It was getting light by the time I finished my first round of work on "The Voice in the Night." Most of that was setup and experimentation work, though, trying to find a vocal effect that I like for "the voice." The vocal take is 50% edited, the project is configured the way I like it, and the rest will go faster. Then I'm on to experimenting with the environmental sounds, mix-down, and mastering settings.
The rough plan is to do a few short stories, just to get the hang of everything again, and then pick a sound setup that I like and use it to tackle a novel. The stories are generally short enough to record in one session, before my voice starts to give out. The problem with a novel is that it will require numerous installments and numerous nights of recording, and I want them all to sound the same. No one likes to go back and re-do completed work, so it's important to try to get it right up front!
Showing posts with label Recording Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recording Technology. Show all posts
08 August 2008
The Updated Studio
The following is really only for recording geeks; read on if you'd like to know what I'm using to put together my latest podcasts. This is really a bit premature since I'm writing this before releasing any of the new audio, but it will be a good incentive for me to hurry up and get something done.
My current apartment studio setup now starts with a Neumann BCM 705. Choice of microphone is highly individual -- a mic that makes one person's voice sound good may emphasize the flaws in someone else's voice. I'm pretty satisified with the way this mic makes my voice sound. My voice is a little nasal and thin -- I've got an extremely deviated septum, which tends to make me tend towards mouth breathing, and if I avoid mouth breathing, my nose is a little "whistley." (Is that too much information?) Not all the time, but you can hear it, and some microphones emphasize breath noise worse than others. This one seems to be fairly resistant to breath noise, and also to pops, to the point where I didn't feel the need to set up a separate pop filter.
This is Neumann's only dynamic microphone and one of only a couple broadcast-style microphones designed to hang from a boom. As such it might seem like a slightly controversial choice -- why not use a BCM 104, a condenser mic? The 705 was also quite a bit less expensive, which is certainly a consideration. Price was not the only consideration -- I did not want to buy a mic made in China. The 705 is made in Germany.
Also, given that the background noise level in my office/studio is not all it could be, I thought that a dynamic microphone might exhibit a little bit less sensitivity to background noise. So far that seems to be true. It might be interesting to do an A/B comparison with the BCM 104, and to try out some other microphones favored by podcasters, but for now I'd buy the mic again. The hanging broadcast-style design makes it much easier to use for reading.
OK, enough about the microphone. The stand is an unexciting cheap boom stand, not really a spring-loaded broadcast-style stand, but good enough for now. From there the mic goes into an Apogee Ensemble. The Ensemble is probably the item that has the most overall effect on the quality of the recorded vocal track. There are much cheaper audio interfaces and mic preamps, and of course much more expensive ones as well. I chose the Ensemble because I've become very sensitive to noisy mic preamps. It has a lot of headroom and a very neutral-sounding noise floor. I also have been gravitating towards doing all the vocal processing -- compression, etc. -- in software, so rather than set up a typical hardware channel strip I decided to spring for as clean and straightforward an input path as I could manage. The benefit there is that you can change your mind: you can just change some software settings if you decide you want more compression, or less, or sibilance removal, or not. As long as the original signal is clean with a reasonable gain level and some headroom available you have a lot of choices. Recording the effected signal tends to limit what you can choose to do with it afterwards.
I've had an occasional technical glitch with the Ensemble, but for the most part it seems quite easy to use. I'm currently monitoring the signal in headphones on the way back out of the computer, which means I'm hearing it out of phase with my voice, but you kind of get used to that; the latency is certainly far better than it was with my USB recording solutions. I'm only really listening for words that sound unclear, pops, excess breath noise, or anything else that would make me record a second take; I'll listen to it in much more detail later.
Anyway, the Apogee is connected to a Mac Pro. The computer is tricked out with 8 cores and 8 gigs of RAM. This is not strictly necessary for Logic; I could get by with a fraction of that. The memory is really there for doing photo work using Aperture and Photoshop, especially for slides and detailed restoration. But it doesn't hurt -- Apple Logic is very responsive on this machine and I can stack up plug-ins and tracks.
