6 tips to make your DIY audio sound professional

Audio plays an integral part in bringing e-learning to life. Brightwave’s audio expert Tracey Field divulges some practical tips to help you create professional recordings on a shoestring.

There's plenty of information available on the internet about home recording/podcasting. If you've taken the plunge and followed advice about the basics you will have found yourself some recording software, a reasonably good quality microphone, and set yourself up in the quietest room you can find.

There's no getting away from the fact that professional studios have the resources and expertise to make broadcast quality recordings but, whilst recording at home or in the office is inevitably a compromise, there are things you can do to make your recordings sound more professional. So, here are my top tips to help you on your way to better quality home recordings.

1. Combat background noise.

This is the most challenging aspect of home recording and doors and windows are usually the areas where most outside sounds leak in. You can experiment with sealing doors and blocking windows with carpet or heavy curtains which may block out some of the noise. If you're really serious about home recording, you could check out the suggestions online for building small sound booths, or you could experiment with creating a box from acoustic foam (or egg boxes and carpet) with an open front in which you can place your microphone. Failing this, if you have a car, try recording in that - cars can make excellent sound booths.

2. Improve room ambience.

Do a test recording and listen to how your voice sounds in the room. Does it sound "echoey"? When you clap your hands together, can you hear a harsh ringing sound? If you have bare walls, sound will bounce around them creating reflections which your microphone will pick up. A room with lots of soft furnishings will absorb these reflections and give you the warmer and more intimate sound that you hear in professionally recorded narration. Another way to stop sound "bouncing around" is to hang a curtain or duvet behind you.

3. Be aware of your own personal noise.

When you have made some headway into dealing with background noise, be careful that you don't add your own personal noises! Rustling of scripts, headphone cables banging on the microphone stand, squeaky chairs and jangling jewellery are some of the things to listen out for. Mouth and body noises are also something to be aware of. Make sure you have plenty of water available to stop you from getting a dry mouth.

4. Buy, borrow or make your own pop-shield.

This is a disc with fabric stretched over it which you position in front of the microphone. It stops the rush of air from plosives (b, k, p, t and hard g sounds) hitting the microphone and causing a popping sound. You can buy these for as little as £10 or you can make your own with a coat hanger and a pair of tights - it will work just as well. Make sure you attach it to the microphone stand and not to the microphone as this will stop any vibrations being absorbed by the microphone.

5. Digital recording - the basics

• Prepare your computer: Close down any programs you don't need running whilst you are recording to stop them eating up your computer's resources. Recording audio is a big task for your computer and if you put it under too much strain you may end up with glitches and skips in your recordings. If you do a lot of recording, make sure that you defrag your hard drive regularly as this can help
  
  
• File types and size: You should ideally aim to record a high quality .wav (or .aiff if you are using a mac) which you will then be able to edit and compress down to mp3 (or whatever file you need). Be aware that the higher the quality of the recording, the larger the source file will be. A good starting point for voiceovers is to record in mono with a sample rate of 44,100Hz and a bit-depth of 16 bit.
  
  
• Volume levels: Make sure that the signal going into the computer is loud enough but that it doesn't make the recording meter go into the red. When the volume level is too loud to be captured correctly it causes distortion that will ruin your recordings. It's called "clipping". If the recording volume is too low you may need to look at buying some kind of mic pre-amp to boost the signal on the way in to the computer.
  
  
• Cable trouble: Check that you do not have any electrical cables crossing over your microphone lead because this can cause an electrical hum on your recordings. If you are hearing crackling noises, check that your cables are inserted correctly and are not loose or moving around.
  
  
• Test recordings: Make sure you do a test recording first. Listen back carefully to see if you need to make any adjustments before you do a proper take.

6. Audio editing - the basics

• Make a copy: Most recording software will let you "undo" edits. However, it is wise to take a copy of your source file before you do any editing so you can always return to the original if something goes wrong.


• Add position markers: If the software enables you to add markers to the sound file as you record, you can use these to mark out edit points.. This can be particularly useful if you need to do a lot of editing on your file.


• Edit sections at zero: When you look at a waveform on-screen you see a graph of amplitude (loudness) showing over time. When you cut out sections of audio you need to do this at the zero crossing point on the horizontal axis. If you don't, you will create unpleasant clicks in the file. If you're not able to cut at exactly this zero point you can add a short fade in or out which will prevent the clicks.


• Try to hear the audio from the listener's point of view: Have you edited out any obtrusive noises? Does it sound natural? Are there pauses that would benefit from being shorter, or perhaps you would like them to be longer? When you are doing this it's best to look away from the waveform on your monitor because this will affect your ability to listen objectively.

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Feedback Tony Burnett 2011-06-16 14:12:04 All in all a very worthwhile article. It is nice to see some sensible and practical advice being given. However, may I add that not all recording studios are beyond budget and are still able to produce better than performance quality recordings. by the time you have purchased a good microphone and some acoustic tiling you may well find that you could have done two recording sessions for less! Having been involved in a studio for a couple of years now, which I use for my own eLearning recordings, I can say that talking with a studio that normally does music about coporate voice over work can yeild some good rates as it is normally a very simple task for them. there is a vast range of studio quality out there and it is important that you not only get the recording you want, but also feel comfortable not only doing it but also in the environment you do it in. Reply

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