Microphones

[CollarsAreVarar]

So what kind of microphones do you Text with Audio authors use?

 

[queenofdeviance]

Although I haven't posted any of my audios on Lit (they're on soundgasm), I mostly use either my iPad or my iPhone with the Voice Record Pro app, which is free.

I bought an actual mic (Samson Go Mic) to use with my computer, but it's too sensitive and I've learned that my computer's fan, my house, and the neighbor's dogs are way too noisy for me to use it.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

If I was to do something like that, I'd probably use the mic on my $10 Logitech headset. Everyone I talk with on it says it's booming.

 

[Handley_Page]

There's a "How to" on the subject of Audio.
Perhaps it might help.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Here is a direct link to HP's excellent How To on the subject of audio, which talks about the kind of microphone you might look for:
https://www.literotica.com/s/how-to-do-audio

I also have a How To on audio, *modest blush*, which is not as technically useful as HP's, although it does cover how to upload your file once recorded:
http://feministeroticawriters.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/posting-audio-story.html

 

[theravenfox]

I use a Blue Yeti, which is approximately $100 on Amazon. I have it on a boom arm for maximum space efficiency for my desk. The boom arm was also about $100. I made my pop filter with baling wire and panty hose because it's very difficult to find a pop filter that properly fits the Yeti. There is a professional version of the Yeti that has a few more bells and whistles, for 3-4 times the price. I don't think it's worth it and I enjoy excellent sound quality with Blue.

 

[Handley_Page]

With a little luck, a pair of old stockings, and embroidery hoop; some stiff wire and tape. A 6 inch hoop will do.

The idea is to put a couple of layers of nylon over the hoop and mount it between you and the microphone.

look for: Build Your Own Microphone Pop Screen
By Jake Ludington

on the web: http://www.jakeludington.com/project_studio/20050321_build_your_own_microphone_pop_screen.html

 

[SikFuk]

These days you can buy a professional quality mic with a usb plug for $100 or maybe less. I haven't looked lately. You would want to see the frequency response graph that comes with the mic. If it's got a big peak in the high end (on the right side of the graph) it's going to bring out the edginess of the voice, and the S's. This makes the voice harder to listen to - unless it's over a bed of music where you'd need the extra presence.

You'd want to set up the mic in the middle of your room, as far away from reflective surfaces as possible, and you'd want to work the mic in close - a couple of inches - with a pop filter. The closer you are to the mic, the more intimate the sound - but it can get boomy. If you're too far off the mic, it's a thinner sound and you get room reflections, which can add a low-midrange muddiness to the sound that's impossible to get rid of. Alternatively, you could hang up some heavy blankets or comforters to tame the reflections of a wall or window.

Audacity is a free audio recording program with basic editing capabilities. I haven't used it (my audio recording program is expensive) but it may have a feature for adding markers as you're recording. This makes it easy to find your place if you have to go back and fix things. Another trick is to arm a second track and punch in a section and then go back and realign the tracks for the proper spacing. In spoken audio, you generally want to start a fix at a sentence break, and do the entire sentence. Punching in individual words or phrases very rarely works, because of the pitch of the voice and the flow of the delivery.

http://audacityteam.org/

 

[jomar]

Blue Yeti is a very good mic.

 

[SikFuk]

Blue Yeti is a very good mic.

The response graph looks good - not too peaky in the high end. The pro model costs twice as much as the cheaper one, but it can record in 24bit, the common bit rate for pro recordings. Pro recordings then get truncated to 16bit for CD audio. The advantage of 24 bit is that you can record at a relatively low level and bump up the volume after the fact. At 16bit, if you record at a low level and bump up the volume later, it sounds grainy. If you record at a higher level at 16bit, you risk digital peaks, which sound awful. Recording at a hotter level can also produce distortion in the analog circuitry as the signal approaches zero db (loud.) The closer it gets to zero, the crappier it sounds. (This is in the context of reproducing audio for a professional application - CDs or sound for movies. For YouTube, the cheaper model should sound just fine. Just don't go into the red during recording.)

http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/Blue-Microphones/Yeti-Pro

 

[ShyChiWriter]

Gear

For software, Audacity is really the way to go. It is free and has pretty much every feature you would need for mixing and EQ'ing voice.

