Archives for April 2014

Improve The Quality Of The Audio You Record At Home – Tip 4

April 29, 2014 by Ken 4 Comments

We’ve been doing a series of articles and videos showing you how to produce better sounding audio even in (especially in) bad-sounding rooms, such as the converted bedrooms that so many of us use as home recording studio spaces. You can find the first post in the series is here, if you have not seen everything in order yet. Today marks the fourth week and fourth tip to help you sound more professional. This one is applicable primarily to vocal recordings – for voice-over or for singing. It’s time to tame the dreaded p-pop!
http://homebrewaudio.wistia.com/medias/z567xm8hkn?embedType=seo&videoWidth=640
Whenever we record words with a “P” or “B” in them, we’re creating a sound that linguists call a “plosive.” But when recording into a very sensitive microphone such as a large diaphragm condenser (LDC), which is probably the most common type of vocal recording mic, these plosives tend to create an unpleasant burst of low-frequency noise sounding like a small explosion. Sensitive microphones don’t like sudden blasts of air, so the result is an excessively loud plosive often called a “p-pop.”

Can’t I Just Use A Pop Filter?

It’s common practice to use a pop filter when using an LDC mic. You place them between your mouth and the mic to help tame the p-pops. But some still get into the recording. And if you are recording in a poor sounding room, our first tip – getting your mouth 3 to 4 inches from the mic (unlike the girl in the picture on the right) will instantly improve your sound. However, even with a pop filter in place, getting that close to the mic will increase the problem of p-pops.
So though you can use a pop filter to help minimize those misbehaving plosives, you have to make peace with the fact that some will end up in the recording.
So what do you do now? You edit. You can fix p-pops using audio software after they have already been recorded. I tend to use Reaper for all my recording needs. However, though you CAN use Reaper to fix p-pops in an audio file, it is pretty time-consuming and cumbersome, as you’ll see in the video above. This is definitely a job for an audio editor, such as Audacity, Adobe Audition, Sony Sound Forge, etc.
In the video, you’ll see how much faster and easier it is to use an editor. I demonstrate how to do it in Audacity, which is free. So hey, once again you get a tip that won’t require you to buy or build anything. that’s four for four!

Don’t Miss Out

Make sure you don’t miss any of the tips in this series. Put your email into the form below and get not only the rest of this series as it rolls out, but also the first 8 videos in our tutorial course “The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 1: The Basics With Audacity.” This course shows you how to set up and start using your home recording studio for a budget of about five bucks (or less) in about 30 minutes.

We will not spam you with e-mails! We typically don’t send more than one message per week, and each of those will only be intended to help you make better audio recordings in your home studio.

Improve The Quality Of The Audio You Record At Home – Tip 3

April 23, 2014 by Ken 6 Comments

For the past 3 weeks, we’ve been posting videos and articles that show you how to dramatically improve the quality of the audio you record in your home studio – especially voice recordings.
In week 1, we learned the fastest and cheapest, yet hugely effective tip of simply getting your mouth closer to the mic. Most folks record with the mic 18 inches away from their lips. But getting up close and personal at about 3 inches makes a LOT of difference.
http://homebrewaudio.wistia.com/medias/64mk4qe4vq?embedType=seo&videoWidth=640
Last week we talked about how important it is – if you are recording in a converted bedroom with no acoustic treatment (this describes a vast majority of us) – to use a cardioid mic, or the cardioid setting on a multi-pattern mic. This week’s tip is another, just like the previous ones, that will not require you to build or buy anything.