Next time, more about the plug-ins and the challenge of creating vocal effects for horror and science fiction -- they must sound strange, not too terribly cheesy, and also be completely intelligible and not fatiguing to listen to!
My current apartment studio setup now starts with a Neumann BCM 705. Choice of microphone is highly individual -- a mic that makes one person's voice sound good may emphasize the flaws in someone else's voice. I'm pretty satisified with the way this mic makes my voice sound. My voice is a little nasal and thin -- I've got an extremely deviated septum, which tends to make me tend towards mouth breathing, and if I avoid mouth breathing, my nose is a little "whistley." (Is that too much information?) Not all the time, but you can hear it, and some microphones emphasize breath noise worse than others. This one seems to be fairly resistant to breath noise, and also to pops, to the point where I didn't feel the need to set up a separate pop filter.
This is Neumann's only dynamic microphone and one of only a couple broadcast-style microphones designed to hang from a boom. As such it might seem like a slightly controversial choice -- why not use a BCM 104, a condenser mic? The 705 was also quite a bit less expensive, which is certainly a consideration. Price was not the only consideration -- I did not want to buy a mic made in China. The 705 is made in Germany.
Also, given that the background noise level in my office/studio is not all it could be, I thought that a dynamic microphone might exhibit a little bit less sensitivity to background noise. So far that seems to be true. It might be interesting to do an A/B comparison with the BCM 104, and to try out some other microphones favored by podcasters, but for now I'd buy the mic again. The hanging broadcast-style design makes it much easier to use for reading.
OK, enough about the microphone. The stand is an unexciting cheap boom stand, not really a spring-loaded broadcast-style stand, but good enough for now. From there the mic goes into an Apogee Ensemble. The Ensemble is probably the item that has the most overall effect on the quality of the recorded vocal track. There are much cheaper audio interfaces and mic preamps, and of course much more expensive ones as well. I chose the Ensemble because I've become very sensitive to noisy mic preamps. It has a lot of headroom and a very neutral-sounding noise floor. I also have been gravitating towards doing all the vocal processing -- compression, etc. -- in software, so rather than set up a typical hardware channel strip I decided to spring for as clean and straightforward an input path as I could manage. The benefit there is that you can change your mind: you can just change some software settings if you decide you want more compression, or less, or sibilance removal, or not. As long as the original signal is clean with a reasonable gain level and some headroom available you have a lot of choices. Recording the effected signal tends to limit what you can choose to do with it afterwards.
I've had an occasional technical glitch with the Ensemble, but for the most part it seems quite easy to use. I'm currently monitoring the signal in headphones on the way back out of the computer, which means I'm hearing it out of phase with my voice, but you kind of get used to that; the latency is certainly far better than it was with my USB recording solutions. I'm only really listening for words that sound unclear, pops, excess breath noise, or anything else that would make me record a second take; I'll listen to it in much more detail later.
Anyway, the Apogee is connected to a Mac Pro. The computer is tricked out with 8 cores and 8 gigs of RAM. This is not strictly necessary for Logic; I could get by with a fraction of that. The memory is really there for doing photo work using Aperture and Photoshop, especially for slides and detailed restoration. But it doesn't hurt -- Apple Logic is very responsive on this machine and I can stack up plug-ins and tracks.
Next time, more about the plug-ins and the challenge of creating vocal effects for horror and science fiction -- they must sound strange, not too terribly cheesy, and also be completely intelligible and not fatiguing to listen to!
19 August 2006
The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" is Complete
All 17 chapters have been uploaded. Not counting the project introduction, the chapter files run for about seven hours. Wow! I can't quite believe it is finished.
If you are interested in the novel itself, I have written a longish essay on The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" for Wikipedia; see the Wikipedia article here. Wikipedia now also has the glossary I was working on earlier; there is a link to it on the main page for the novel. There are some more words I need to add to that glossary when I get around to it.