For microphones, there are two ways to go:

There's a great crop of $100.00 USB mics out there. The advantage of a USB mic is it serves as its own interface. That means you don't need a separate mixer. You just plug it into the computer and you're ready to go.

The top three on everyone's list are:

1. The Blue Yeti
2. Audiotechnica AT 2020
3. Samson Meteor

Any of those are great mics, but I do want to echo something that someone else said... they can be very sensitive and your quality is only as good as the dynamics of your room.

One pretty decent alternative is a Shure SM57 or SM58 with a basic mixer. The reason why this is a good choice is those are dynamic mics with a tight cardioid pattern. Translated: They have a very narrow pickup range, so they are incredibly forgiving in terms of room noise. They are also designed to be handheld, so you don't necessarily need a stand.

 

[Handley_Page]

I use a Blue Yeti, which is approximately $100 on Amazon. I have it on a boom arm for maximum space efficiency for my desk. The boom arm was also about $100. I made my pop filter with baling wire and panty hose because it's very difficult to find a pop filter that properly fits the Yeti. There is a professional version of the Yeti that has a few more bells and whistles, for 3-4 times the price. I don't think it's worth it and I enjoy excellent sound quality with Blue.

The Blue Yeti is over £100 in the UK.

These days you can buy a professional quality mic with a usb plug for $100 or maybe less. I haven't looked lately. You would want to see the frequency response graph that comes with the mic. If it's got a big peak in the high end (on the right side of the graph) it's going to bring out the edginess of the voice, and the S's. This makes the voice harder to listen to - unless it's over a bed of music where you'd need the extra presence.

You'd want to set up the mic in the middle of your room, as far away from reflective surfaces as possible, and you'd want to work the mic in close - a couple of inches - with a pop filter. The closer you are to the mic, the more intimate the sound - but it can get boomy. If you're too far off the mic, it's a thinner sound and you get room reflections, which can add a low-midrange muddiness to the sound that's impossible to get rid of. Alternatively, you could hang up some heavy blankets or comforters to tame the reflections of a wall or window.

Audacity is a free audio recording program with basic editing capabilities.

http://audacityteam.org/

I quite agree with Audacity.
But the use of a DECENT pop filter, but lets not get too complicated,eh?

The response graph looks good - not too peaky in the high end. The pro model costs twice as much as the cheaper one, but it can record in 24bit, the common bit rate for pro recordings. Pro recordings then get truncated to 16bit for CD audio. The advantage of 24 bit is that you can record at a relatively low level and bump up the volume after the fact. At 16bit, if you record at a low level and bump up the volume later, it sounds grainy. If you record at a higher level at 16bit, you risk digital peaks, which sound awful. Recording at a hotter level can also produce distortion in the analog circuitry as the signal approaches zero db (loud.) The closer it gets to zero, the crappier it sounds. (This is in the context of reproducing audio for a professional application - CDs or sound for movies. For YouTube, the cheaper model should sound just fine. Just don't go into the red during recording.)

http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/Blue-Microphones/Yeti-Pro

I confess to being a little behind-hand about Digital stuff. I've not had to use it.
But if you have a decent microphone, I feel one should be able to make a good fist of the recording, regardless of the number of bits/sec.

For software, Audacity is really the way to go. It is free and has pretty much every feature you would need for mixing and EQ'ing voice.

For microphones, there are two ways to go:

There's a great crop of $100.00 USB mics out there. The advantage of a USB mic is it serves as its own interface. That means you don't need a separate mixer. You just plug it into the computer and you're ready to go.