Record As Loud As Possible Without Distorting

Whether you’re recording through an audio interface, a USB microphone, or a PC mic plugged directly into your computer’s built-in sound card, you will be able to control the level of the incoming audio. With PC mics and USB mics that have no volume control knob (some USB mics, such as the Blue Yeti, do have a control on the side), you can use your computer’s operating system to control the recording level. The video above shows you how to do this in Windows. The process is similar with a Mac. Just about all audio interface hardware units have some sort of input level control.
So as you’ll see (and hear) in the video, if you record with too low a level (usually you’ll see tiny wave forms if this happens), you’ll want to “turn it up.” But doing that ALSO turns up the ambient noise. Record too loud though, and you’ll distort, which is really nasty-sounding. The trick is to find a sweet spot where you record JUST loud enough that your loudest bit of audio is just barely below the point where distortion would happen. When you record at this correct level, you won’t have much of a need, if any, to turn it up. So you keep the noise to a minimum. Check out the video for examples of all the scenarios.
Make sure you don’t miss any of the tips in this series. Put your email into the form below and get not only the rest of this series as it rolls out, but also the first 8 videos in our tutorial course “The Newbies Guide To Audio Recording Awesomeness 1: The Basics With Audacity.” This course shows you how to set up and start using your home recording studio for a budget of about five bucks (or less) in about 30 minutes.

We will not spam you with e-mails! We typically don’t send more than one message per week, and each of those will only be intended to help you make better audio recordings in your home studio.

Recording The Benedictine Sisters – Multiple Stereo Mic Set-Ups

April 22, 2014 by Ken Leave a Comment

There is a chart-topping music group you may not have heard of – the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of Apostles. They have recently topped Billboard’s Classical Albums charts with two of their three albums.
Why do I mention this? Well, we were watching CBS Sunday Morning on Easter Sunday, and they did a story about the Sisters. One scene showed a recording session with lots and lots of microphones. Of course I immediately exclaimed “hit pause!” to my wife (who controls the DVR remote;)). There were so many mics in so many different positions that I really wanted to study what was going on.

What WAS Going On?

The first thing I thought I recognized was something called a Decca Tree. this is a type of stereo recording set-up developed in the 1950s at Decca Records. It’s a tall pole with a “T” shaped horizontal crossbars at the top which holds three microphones. It was used to best capture orchestras by using a spaced pair (left and right) of mics, combined with a third mic to pick up stuff going on in between. You can see crossbars of the Decca tree at the top of the picture up above. Incidentally, the microphones being used on the tree are Neumann TLM-102 large diaphragm condenser mics (or possibly the TLM-103, which have the same shape). I’re read about the Decca tree configuration before, but I’d never actually seen one. Then I saw what record label had produced and distributed the Sisters’ albums – yup, Decca. Duh.
But that wasn’t the only stereo recording configuration they had! A closer look reveals that there is at least other stereo mic set-up, two instances of the mid-side (m/s) set-up (one for each side, since the nuns were split into two sides of the room). In addition to those three stereo mic clusters (seven microphones so far), there are two spot microphones aimed into the group of nuns agains the far wall in the picture. They are placed high and look to be positioned to capture the room/ambient sound. The spot mics appear to be small-diaphragm condenser mics, such as the Shure SM81.
So with two mid-side groupings and one Decca tree, combined with two room mics, this small choir was recorded with nine microphones! And very high-quality microphones they were. It’s no wonder that the production quality of their last three CDs (they had recorded their own prior to Decca arriving at the door) were so high that they ended up selling so well that they ended up on the Billboard charts. DON’T get me wrong! It’s not ONLY the quality of the production that got them on the charts. A really well-recorded bunch of crappy singers would still be that – polished crap. But the Sisters sing like angels. They will tell you (literally – they did in the interview) that they aren’t great singers. But they practice 5 hours a day. Funny how much difference tons of practice combined with excellent recording technique (from the pro engineers working for Decca) and top-notch gear can make.

Improve The Quality Of The Audio You Record At Home – Tip 2

April 15, 2014 by Ken 5 Comments

This is the second in a series of tips designed to help you record better quality audio in your home studio. Last week, I showed you a super quick and easy way to immediately improve your audio quality – when recording your voice, get close to the mic. If you missed last week’s post and video, you can find them here: Improve The Quality Of The Audio You Record At Home – Tip 1.
http://homebrewaudio.wistia.com/medias/e1jms9esxq?embedType=seo&videoWidth=640
This week’s tip is actually a couple of tips together. Yay for bonus tips! First, I should mention my assumptions. I assume that you are recording in a room with poor room acoustics. Just about any room in your house, especially a converted bedroom, would quality. I also assume you have no acoustic treatment such as absorbent foam on the walls, or a treated isolation booth. Most folks are in this category, but even if you have taken steps to reduce poor room sound in your home studio, this week’s tips are still well worth knowing about.

