VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[COURVO]

OK, I got brave and posted my interpretation of "ShockStruts" in the other forum, but it sounded hollow and tinny compared to some of the other entries.

I'd appreciate any insights.

My home studio is equipped with:

AKG C3000B mic with pop filter and boom mic stand
M-Audio Firewire Solo
Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 8.0 (M-powered Pro-Tools V7.0 arrives today!)

That's it...no pre-amp, no mixer. Just an XP-powered PC I pretty much built myself with plenty of speed and Gigs, and RAM, and yada yada. The motherboard has a sound card integrated with it, so I'm sure it's not very fancy. Computer HD and fan noise I dampen with a thick comforter I drape over the unit while recording...it probably gets 87% of the noise.

I use a 4X5ft fully-enclosed space on the second floor with Auralex 2" StudioFoam on most of the walls....berber carpet on the floor, and standard wood stud and sheetrock walls. I also drape a blanket over the door to cover the remaining blank space while recording.

Thanks for putting up with this noob question, and 'ppreciate any suggestions.

Dave C.
_________________
Dave Courvoisier - Las Vegas, NV
http://www.CourVO.com
CourVO@CourVO.com
Courvo's "Voice Acting in Vegas" Blog: http://www.CourVO.biz
on your phone at courvo.mobi
702.610.6288
"I'm not a news anchor, but I play one on TV."

[Hart]

Well, we can compress you some to make it "louder" but it gets a bit nasty. Here's a quick and dirty preset used for example:

Long Stroke Shock Struts (Compressed)

Hmm, At first I thought there was a good bit of "room" in your recording but that doesn't make any sense to me since you have a treated space. You say you've got Auralex on most of the walls... what does that mean exactly. 25% coverage, 60%, 80%? What would you guess?

You sound "off mic" to me but it's very hard to tell why or what's going on on such a short file.

Did you record your website demos in your room or somewhere else? The couple I listened to don't have that air in them.

Record something else that's a bit longer, say 30 seconds to a minute. I'll be happy to share my thoughts, and I bet others would too. I may not know a whole lot about acting, but I'm pretty good at the technical stuff.
_________________
Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[Bailey]

[Hart]

I just realized (as I was deleting your original file off my desktop) that it's at a 22050 sample rate instead of 44100. There's part of the problem right there.
_________________
Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[allensco]

Brian is right, the lower sample rate could be part of the problem. I have a C3000B mic also. I have found that it sounds better if it's worked kinda close. It sounded to me like you were too far away from it, giving it that "hollow" sound as it picked up alot of the room. My recording space isn't treated as well as I'd like it to be and I get a "hollow" kinda sound when I'm too far away from the mic. So, I work a little closer to the mic to get rid of it. Hopefully, sometime later this year, I can get my space treated right with foam.

My audio chain is: Lawson L47FET mic > preamp/processor adding just a touch of light compression > mixer > computer with Echo Mia/Midi PCI card and Sound Forge Audio Studio 8 (great piece of software!)

I still have the AKG mic, just don't use it anymore. The Lawson just sounds sooo much better.

[Charlie Channel]

Square and rectangular areas tend to resonate. The sound of your signal reminds me of the "tuning" I had to do with my booth. My vocal booth is 4 x 6; however, I found;

1. I got undesirable ambience when the mic was too close to the wall. The sound was sort of hollow and also somewhat resonant. My mic's are now about 1-1/2 to 2 feet from a wall. And, I don't work with the mic in a position that's perpendicular to any wall.

2. I eliminated squared corners that I face when working by placing Auralux around the "L", if you get my picture. Basically, the corners are rounded by bending the foam into the corner sort of like a "U" or "(". I found that change minimized or eliminated the undesirable resonance. I also "bent" a piece of Auralux on the wall and ceiling where I face the mic. It's above a window (out of which I can see my DAW).

To really break sound up, I put a small ratan armour in the booth, and loaded it with some books.

By changing the orientation of the mic (it's not perpendicular or parallel to any wall), moving the mic farther from the wall and eliminating square corners, I was able to achieve a "deadness" that was OK to my ears.

I think that's what opening the door might achieve: you'll break up the bouncing waves that may be creating some phasing issues.

And, as was mentioned, working closer to the mic may also help. It's all in technique, sometimes.

My gear mic is either an Electrovoice RE-27 or Rode NTK. Usually, it's the RE-27.

C

[Hart]

On that note, a lot of mics will sound much better if you put your back to a wall and speak out to the room across the mic (applies to all size rooms).
_________________
Hart Voice Overs Blog
Brian Hart Productions

[COURVO]

Hart, Bailey, Allen, Charlie....
Props for all your thoughtful considerations and suggestions.

Hart:
The booth is about 30-40% covered with Auralux. Since this room was previously a storage closet, the rest of the space is festooned with books, boxes, luggage, and big plastic storage boxes....most of all that is either above me, below me or behind me....but there is Auralux on all blank wall space into the corner where I direct my voice as I speak into the mic.
The only demo currently on my website that comes from my new home studio is the book "Blink"...if you listen to it, you can clearly hear the difference. The other stuff was recorded in a professional studio, or here at the TV station in their sound booth.
Before I hit the sack tonite, I'll post a longer sample here from my booth.