The top three on everyone's list are:

1. The Blue Yeti
2. Audiotechnica AT 2020
3. Samson Meteor

Any of those are great mics, but I do want to echo something that someone else said... they can be very sensitive and your quality is only as good as the dynamics of your room.

One pretty decent alternative is a Shure SM57 or SM58 with a basic mixer. The reason why this is a good choice is those are dynamic mics with a tight cardioid pattern. Translated: They have a very narrow pickup range, so they are incredibly forgiving in terms of room noise. They are also designed to be handheld, so you don't necessarily need a stand.

Personally, I'd have a microphone by AKG before anyone. Get a decent, working, Film Industries ribbon mic and you're laughing.

To my mind, there is NO substitute for a decent pop filter and a proper placing of the gear.

 

[SikFuk]

Personally, I'd have a microphone by AKG before anyone. Get a decent, working, Film Industries ribbon mic and you're laughing.

To my mind, there is NO substitute for a decent pop filter and a proper placing of the gear.

Microphones are like shoes - one particular mic won't fit everyone. A dull, muffled voice benefits from a bright mic, a bright thin voice benefits from a warm mic like a ribbon. The drawback to ribbon mics is, they're expensive (or they're cheap, and sound cheap.) Plus, the ribbon design results in a figure 8 pattern. This pattern picks up what's directly in front of the mic, and also what's directly behind the mic. That means the mic is going to be "hearing" both ends of the room you're recording in, as opposed to a cardioid pattern mic, which only picks up in the direction it's pointing in. Hypercardioid is an even tighter pattern. This means if you're close to a hypercardioid mic, and you turn your head, the sound could change. That's why it's important to set up your reading material so you're not constantly moving your head up and down or back and forth while you're talking.

AKG is a company that makes a lot of different mic models. Finding the right mic has less to do with the brand, and more to do with the individual characteristics of a particular mic model. The recording hacks link in an earlier post is a good reference for checking out mics if you have to order sight-unseen.

In the pro audio realm, 24bit is the industry standard for digital recording. The bit rate is like comparing a 15 year-old one megapixel camera with a new 15 megapixel camera, except that 24bit has 100 times the resolution of 16bit. There is an audible difference. If you were recording a book on tape, you'd be at 24bit, and you'd be using a compressor to even out the quiet parts of the voice. The compressor can be added with the recording software after the fact, but it's going to reveal the graininess in a 16bit recording, where in a 24bit recording, you'd hear no degradation of audio quality.

That said, 16bit was the industry standard when digital recording first became the norm. James Taylor's record "Hourglass" from 1998 won the "best engineered" grammy, and it was recorded in his barn with 16bit gear. Like Handley says, it's more about proper placement of the gear than the gear itself, although if you're suck with a tinny sounding mic, it's going to sound like crap matter what you do with it.

 

[Handley_Page]

Even worse with a tinny-sounding voice. . . .

 

[legerdemer]

Even worse with a tinny-sounding voice. . . .

You mean I can't make myself sound like Lauren Bacall with the right audio equipment? Damn it all!

 

[Handley_Page]

You mean I can't make myself sound like Lauren Bacall with the right audio equipment? Damn it all!

Give me the right gear and I'll make you sound like Alvar Lidell !
John Snagge might take a bit more effort, though.

 

[Handley_Page]

Seriously; if I have omitted some useful hint or got it wrong in my little "how to", I'd be grateful if the more knowledgeable one would drop me a line and put me right.
A new version is on the blocks.

PS. It was Naoko who put me onto this problem and has helped me a lot.

 

[legerdemer]

Seriously; if I have omitted some useful hint or got it wrong in my little "how to", I'd be grateful if the more knowledgeable one would drop me a line and put me right.
A new version is on the blocks.

PS. It was Naoko who put me onto this problem and has helped me a lot.

Your How To and advice by PM was extremely helpful to me. I am working on another poem with audio (a ballad, actually) that I hope to post this month. I hope it comes out well, but if it doesn't, it wasn't for lack of great advice.