I am generally quite satisfied with the result, although there are things I would have done differently.
While I've used hardware compressors before, this was my first time using a software compressor. I got a little bit better as I went on, but there is still no doubt room for improvement in my compression settings.
I am aware of the occasional "glitches" (crackles, like static) in the voice recording. The inexpensive USB headset microphone I used for the project was not my first choice; I purchased it out of desperation after I was unable get rid of "glitch" problems affecting my more expensive, higher-quality USB microphone. I had already switched computers, versions of MacOS X, recording software, hard drives, cables, and everything else I could think of. For a while it seemed like the headset did not exhibit the "glitching" problem, but then it began to show up, and got worse as I continued to record.
This is a hobby project, and I was rapidly becoming fed up. I've been a software engineering professional for for almost 20 years, and yet couldn't make a relatively simple voice recording without technical problems. I nearly dropped the project until such time as I could purchase all-new hardware, but that might not have been feasible for a year or more.
Instead I made a conscious effort to let go of my usual technical perfectionism and use the setup I had, defective though it was. This meant using a very time-consuming editing process, re-recording the worst of the "glitched" words and phrases and paragraphs, some of which wound up with "glitches" of their own. Some of them I left alone, realizing that trying to re-record portions of the text and edit them in often produced a very discontinous-sounding recording. When that happened the cure was worse than the disease.
I am working on a more reliable recording setup for the next project; the USB microphone went in for repair and the manufacturer sent back a brand new one, one that (so far) does not seem to exhibit the data loss problem. I have made some test recordings and if it works reliably I will use it for my next project. A reliable setup would allow me to focus much more attention on my reading, which could only improve things.
I would welcome any comments on this production. I am also considering what piece of Hodgson's work to adapt next, and how best to do it. I'm considering lots of possibilities ranging from radio drama to live ambient music and vocal performance. Get in touch if you are interested! "Boats" will be 100 years old next year (or 250 years, if you take as fact that the "Glen Carrig" sank in 1757!) and it seems like I should do something to celebrate the novel's centennial.
If you are interested in the novel itself, I have written a longish essay on The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" for Wikipedia; see the Wikipedia article here. Wikipedia now also has the glossary I was working on earlier; there is a link to it on the main page for the novel. There are some more words I need to add to that glossary when I get around to it.
I am generally quite satisfied with the result, although there are things I would have done differently.
While I've used hardware compressors before, this was my first time using a software compressor. I got a little bit better as I went on, but there is still no doubt room for improvement in my compression settings.
I am aware of the occasional "glitches" (crackles, like static) in the voice recording. The inexpensive USB headset microphone I used for the project was not my first choice; I purchased it out of desperation after I was unable get rid of "glitch" problems affecting my more expensive, higher-quality USB microphone. I had already switched computers, versions of MacOS X, recording software, hard drives, cables, and everything else I could think of. For a while it seemed like the headset did not exhibit the "glitching" problem, but then it began to show up, and got worse as I continued to record.
This is a hobby project, and I was rapidly becoming fed up. I've been a software engineering professional for for almost 20 years, and yet couldn't make a relatively simple voice recording without technical problems. I nearly dropped the project until such time as I could purchase all-new hardware, but that might not have been feasible for a year or more.
Instead I made a conscious effort to let go of my usual technical perfectionism and use the setup I had, defective though it was. This meant using a very time-consuming editing process, re-recording the worst of the "glitched" words and phrases and paragraphs, some of which wound up with "glitches" of their own. Some of them I left alone, realizing that trying to re-record portions of the text and edit them in often produced a very discontinous-sounding recording. When that happened the cure was worse than the disease.
I am working on a more reliable recording setup for the next project; the USB microphone went in for repair and the manufacturer sent back a brand new one, one that (so far) does not seem to exhibit the data loss problem. I have made some test recordings and if it works reliably I will use it for my next project. A reliable setup would allow me to focus much more attention on my reading, which could only improve things.
