Your Acoustic Space

By: Such A Voice’s Post Production Coordinator, Brendan Coyle 

The biggest challenge to getting quality audio from a voice-over recording is getting a good “signal to noise ratio“. The signal is your voice – the noise is any other sound that is not your voice. We want to be sure we get more voice and less noise. Noise can be anything that is not your voice – traffic outside, a lawn mower, the hum of a refrigerator, the hum of your computer, the sound of your voice echoing back in the room. Here are some ideas on how to eliminate these sounds:

Where should I set up my studio?

The simple answer is the quietest place in your home. Don’t set up in a room with high ceilings or all wood floors. Rooms with carpeting, chairs, couches and other padded furniture can help absorb noise. Upstairs is usually better than down stairs, as you can avoid the sound of footsteps from traffic on the floor above. There are exceptions to the rule of course. If you have a quiet basement with no one walking above you, this may be a better option.

Think about these:

A room between two other rooms is often better than a room with two exterior walls. This may help keep outside noise… outside!

A rear room may be quieter than a room that faces the street which may have traffic noise. Experiement with your acoustics.

Before you start setting up your microphone, stand, cables, computer, etc., you’ll need to do some listening. Grab a chair and sit near the space you want to set up your studio. Close your eyes and listen quietly and carefully – listen for clocks, central air, a celling fan, a squeaky chair, computer noise – anything that can be picked up by your mic. Move the chair to a different spot (or different room) if you need to, and listen again.

Once you identify where any noises are coming from, do what you can to eliminate the sounds – move the ticking clock to another room; put your computer under your desk to lessen the fan noise; pull the desk away from the wall if it taps or rubs when you touch the surface; unplug any devices that you can which come on automatically or have any ambient sound.

If you’re on a budget, thick blankets can be good for dampening sound coming through a wall or from under a door. You can also pick up inexpensive egg crate foam from stores like Walmart and Home Depot. You might even consider a cheap folding room divider that you can pad or cover with foam or blankets. Depending on the size (and how many) you have, you can create a fairly well insulated “recording booth” for very little money – plus, it’s easy to move. Some VO artists even build pillow-forts on their desk around their mics!

Here are some photos from our coaches’ home studios.

Notice how not only is the mic isolated from reflective sound coming from the corner with the Auralex Mudguard, but the window is treated with heavy curtains, which may not only stop the reflection off the glass, but absorb or diffuse the sound waves away from the mic.

Keeping your computer as far away from your mic is very important, that’s why it’s a good idea to have a long XLR mic cable.  Large diaphragm condenser mics are very sensitive, sometimes more sensitive than your ear, so if you can hear your computer or anything for that matter, your mic will too!

Be careful  when setting up your mic with your back facing a corner of a room like the image below. Try this exercise, stand right in a corner of a room with your back facing the corner and begin to talk. Now, slowly walk out into the center of the room while still talking. You may notice that the sound of your voice has more “heavy” low frequencies, or “bassy” qualities when you stand in the corner of the room. As you walk to the more “open” center of the room, those low frequencies become less, making your voice a bit more clear. Low frequencies can really “build up” and reinforce themselves in corners, and this can cause your sound source (your voice) to become really “muddy”.

Here’s a little portable studio created by a v-o artist on the go. It’s made with packing blankets and PVC pipe. You can buy porta booths like this such as the Harlan Hogan’s Porta booth online for around $350, but if you are handy, you can also make one yourself. Be aware that these small booths are not necessarily a “cure all” for your acoustic treatment. You will still need to consider the room in which you are recording. If you were to use this booth in a room with a lot of sonic reflective surfaces, like a tiled bathroom, this booth would do little to protect against all that reflective sound coming back to the mic, however if you set this booth up in the center of a quiet room, it will be much more effective. Also be careful how far back into the porta both you set your mic. Certain frequencies can build up in these types of boxes as well. It’s a microcosm of what I mentioned above about frequencies building up in corners. With these prota booths, you can get a “box-y” sound, which depending on the timbre and pitch of your voice, can sound “muddy” and not as clear.

Also, if you have to make a recording and you find yourself in a hotel room with no porta booth, you can also try and make one out of pillows. That’s right, revisit your childhood and create a pillow fort around your mic.

Remember to always use a good pop filter to help eliminate popping “B” and “P” sounds. When you pop your Bs and Ps, it can really distort your recording and it’s not always the sound itself that does it, it can be the gust of air that leaves your lips and hits the diaphragm of your mic, which can distort the sound, or at least create a high volume “pop” that will make the listener jump. A good pop filter can diffuse this gust of air so it doesn’t hit the mic and as an added bonus, it can keep spit off your very expensive microphone as well!

Also, be careful about the placement of your music stand which holds your copy. A music stand can be a great source of unwanted reflective sound coming back into your mic, creating a tin like echo effect. If you want to keep your stand in close proximity of your mic, that’s fine, but you may want to consider treating it by putting a piece of square carpet or a towel or blanket over it. You should still have room to put your copy over that.

Check out this YouTube video on how this v-o artist sets up her own home studio: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=VIDlu9exIek