Also, Hart: "at a 22050 sample rate instead of 44100"....do I preset that in my software before recording, or make the adjustment afterwards?

Bailey: I'll pop the door open to let the room breathe a bit...if I can just get my 3 daughters to shut up long enough. Thanks for that!

Allen: You make me wonder about my initial concern: I'm missing any treatment of the signal in the form of a mixer or a pre-amp. Would anybody else agree that I might need that? Any suggestions for reasonable solutions there? I wondered about the AKG 3000. I was trying to shoot for not-the-most-expensive/not-the-least-expensive for starters.

Charlie: Great analysis ....I think I'm already meeting your suggestion for placement of the mic (at an angle other than perpendicular)...but I may position a bit more Auralux into the corner to "round out" the sound as you mention.

Lots of food for thought...I'll keep tweaking. All-y'all are great for helping. Hart, that's for you....I used to live in Greensboro. 'Worked at WMFY.

Best,
Dave C.
_________________
Dave Courvoisier - Las Vegas, NV
http://www.CourVO.com
CourVO@CourVO.com
Courvo's "Voice Acting in Vegas" Blog: http://www.CourVO.biz
on your phone at courvo.mobi
702.610.6288
"I'm not a news anchor, but I play one on TV."

[dmgood]

Your recording space sounds alot like mine - 4X5ft prior storage area. I've purchased two of the Auralex D-36 kits from Musician's Friend. The first one helped alot. The second one helped even more. You could hear the difference. I'd say I'm close to 90% covered on walls - moving blanket hung over the door by a curtain rod above the door. Drop ceiling. Your sound file has characteristics like mine used to sound before the foam. You can hear the "ring" of the room. I spent quite a few sessions where I just cranked up the mic and the headphones and listened. Turned the mic and listened some more. Moved the mic closer or farther from the wall and listened some more. (a mic arm helps alot with varying positioning)

[Hart]

[allensco]

[Bruce]

I'd love seeing a brief discussion for us non-techies on the current state of thought on 44.100Khz versus 48.000Khz sample rates. I use 44.1 because that has been the default rate for so many things including most CD's and MP3's, but I'm seeing a lot of requests for material at 48.

I know that 48 is measurably better than 44.1 (but not really any better to the average human ear?). Is this still an active Beta versus VHS kind of battle, or is everyone waiting until 96.000Khz becomes the standard?

Bruce

[Doc]

Bruce,

My understanding is that 44K is CD quality, stereo and 48K is CD/DVD quality for use with 5.1 and 7.1 configurations.

Bottom line is it's all about the audiophile. Some producers are audiophiles and some just think they are.

[Charlie Channel]

I read that the bit depth is the real key. Think of bit depth as the length of a word. 44.1k is normally 16 bits. There's only so many combinations of "1's" and "0's" you get with 16 bits. Thus, when the standard for CD's was implemented, 44.1K at 16 was adopted. That was an unfortunate choice, because the coding system caused some aural nuiances to not be encoded digitally. The result was a "cold" or "sterile" -- almost too pristinely clear sound that many did not like.

If the sample rate had been higher, then some of those aural abberations would not have been normally detected. However, bit rate is also a factor in analog to digital conversion. Thus, 24 bits are longer "words" permitting more granularity in the encoding, and higher fidelity to the analog encoded digital string. For that reason, some engineers say that for most people, 44.1k at 24 bits is all that's really needed. Most people will not perceive any difference and sonically, 44.1 @ 24 sounds great.

Those engineers may hold the view that 96k, while it answers many criticisms, is not truly necessary or needed, given the disk space consumed. In other words, few would ever perceive the difference between a 96k @ 24 bits versus a 48k at 24 bits. Some (probably more than a few) will be able to perceive the difference between a 44.1k @16 bits and a 48k @ 24 bits. Very few (hardly anybody) will be able to tell the difference between 44.1K @ 24 and 48k @ 24 bits.

In the Pro Tools book I bought, the "expert" recommends 44.1K @ 24 bits. That's what I usually use, as it doesn't consume as much disk space. Nobody has complained.

There is one other issue: Conversion to MP3 or some other file format. Some clients require WAV or AIFF files, to avoid conversion loss, or because of concerns for conversion loss.

One lesson I've learned: Always ask the client what format, sample rate and bit length is needed. I had one client who said, WAV. But, his application would not import 24 bit files. That took a couple of minutes to figure out. Once I did, it was a simple matter to bounce to a WAV file at 44.1 x 16. It works fine for regular TV. HDTV? That may be another story.

CC

[SoundsGreat-Elaine Singer]

Interesting Charlie. I went into Cool Edit to see what I could see - they offer only 8 bit, 16 bit or 32 bit (float), no 24 bit. Hmmmm - looks like I would have to go from the sublime to the ridiculous. Not sure how the 'float' works.
_________________
Elaine
The Youthful Mature Voice (Emeritus)
Senectitude is not for the faint of heart.