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Author Topic: Home recording studio.  (Read 5277 times)
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Dlshaw
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« on: October 01, 2010, 10:21:26 AM »

So I have decided that I am going to take over a small corner and part of the closet in my sons bedroom that he never uses. (he always sleeps in our bed)  My plan is to find 2 office dividers and cover the insides with egg crate type foam ( preferably black so it will look cool) but also cover the small space of wall that will be exposed as well.  I will have a small desk in the middle for monitor, keyboard, mouse and mic.  I am discontinuing the use of my laptop for recording and going to a desktop that I am throwing together with parts from a previous build.  I am making the desktop ultra quiet and will build a box to house it in so no noise will get to the mic.  

Basically I want to design low footprint place to record where I don’t have to set up and take down every time while increasing my sound quality.  

I am posting this on here to gather any advice anyone might have on such things.  The sound treating stuff on musicians friend is pretty expensive so any suggestions on that would be great.  

What have you done that worked?

How can I do this very at a very low cost?

What cool products are out there that I haven’t seen?


Thanks guys and gals.

Daniel
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« on: October 01, 2010, 10:21:26 AM »

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mistertaco
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« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2010, 01:09:23 PM »

In the "home" studio, we'd get used office partitions (that have the soft fabric) and use those for baffles around the amps for some isolation. The guitar scratch track bleed through on the drum mics was negligible and we were able to work around it pretty well. While we did do some scratch tracks direct into the board, we seemed to get better cohesion from the rhythm section with loud amps instead.

Hanging rugs full length from the ceiling a few inches from the wall helped get some if not all of the bounce controlled. The ceiling also had some sort of fabric tacked on. Can't remember what it was. We aren't engineers, but it helped deaden the room (basement with brick walls).

If we did want to have some ambient room mics recording the room, it was easy to manipulate the surroundings or stick an amp upstairs in a bigger room to record "that" sound if needed.

The same "office partition baffles" were used for a makeshift vocal booth.

At the rehearsal studio, we actually had bass traps built and all the acoustic crap since we were servicing clients.

End result, the "home" build was peaches and cheap too.

Hope this helps.

Lee
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« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2010, 01:09:23 PM »

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Kenn Blanchard
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« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2010, 03:03:52 PM »

After spending unnecessarily, I found out that I didn’t even have to go high tech or bother much about audio quality for a podcast and still have people love it.  What I have found out is that people care more about unequal audio levels, pops, dead space, and most importantly, boring or poor content.  I understand and know how you feel but believe me when I tell you, content is king.  For some odd reason, folks don’t mind, a baby crying, a fire engine, a washing machine running, a fart or any of the other stuff we think they do.  If they like you, they like you.  Just don’t hurt their ears, be smooth in transitions, and don’t sweat the small stuff.  Perfection is the enemy of an artist.  Having your studio set up alone will free you to concentrate on the show.  And your delivery, style, content and sound is good bro.  Make sure you use levelator for the whole show so folks don’t have to turn down the volume for the intro and then up for your dialog.

http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator

Kenn
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Alex Haddox
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« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2010, 11:32:17 PM »

Everything that Kenn said, plus microphone. It is all about the microphone quality. A quiet room won't make up for a bad recording. Garbage in, garbage out.

If you have money, spend it on a the highest quality directional microphone you can afford. Directional helps eliminate background noise as much as baffling on the walls. Not all microphones are built the same, even in the same price range. All things being equal, your voice will have a different sound quality on different microphones.

Good content with smooth audio and you're golden.


Kenn is correct in that listeners don't mind errors in the recordings. They expect a certain level of "amateur errors" in podcasts. I've actually received some criticism that my shows are too polished and they would like me to leave in some errors to make it more personal rather than professional. /shrug
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Alex Haddox
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« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2010, 11:32:17 PM »

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Eric R Shelton
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« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2010, 12:10:15 AM »

Too good a mic (like a condenser) will pick up EVERYTHING, though.  Even stuff you can't hear.  It's terrible.  I use a cheap (ish) Shure SM57.

Kenn was right-on with Levelator.

Curtains, carpet, furniture and hanging stuff breaks up echo as well...  Go low-tech and throw a sock over your mic for a pop screen.  LOL.  I've done it, and also rested a mic on a folded sock on the desk to reduce transmitted vibration from setting down coffee cups.  It works just fine.
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Dlshaw
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« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2010, 05:38:12 AM »

Thanks guys and I het all that.  My issue isn't quality really, I think my show sounds good enough for podcast standards as it is and yes levelater is a must.  What is going on is, I've gotten together the parts for a new desktop that I plan to use just for GC.  The wife gave me the go ahead to take over a corner of little Gunner's room along with his closet.  I am putting a small desk and chair in there and enclose the space with office partitions.  I figure while I'm at it, I might as well sound treat the space since I will now have a dedicated space to the show. 