I would welcome any comments on this production. I am also considering what piece of Hodgson's work to adapt next, and how best to do it. I'm considering lots of possibilities ranging from radio drama to live ambient music and vocal performance. Get in touch if you are interested! "Boats" will be 100 years old next year (or 250 years, if you take as fact that the "Glen Carrig" sank in 1757!) and it seems like I should do something to celebrate the novel's centennial.
18 July 2006
The Hodgecast Blog is Open for Business
I'm creating a separate blog specific to the Hodgecast. What is the Hodgecast, you ask? My podcast, hosted as part of the Potts House, consisting of readings of work by William Hope Hodgson. (It is possible, or even likely, that I will wind up producing other Potts House podcasts).
Hodgson was a writer of nautical adventure, horror, supernatural, and science fiction stories around 1910. His work is now out of copyright. He was a very prolific writer and was published in some of the highest-paying magazines of the day. Hodgson died tragically in World War 1, at a relatively young age, and is now largely unknown except among fans of early science fiction -- his single best-known work is a novella called The House on the Borderland. One of my goals in recording his work is to help revive interest in his work.
Earlier this year I read and made available a number of Hodgson's stories, including a couple of his Carnacki the Ghost Finder supernatural detective stories. However, I was not really satisified with the sound quality I was getting, so I have started over, and I'm serializing Hodgson's first novel The Boats of the Glen Carrig. (There is some debate about whether this novel was written first, but it was his first novel published).
The sound quality is still not as good as I would like it to be -- I am currently using an inexpensive Logitech USB headset -- but it is about as good as I can get it with the time and money I currently have available to put into the project. I do also have a BLUE Snowball USB microphone, but it is in for repair. When it gets back, if I can get it to yield good results, I may try using it instead. A painfully dull account of my troubles with the Snowball microphone can be found in the archives on my other weblog Geek Like Me Too.
The Boats of the Glen Carrig is a traditional survival and adventure story that is tinged with a little bit of supernatural horror. It is written in a somewhat archaic style, and the prose tends to move very slowly. There is no dialogue. To accentuate the eerie beauty of the prose I have mixed the reading with dark ambient music. The result will not be to everyone's tastes. The episodes are long, and the text is long-winded. But if you are patient, and like melancholy, creepy stories that build very gradually in dramatic tension, you should enjoy this project!
Hodgson was a writer of nautical adventure, horror, supernatural, and science fiction stories around 1910. His work is now out of copyright. He was a very prolific writer and was published in some of the highest-paying magazines of the day. Hodgson died tragically in World War 1, at a relatively young age, and is now largely unknown except among fans of early science fiction -- his single best-known work is a novella called The House on the Borderland. One of my goals in recording his work is to help revive interest in his work.
Earlier this year I read and made available a number of Hodgson's stories, including a couple of his Carnacki the Ghost Finder supernatural detective stories. However, I was not really satisified with the sound quality I was getting, so I have started over, and I'm serializing Hodgson's first novel The Boats of the Glen Carrig. (There is some debate about whether this novel was written first, but it was his first novel published).
The sound quality is still not as good as I would like it to be -- I am currently using an inexpensive Logitech USB headset -- but it is about as good as I can get it with the time and money I currently have available to put into the project. I do also have a BLUE Snowball USB microphone, but it is in for repair. When it gets back, if I can get it to yield good results, I may try using it instead. A painfully dull account of my troubles with the Snowball microphone can be found in the archives on my other weblog Geek Like Me Too.
The Boats of the Glen Carrig is a traditional survival and adventure story that is tinged with a little bit of supernatural horror. It is written in a somewhat archaic style, and the prose tends to move very slowly. There is no dialogue. To accentuate the eerie beauty of the prose I have mixed the reading with dark ambient music. The result will not be to everyone's tastes. The episodes are long, and the text is long-winded. But if you are patient, and like melancholy, creepy stories that build very gradually in dramatic tension, you should enjoy this project!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
