How do I get presence back without abusing the gain control.

Hello All,

I am fairly new to the audio world and I am working on recording voice for podcasting, and audiobooks. I know the two are worlds apart. One requires talking and the other requires stamina and real talent. However I notice a reoccurring problem I would like some advice/education on. I will try to be as brief as possible.

The Goal: A clear noise free vocal audio track.

The environment/equipment I am stuck with at the moment is the following:

The Room:

Lots of covers, and even some foam panels in strategic places around the 12x12 foot room.
No fans, or furnace or air conditioning, a very slight hum of the computer, but microphone is far enough way from the iMac to pick it up.

Microphones:

Electro Voice XLR Cardinal Condenser Microphone (currently no preamp so out of commission)

http://www.amazon.com/Electrovoice-Condenser-Instrument-Microphone-Ultra-Low/dp/B001PPTQ2W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1302735464&sr=8-2

M-Audio Producer USB

http://www.amazon.com/Avid-Technology-Vocal-Studio/dp/B0041OSWUQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1302735401&sr=8-2


Computer:

Older white acrylic style iMac

DAW:

Pro Tools SE (yuck! It came with the m-audio mic)
GarageBand

Mic technique:

4 to 5 inches away from slightly angled microphone.



The problem I am having is the trade off in noise free audio verses leaving in the hissing sound I get from the gain. If I get rid of the hiss by adjusting the gain how in the world do I get the audio track of the voice to not sound like I am ten feet away from the microphone? If I use the recommend voice/podcast settings in the above mentioned DAW's I get fantastically quite silence, but when I talk I hear clear voice with hiss in the background. When I stop talking it is like a vacuum has sucked out the background noise followed by beautiful silence.

I have heard podcasts will similar price ranged equipment sound fantastically clear and loud at a quarter turned up volume on my iPod, while for me I have to turn the volume up 3 quarters full to even come close to the level of presences they are getting. I emailed them and they say the compress the hell out of the audio.  From what I understand this would not produce the results I hear in there shows. If I compress the audio using pre configured settings by the manufacturing the hissing sound is louder not more quite.

Aside from purchasing a Neumann U87 or a Sennheiser 416 with a Euphonix console is there anything that will give a nice loud vocal presences without the hiss from the gain control.

How can you tell if your microphones power supply and internals is not making a noise from the beginning? And has anyone ever experienced a preamp or DAW where the gain won't produce a hiss to more it is turned up? If the gain is not what gives a nice loud clear presence then what else in the chain will?

Thanks all,

Joe

there are a lot of things one can do prior to spending a large fortune on gear . . . and generally speaking the things one needs to do would have to be done even with a small fortune of hardware

not familiar with the microphone you mentioned nor sure why 'its out of commission'  but since you need a reasonable mic even for podcast/audio books a hard ware issue to deal with is to get a mic that works with your digitizing hardware.  There are a lot (a lot) of options long before you get into U87 range (which probably would not be my first choice male talking (as opposed to singing) in any case

even more important then the mic, though the two need to work together, is the room . . . I've done voice others in motel bathrooms so, again, you don't need a fortune.  But as no one here actually knows your room you are the one who is going to have to sort out the issues.  You don't need foam.  A room full of books tends to be a far better choice then blankets and foam.  You will need to identify ambient noise you want to exclude and work on position mic to help with this.  Very generally speaking, particularly as you are getting started, there is no need to back off the mic.  using a reasonable cardioid mic, using a spit filter to help control 'plosives' (work on delivery to help control sibilance), positioning mic to help avoid unwanted ambient sounds and getting as close to mic as possible is a place to start

There are a lot of 'tricks' one can use to shape the performance one you get it recorded (and way too many to start listing here) but the biggest trick is to get a recording as close to what you want with as little post production editing as possible

additionally you might or might not actually mean 'presence' . . . in audio 'presence' refers to a range of frequencies roughly between 4-6kHz  that when boosted (in relation to other frequencies) might or might not provide a more satisfying recorded (or live for that matter) performance . . .  boosting for presence is usually done on one voice in a mix of other 'voices' (i.e. instruments harmony etc.) though there are those who boost this range more or less automatically on any, even solo, featured voice

[nothing whatsoever]

Firstly, this is a forum for a specific series of softwares - CE96, Cool Edit Pro and their successors, the Adobe Audition series - and not a 'general purpose' forum.  Because of this, you are unlikely to find people here with the same software as you are using. But fear not, Audition has just been released for a Mac!!

"Presence" is a not terrible well-defined function of equalisation - it has nothing whatsoever to do with gain.  Very broadly, presence is achieved with subtle use of EQ in the 2-8KHz band. 

I suspect your noise problem is a combination of poor (i.e. noisy) pre-amp and insufficient care in gain staging (Google it).  The hardware is limited to 16 bit depth, so you will not want to record too low below peak level, as this will limit your dynamic range (although decent 16 bit recordings should be perfectly adequate for your purpose).  It sounds to me as though the recommended presets involve a gate - that will certainly eliminate noise when you are not speaking, but it's an inelegant solution and easily abused in practice.

I think you would benefit from a bit of general background research in the field of audio recording - http://www.tweakheadz.com/ would be a good starting point.  Remember, this is a trade like any other, so do not expect to produce perfect recordings without some experience and a lot of practice/experimentation under your belt.

Thanks... although I think I did a bad job in wording my problem. I posted here because I thought this place seems like knowledgeable nice audio folks. I also thought posting my question under general audio topics ment that the question in hand didn't have to be related to software in the Adobe world.