The computer cost next to nothing to build and I have designed it and got parts that make next to no noise.  I am trying to keep the cost in doing this very low so I am looking for any suggestions on products.  Right now I am looking for used office partitions and will probably go with egg crate bed foam type stuff and a rug on the tile floor. 

Normally I just put some foam from a pelican case around my mic and talk. 
With this opportunity and my way of thinking that if you arnt trying to improve you get stagnant and well... stop improving. 

Daniel

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Daniel Shaw, Gunfighter Cast
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« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2011, 11:58:34 AM »

As a podcast listener and someone with a degree in broadcast television production I would add that it is vital to pay attention to your audio levels. Too many podcasts are all over the place and it really hurts when you are listening to a podcast via ear buds and you have an interview where one party is very low then the other comes blasting in at a much higher level.... There are certain podcasts that I will not listen too any longer because they are downright painful to listen to, and I’m not talking about their content.

Alex is 100% correct; you cannot clean up garbage on the back end. Work to get the cleanest, best recording you can then you can always tweak it and clean it up in post production.

I no longer work in TV but there is a part of me that would LOVE to set up a podcast studio (I still do some live audio work on the side) but I just don't have the time to produce a weekly podcast.... The gear that is out there is so much better and cheaper than anything I had access to when I was working in the business.

My hat is off to all of the podcasters on the GRRN for the work they put into each and every show. I understand how much work it is and give you all the credit in the world for making it work........ Just please remember to watch the audio levels Smiley
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Mark Vanderberg
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« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2011, 09:06:04 AM »

The Levelator 2 can help.........................

http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator

-----------------From The Levelator web site-------------------------

What is The Levelator®?

Do you believe in magic? You will after using The Levelator® to enhance your podcast. And you'll be amazed that it's free, now even for commercial use.

So what is The Levelator®? It's software that runs on Windows, OS X (universal binary), or Linux (Ubuntu) that adjusts the audio levels within your podcast or other audio file for variations from one speaker to the next, for example. It's not a compressor, normalizer or limiter although it contains all three. It's much more than those tools, and it's much simpler to use. The UI is dirt-simple: Drag-and-drop any WAV or AIFF file onto The Leveler's application window, and a few moments later you'll find a new version which just sounds better.

Have you ever recorded an interview in which you and your guest ended up at different volumes? How about a panel discussion where some people were close to microphones and others were not? These are the problems the post-production engineers of Team ITC here at The Conversations Network solve every day, and it used to take them hours of painstaking work with expensive and complex tools like SoundTrack Pro, Audacity, Sound Forge or Audition to solve them. Now it takes mere seconds. Seriously. The Levelator® is unlike any other audio tool you've ever seen, heard or used. It's magic. And it's free.

When we developed the IT Conversations component-based show-assembly system, we realized all the components had to be of the same loudness or the results would sound awful. We limped along for many months using the RMS normalization functions in various applications, but the results weren't satisfactory and it required tools and skillsets that some of our post-production audio engineers didn't have. One of our best engineers, Bruce Sharpe, offered to write a standalone software RMS normalization utility, which we've been using as part of our production system CNUploader since 2005.

The CNUploader's normalizer acts similar to an intelligent RMS-based compressor/limiter combination, and it therefore affects primarily the short-term (transient) sounds and the long-term overall loudness of the file. It doesn't make the kind of adjustments that a skilled audio engineer can perform in software or at a mixing console, riding the levels up and down to compensate for medium-term variations.

There are some hardware devices such as various AGC (automatic-gain control) components that can do moderate leveling, but since they have to operate in real time (i.e., without look-ahead), they can't do much. And they aren't cheap, let alone free. Even a skilled human can only react to changes unless s/he is lucky enough to be present during a recording session and can use visual cues to anticipate coming variations. Software can do better by performing multiple passes over the audio, generating a loudness map of where the volume changes. (It's not actually that simple, but the metaphor is helpful.)

Bruce, with help from his son, Malcolm, had proven that he knew how to tackle these problems in ways that no one else anywhere in the audio/software industry has done to date. So we asked him, "Bruce, do you you think you can write a leveler that corrects for medium-term variations in loudness instead of the short-term and long-term variatons processed by compressor/limiters and normalizers, respectively?" Bruce and Malcolm took on the challenge, and eight months later we began testing The Levelator®.

You'll believe in magic.
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Mark Vanderberg
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« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2011, 09:06:04 AM »

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Doc Wesson
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« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2011, 09:36:45 AM »

Man I am not kidding......  this piece of software is amazing... it will level the absolute worst audio... it is great.. AND FREE....unless you want to do anything other than wav files.
All my recordings go through it prior to going out...
Amazing software.
« Last Edit: January 18, 2011, 09:52:54 AM by Doc Wesson » Logged

Mark Vanderberg
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« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2011, 09:40:08 AM »

and FREE........... Doc
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Mark Vanderberg
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Doc Wesson
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« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2011, 09:58:27 AM »

YESSSS..... Free Software = more tequila = more barstool discussions......hahahaah
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« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2011, 09:58:27 AM »

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