Audio recording tips

Thank you! I really appreciate these videos, and hopefully, I’ll get fast enough to understand them at the regular pace, but that’s the best thing about videos, I can always rewind them. Please keep them coming! they’re awesome!

Also, for some other projects, I have had good results with Shure SM58 Cardioid Mic (which does need some kind of an intermediate amp + USB interface (I use an H5) but suppresses all nearby sounds well) I’ve even heard that the capsule in these mics is the same as the ones in Shure SM7B (which costs 4-5x). Before that I had a Yeti Blue mic which was really nice and it has direct USB connection into my old MBP) The thing with that is that it is super sensitive and my apartment is near a road lol so I picks up every little bit of noise.

As Jeremy said, being close to the mic is key. Unfortunately I’ve not had good experience recording my audio with Apple AirPod Pros . Recorded quality didn’t seem better than regular Apple earbuds which in some ways are better because they’re wired and don’t have the hiss/delay that the Bluetooth can introduce in environments with lots of RF noise.

Thanks for the suggestions. Time to give up on airpods :joy:. I have a blue yetti too, but as you said it is very sensitive and observes a lot of noise. So I have been using airpods for the last few videos. Time to upgrade :blush:

3 Likes

BTW another reason – bluetooth headsets have crappy upstream bandwidth and sound like rubbish as a result. (I dunno if Apple fixed that with any proprietary codecs, but I suspect not because when I’ve listened to friends use airpods on Zoom calls etc they always sound heavily compressed to me.)

So I’d strongly recommend using a wired mic/headset, or something wireless with a 2.4GHz dongle.

5 Likes

Ah, that makes sense. When I started making videos, I bought 2 mics - Blue Yetti and Shure MV7, but felt they capture a lot of noise. The airpods were able to kind of focus on my voice rather than the surrounding sound. So started using the airpods for the last few videos.

I am planning to use the Shure MV7 model for the next few videos, and if they don’t improve the quality then I will probably buy a headset with a boom :blush:

If you get them really close to your mouth, then you can turn the input volume way down, which should get rid of the noise.

4 Likes

In addition to keeping it close to your mouth, make sure you are not using an omnidirectional or bidirectional gain pattern (and do reduce the gain if you are close). For this type of content, selecting the cardioid pattern at the back of your Yeti should give good results. This is a random image that shows what the different icons look like: https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/wp-content/qa/uploads/2021/10/setting-symbol-four-patterns.png. Cardioid is the second from the right in my Yeti.

4 Likes

Oooh! MV7 is a nice mic! Like Jeremy mentioned, keeping the gain down and keeping it close to the mouth, it would sound really nice. Being that close though, a pop filter is also a must have, otherwise a lot of plosives get into the recording which can be hard to edit out in post processing. The foam cuts some of it out, but not all.

I record longer audio sometimes (not professional, just hobby) and I find that there’s a lot one has to go through to get half decent sound quality out of a piece. I even use hacky sound absorbing materials in the area where I record so the sound doesn’t reflect back into the mic. But the thing is that once it is done, it may live on for 10,20 years on the internet (if not hundreds). So the up front time investment is definitely worth it.

But having a nice mic like MV7 definitely would make getting a rich sound out that much easier, not to mention rewarding.

EDIT: P.S. I’m listening to the Datablock vidoe and the sound is so much better; almost night and day. I don’t hear a whole lot of background noise except for the occasional bird chirping (which I love btw :smile: )

3 Likes

That’s a nice mic, agree with most recommendations here. Here’s “a recipe” that should produce decent results for most of the cases.

  • Cardiod mode (if possible)
  • Speak very close to the mic, foam/pop filter if you have one
  • Have a quite section somewhere in the recording (to capture possible background noise)
  • Record at very low levels ( -24 to -20 dB ), that way you avoid most background noise
  • If there’s still background noise, use the quiet section for noise removal (via plugins)
  • Use compressor+gain to bring it up in post ( 0 to -5 dB )
  • Optionally, EQ the vocals, sibilance removal, plosive removal etc. Make sure you’re not clipping afterwards (adjust compression stage if you are)
  • Finally, set a limiter to - 0.1 dB to make sure there’s def. no audio clippings
  • Have fun recording ! :raised_hands:

a vid. that summarizes all this very well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev921CyMRQw

:studio_microphone: :level_slider: :control_knobs:

5 Likes

I’m on a tight budget so for recording I can’t afford to get a proper expensive and quality solo OR multi mic setup, hence I’ve been using a voice cloning AI which copies my accent and voice and generates a voiceover content for my videos.
An extra advantage is that t I can translate it in different languages all in my own voice when in reality I don’t even speak those languages :sunglasses:

Thats actually really cool. Does the AI sound natural tho?