I will mess with the EQ in the above mentioned range. Thank you for your help.

I apologize if I sounded rude? Or bothered the Adobe fans.  Not sure why all here would post questions if google gave the answers they want? But thanks for the suggestion.  I will google the rest.

I also thought posting my question under general audio topics ment that the question in hand didn't have to be related to software in the Adobe world.

Don't misunderstand me, we're quite happy to answer questions, no matter what the software involved.  It's just that, since this is a dedicated forum, it's unlikely that many (if any) of our members would be running the same setup as you are and soft or hardware specific questions are probably better directed towards people who are using the same kit.

Not sure why all here would post questions if google gave the answers they want? But thanks for the suggestion.  I will google the rest.

There is so much information out there these days that the answer to almost any question will already have been given - often many times.  Half an hour with a search engine will usually find answers more complete and certainly quicker than posting to this or any other forum.  It's for this reason that dedicated forums (such as this one) exist - we are able to deal with questions that specifically relate to our particular gear.  Doing a net search on Audition stuff will, most likely, lead the enquirer to this forum (it's how we get most of our members ).

Hmm... I don't think that it's the software or even the Mac that is causing the problem here - it's likely to be that Avid Vocal Studio mic, and its strange way of operating. I can't find any review of this mic that has a good thing to say about it, but I can certainly find quite a few that say rather bad things.

I'd say that regardless of what software you use, you should get rid of that mic for as much as you can get for it, and get your preamp sorted out for the Electrovoice - which whilst not being an absolutely ideal candidate, is almost certainly going to give you better results. Used close-up you will get a bit of a bass boost to your voice from it, but it will mean that you can use it at lower gain settings, and therefore get lower background noise from the mic/preamp combination. The major problem with a lot of USB mics is that the preamps in them have limited gain ranges, and are often not even adjustable - the apps with them just vary the level from a fixed (possibly too high) gain, and then with quieter signals like the spoken voice, they appear to be pretty noisy.

Your 'podcasting' software settings have clearly recognised this problem, but the only thing that processing like that can do is to almost gate out the noise when no signal is present - hence your silky quiet background level that suddenly rises when you speak. What you should be aiming for is a background level from the mic/pre combination that doesn't need that sort of processing at all, and the only way you are going to achieve this is to get a better mic/pre combination sorted out, and get the levels set correctly. This will involve getting the preamp gain set correctly first, and then sorting out the final level - very much in that order.

Oh yeah, get Audition for the Mac as well! Compared to any other similar software offerings for it, this is head and shoulders over the lot.

I'm not sure what he has .  The link is to the Avid, but says he's using this  - http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProToolsVocalStudio.html .

Whichever is the case, I would go along with SteveG and recommend ditching any USB mic for something more mainstream.

Apart from the mic, I think SteveG should possibly have jumped in about the room acoustics. I've built many, many tiny studios and the one thing you have to be careful of is not to end up with too much in the way of acoustic absorption or other strange acoustic effects.

I've lost count of the times I've been called to studios and rooms where "the mic has gone noisy", only to find that the person speaking had their delivery affected by the acoustics (we had movable screens), and they had ended up speaking more and more quietly without realising it.

It doesn't need to be that expensive to get together a reasonable mic, a small mixer that has well thought out monitoring facilities, and some decent recording software. Sort out the gain staging and monitoring on the mixer(one from a known manufacturer eg Soundcraft, Mackie) and get the environment easy to work in and you can then forget the technology and concentrate on the content.

Apart from the mic, I think SteveG should possibly have jumped in about the room acoustics. I've built many, many tiny studios and the one thing you have to be careful of is not to end up with too much in the way of acoustic absorption or other strange acoustic effects.

I wondered about that, but having read that this is a 12x12 room, at least partially treated somehow and basically quiet, I don't think that it is going to be a significant issue from the noise POV, especially as it's just a close-mic situation.

Apart from the mic, I think SteveG should possibly have jumped in about the room acoustics. I've built many, many tiny studios and the one thing you have to be careful of is not to end up with too much in the way of acoustic absorption or other strange acoustic effects.

I wondered about that, but having read that this is a 12x12 room, at least partially treated somehow and basically quiet, I don't think that it is going to be a significant issue from the noise POV, especially as it's just a close-mic situation.

It was the word "Lots" in "Lots of covers, and even some foam panels in strategic places around the 12x12 foot room." and the fact that the OP was complaining about hiss that made me think about too dead or too enclosed an environment.

Well, I suppose I could mention the 20% rule in passing, but in most rooms it's rather difficult to determine when you've reached the sensible limits of what you should do.

What the 20% rule says is that 20% of the room treatment does about 80% of the work. Doesn't mean that you have to stop there, but above about the 30% level, rooms tend to sound rather more dead than most people are comfortable with.

Actually to me the most worrying thing was 'in strategic places'. I wonder how they were determined?

Will we ever find out? Has Graeme frightened the OP away?

Has Graeme frightened the OP away?

That certainly wasn't my intention, so I hope not.  I merely tried to get him to realise that there were quicker and better ways to get answers to this sort of general question - at the same time giving him some answers.

Commercially viable voice recordings can now be made with a minimal amount of equipment.

All that is required is:

1)A quiet and deadened acoustic.

2)A LDC for around £100.00

3)An audio interface with a phatom powered mic preamplfier and mic cable.

4)Pop shield.

You can record at 24 bit resolution and record at -15dBFS peaks, then you can compress and eq
in the box to your hearts delight.

cheers

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