then record in a way that minimizes most of the ambient noise so you don't have to do more than levellate the voice track of the audio file once you've edited it.

I am on a really strict budget (I'm a SAHM and we're very frugal with our spending) so I completely understand not being able to spend a lot. My microphone is the Blue Snowball. I ordered it from Amazon and got a good deal on it (plus it it was my Valentine's Day present last year from my husband, and I also applied some Amazon credit I already had so it wouldn't set us back as much) . It's a USB mic and plugs directly into my computer. Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Snowball-Microphone-Aluminum... Looks like you can get it for $81 right now. That's less than what I paid.

I record in a tent! Really! It's a frame from my son's plastic spider man play tent, that I cover with sheets. But even that really cuts back the ambient room sound and makes my recording sound richer and cleaner. My pop filter is a wire coat hanger bent in a circle covered with pantyhose. Can't get much more budget than that! But I think my sound is decent and I don't do any kind of noise filtering. Having a good recording to work with, makes a huge difference, I think.

I know you want to get started. But remember that you only have one chance to make a first impression. You've worked so hard on writing the book, and now doing the episodes is going to be a huge effort. You want to do what you can to make it as good as it can be. There are lots of podiobooks to choose from--and listeners are selective. Make it easy on them as you can.

Sorry if this is discouraging. Maybe a tech guru can will come along with a way to fix up what you have. But if not, I'd save for a better microphone and give it another try.

Good luck!

-Renee/R.E. Chambliss (http://www.podiobooks.com/title/dreaming-of-deliverance)

P.S. As for the cover, I like it!

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Permalink Reply by Scribe on January 18, 2010 at 12:40pm

Thanks for the link. I'll check if that's available over here!

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Permalink Reply by Scribe on January 18, 2010 at 12:45pm

Ah, they don't ship outside the US. But it looks like they have a similar product in Japan, just for double the price. Xo Maybe the stores will have it at a better price. I've heard good things about that microphone, so I think I may end up getting one.

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Permalink Reply by Scribe on January 18, 2010 at 12:34pm

Hey, guys. I really appreciate the honesty of the replies you all gave me. It confirmed what I already knew and didn't want to admit to. I was hoping the fact that my microphone sucked could fly under the radar.

I honestly don't know what my solution is going to be. I live in Tokyo, in an apartment the size of a shoebox, with a roommate, so it's difficult to get enough privacy to record, as I can't really do it when she's here. I know that getting a decent microphone will be the first step, though, so I guess I should try for that first. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for all the advice!

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Lowell on January 18, 2010 at 12:43pm

I'm not convinced it's your mic.

It may be a noisy sound board in your computer.

You're in Tokyo so there must be some relatively inexpensive digital recorder technology there. For about what you'd pay for a good mic, you could pick up a recorder that has a sound floor that's effectively zero and with a mic that'll be more than adequate to your needs. Something like this:

http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodid=1916

would be a huge improvement in sound quality without a huge investment.

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Permalink Reply by Scribe on January 18, 2010 at 12:50pm

Right, that looks very nice and portable as well. Gosh, I wish I could search it better on the Japanese websites. I'm not convinced I can properly explain what it is I want. XD We'll give it a shot, though.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Sharpe on January 18, 2010 at 2:50pm

Watashi ... Nani? Nope, I don't know the rest.

I live in the UK, so lots of hardware is not available that people here recommend. If stuff I can get is expensive, well at least for someone who's looking for a job.

I happen to find a music store, I just explained that I wanted a Mic for recording Audio. They gave me a choice of a few things. Since my Japanese is limited random Phrases not enough to make a statement. (I think I said "I .. What?")

If you're wondering my set up is a Tascam US122L (Discontinued) Sound Box and a MXL 2003 Mic. Set me back quite a bit.

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