Recording Audio: Tips - Berkeley-MDes/24f-desinv-202 GitHub Wiki
Recording audio with consumer equipment
This page aims to outline best practices alongside things to avoid when recording audio with cheaper audio equipment such as a cell phone, field recorder, USB microphone, laptop microphone, etc. The list is not exhaustive nor does it guarantee success with devices that suffer from physical limitations, but is rather a living knowledgebase of tips and tricks to mitigate issues we've found in video submissions in past classes.
Video link: Quality Audio for Video
Best practices (do these!)
- Record in a quiet environment to avoid picking up extraneous background sounds
- Point the microphone generally at the source of sound (use a cell phone stand if you have it handy)
- Place the microphone close to the source (your mouth)
- Place the microphone "off-axis" (not directly into or pointed towards the path the breath takes) may help to alleviate (ex)plosive "pops"
Goals to strive for in your recordings
Pay attention to recording levels
-
If the sound is distorted upon recording or playback:
- Move farther away from the microphone, or
- Turn the recording volume down
-
If the sound is too quiet upon recording or playback:
- Move closer to the microphone, or
- Turn the recording volume up (be aware that just turning the volume up will also increase the background noise and may not sound great)
Speaking intelligibly
-
Speak slowly enough to be able to enunciate each word clearly
-
Pro Tip: Record yourself speaking slowly in order to enunciate, then time compress the audio in software.
- Beware: too much time compression will sound unnatural
-
You can improve overall intelligibility by editing out breaths and pauses between words and phrases
- Beware: Too much editing will sound unnatural
- This may sometimes help in shortening the overall length of your video/audio material (if that's what you want)
Practices to avoid (do not do these)
- Avoid handling the microphone/audio recorder while recording
- Avoid moving around while recording
- this can cause fluctuating volume levels
- objects on your body might create extraneous noise
Noise Considerations
If you find yourself in an overly reverberant environment
- go somewhere else, or
- put a blanket over your head (including the microphone) to reduce the reverberance
Mouth Noise
- If you are picking up lots of mouth sounds, try taking a sip of water or a bite of a green apple to reduce mucus
- Pro Tip: The acid in a green apple stimulates the production of alkaline saliva, which can hydrate the mouth, remove mucus, and prevent sticky sounds
Breaths
- Be aware of your breathing
- give yourself space between phrases to edit out the breaths (this is extra super PRO)
Noteworthy applications for usage
Suggested iPhone recording apps
- Apple Voice Memos (built-in)
- Automatically applies dynamic audio compression (confusing because you can save files as compressed or lossless, but this refers to data compression not dynamic AUDIO compression)
- Auto-compression can be good in some cases and not good in others...
- Allows for quick audio notes
- Voice Record Pro
- offers customization
- CocoonWeaver
- Allows for quick audio notes
- AudioNote 2
- An app for visual and auditory note-taking
Suggested Android recording apps
Cross-platform applications for audio recording on a computer
- Audacity <- free!!
- Adobe Audition <- free for Berkeley students!