Have a Heart – Use The Cardioid Setting

All microphones have some sort of polar (or pickup) pattern associated with them. I wrote about this in the article Directional and Omnidirectional Microphones – What Are They Good For? Most microphones default to a pattern called “cardioid” (so you will probably not have to worry about using the wrong one). If that word sounds like it has something to do with hearts, that’s deliberate. The pickup pattern for a cardioid mic looks like a heart. See the explanation in the video above. Essentially, it means the mic picks up sound from in front of it and rejects sound from behind it. So if there is a noisy computer or something else that you want to PREVENT getting into your recording, point the back of a cardioid mic at that noisy thing or area.
Some microphones have switchable patterns, so you get to choose whether to use the cardioid pattern, or one of two (usually) other patterns – figure-8, and omnidirectional. Unless you already know how best to use the other patterns, and are doing it deliberately, I HIGHLY recommend making certain your mic is set to the cardioid setting. Again, the video will demonstrate how to do this, and you’ll hear what can happen if you get it wrong!

But Which Side Is Which?

With a handheld microphone like the one in the picture above on the right, it’s pretty obvious which end you speak into. But with large diaphragm condenser (LDC) microphones, this is often NOT the case. More than one very smart person I know has recorded into the WRONG side of an LDC mic. In the video, you will hear what it sounds like to record on the wrong side. But how can you tell? Well, ultimately you can tell by trying both ends with headphones on. It’ll be obvious which is the correct side. But every LDC I’ve ever used has had the company logo on the correct side.
So if you are recording in a converted room in your house – in other words, a bad-sounding room (usually) – you now know a few things you can do to drastically improve the quality of the audio you record in that room without having to spend any money or build anything. Try them for yourself.

Don’t Miss Out

We will not spam you with e-mails! We typically don’t send more than one message per week, and each of those will only be intended to help you make better audio recordings in your home studio.

Improve The Quality Of The Audio You Record At Home – Tip 1

April 8, 2014 by Ken 8 Comments

One of the biggest challenges we face as people who record audio at home is that we don’t have ideal recording spaces. A vast majority of us, Yours Truly included, set up our home recording studios in a spare bedroom. More often than not, these rooms are almost perfectly designed to provide us with the WORST possible acoustic spaces in which to record. These rooms impart way too much echo-y, reverb-y (and not in a good way) crud to whatever you try to record. The problem is especially bad when recording voices for podcasts, video narration, voice-overs, etc. because there isn’t any music to cover up that “room sound” like there is when recording songs.
http://homebrewaudio.wistia.com/medias/8q52ozaez3?embedType=seo&videoWidth=640
In addition to to being poor recording spaces, converted bedrooms are also terrible at reproducing accurate audio. If you are trying to mix music listening through loudspeakers (recommended) in a bad room, you’re likely to THINK the music needs more bass, so you boost it with EQ. You may also hear too much of several other frequencies – maybe the high harmony part sounds too loud in the mix, etc. You mix until things sound good and then render it to a stereo file that sounds HORRIBLE on your iPod or in the car. There’s way too much bass and the high harmony is gone. Happened? Bad room happened. Audio waves crashed into each other, either amplifying or reducing certain frequencies.

One Thing At A Time

If you are good at building and installing things like extra walls in your studio, or wealthy enough to pay someone to do that, you can improve the acoustic properties of your room for both recording AND mixing. But as with most problems, it’s usually best to take it a step at a time. Let’s leave the mixing issue for later and deal with making things better in the recording realm first.
With that in mind, this post and video starts a series that will give you tips you can use to improve the quality of the audio you record. Each week for the next several, I will provide you with a technique or two that you can implement immediately – without having to build or buy anything. Free and easy. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Tip Number 1

This first technique has a huge impact on recording quality, and it’s something you can do right now without, as I said, having to buy or build anything. And you won’t believe how simple it is. Ready? Just move closer to the mic! See for yourself – and more importantly – HEAR for yourself how much difference it can make in the video above.

Don’t Miss Out

We will not spam you with e-mails! We typically don’t send more than one message per week, and each of those will only be intended to help you make better audio recordings in your home studio.