Pre-recording set up

[ashifechi]

I have heard some files, where the person doing the recording has a nice voice, & their scripts are very nice, however, due to improper microphone placement, or low export quality, it is difficult to give myself over to the file completely.

I’m not trying to be condescending. I am only trying to help, because I have professional training in recording.

I have been to audio engineering school. I also work in broadcasting. In order to maximize sound quality, I would like to give some advice to budding hypnotists here.

The biggest mistake I hear is people being too close to their microphones, not using wind screens, which cause voice pops, & booming low ends. Also, low kbps quality. (320 kbps, or 256 are better quality).

1: Set up your microphone about 6 to 12" from your mouth. Headsets lend themselves to voice pops, & booms, plus tend to pick up breathing from the nose.

2: Get a wire hanger, unravel it & make a 4 to 5" diameter loop in one end. Cut out the foot part of a nylon stocking & slip it over the loop. Then take the non-looped end & make a triangle or square shape (as a base) & set it up in front of your microphone. This will break up the wind from your breath & reduce the force when you say words with hard letters like, B, P. You can also wrap the non-looped end around the base of the microphone (if you wrap tissue around the base first to reduce noise from bumping, or vibrating the wind screen).

3: When exporting the file, export as 256, or 320 kbps.

Following these three simple steps will greatly improve the sound quality of certain peoples’ files.

I hope my advice can help someone. :)

[ocntrl]

good advice
thanks

[bandler]

...
I have been to audio engineering school. I also work in broadcasting. In order to maximize sound quality, I would like to give some advice to budding hypnotists here.

The biggest mistake I hear is people being too close to their microphones, not using wind screens, which cause voice pops, & booming low ends. Also, low kbps quality. (320 kbps, or 256 are better quality).

Thanks for the DIY info I will make a wind screen today!

I have a question for you about hiss.

I have several mics of varying quality. The 'best' of them is a Samson C01U USB Studio Condenser mic. It is great, but my recordings have a lot of hiss. What can I do to reduce (eliminate?) the hiss?

Thanks,

bandler

[DKaiser]

First step, check connections, a loose connection is a common way to get hiss on a microphone. Second, check if there's any background noise: turn off the AC/heater, any fans, that sort of thing. Also, try not to have your microphone on the same surface as your computer, it'll help reduce noise.

Also, some noise is endemic to recording outside of a proper sound booth, so fiddling with noise reduction is going to be needed regardless. I don't know what software you're using, but for Audacity and CEP, just leave a few seconds with the mic running before you start recording, and use that as your noise sample for the noise reduction.

If none of that works, upload a sample of your microphone recording, so we can hear exactly what's causing it.


Another recording tip to add to ashi's excellent post: put the microphone slightly off from your face. If you're facing straight ahead, have the mic at 11o'clock or 1o'clock; this will help with popping, and make it easier to read your script.

[kitsukat]

Something I learned from a film class is that, when you record, you should record a minute of silence so that you can go into an editing program to edit out ambient/white noise. I'm not sure how to do that though, you'd have to look into it more than what I can explain properly.

[tech53]

...
I have been to audio engineering school. I also work in broadcasting. In order to maximize sound quality, I would like to give some advice to budding hypnotists here.

The biggest mistake I hear is people being too close to their microphones, not using wind screens, which cause voice pops, & booming low ends. Also, low kbps quality. (320 kbps, or 256 are better quality).

Thanks for the DIY info I will make a wind screen today!

I have a question for you about hiss.

I have several mics of varying quality. The 'best' of them is a Samson C01U USB Studio Condenser mic. It is great, but my recordings have a lot of hiss. What can I do to reduce (eliminate?) the hiss?

Thanks,

bandler

another thing you can do is use a band pass filter to eliminate everything above (correct me if i am wrong) 10,000 hz and below 100 hz...I actually usually eliminate it if it's below 200 hz. I can usually eliminate almost all hiss with that trick alone. Sound Forge (i'm not a big fan of sony but sound forge has this plugin) has a great noise removal program that lets you remove white noise real easily. It takes a sample of what is defined as noise and attenuates it.