Download Adobe Audition. Adobe Audition software offers high-performance, intuitive tools for audio editing, mixing, restoration, and effects. Powerful new features such as real-time clip stretching, automatic speech alignment, and control surface support help you deliver projects faster than ever.

Good audio is critical to your elearning success. You might be a great instructional designer and create the most engaging courses possible. But it all falls apart if the audio quality in your course is not very good.

In an earlier post we looked. If you have the money, this is a viable option. However, many of you are like and your cupboard is bare. If you do have a limited budget (or you want to do the narration yourself) then here are some tips to help you do the best job possible. Today we’ll look at the microphone and recording environment.

And in a follow up post, we’ll explore ways to get the best sounding narration. All of the mic links go to Amazon, but you can purchase them anywhere. Invest in a good quality microphone When it comes to microphones, you typically get what you pay for. A good mic is going to give you good audio quality. This isn’t to say that you can’t make do with an inexpensive microphone. I’ve worked for plenty of organizations that had no money and forced me to buy my microphones at an unnamed electrical store.

For the most part, they worked fine, especially if you follow some of the tips below. But the truth is that when you compare the acceptable low-quality audio with similar narration recorded with a better microphone, there is a noticeable difference. The good news is that you don’t have to spend a lot to get a decent microphone for recording narration. I’ve had success with a headset and my desktop mic. I think the mic looks cool and it has also gotten very good reviews from those I know who use it.

Personally, I prefer a desktop mic because it gives me more control over the audio quality. Plus, I find it kind of gross sharing a headset mic if I have to record someone else. But that’s just me. Some of you grew up in the 60’s and probably don’t mind sharing mics. 🙂 When choosing a microphone, your best bet is to go with a unidirectional mic. It records sound from one direction.

This is great for recording narration because it only picks up the sound coming from the narrator, so you won’t get a lot of the ambient noise. I just recently purchased the (in the picture below). The audio quality is great. It only costs about $50 and it had a three way recording switch so I can record omni- or uni-directional. It’s definitely worth the price.

And here are a couple of demos that show the difference between a and mic. Maintain a consistent environment.

In an ideal world, you have a recording studio where you can control all of the sound. But since it’s hard to get your boss to fork over $5 for a stock image, you might not convince him to provide the money for a recording studio. In that case, you’re going to have to get creative when you record. The more you control the recording environment the better quality audio you can record. One key is to develop a consistent routine for recording. It never fails that you’ll have to do retakes at a different time. By maintaining a consistent environment and procedures you’re better able to match the audio quality.

• Try to use the same room and maintain the same settings on your computer and the microphone set up. • If you’re using a desktop microphone, use a mic stand and measure the recording distance so that the next time you record you have the same set up. • Use a screen to help prevent the popping p’s that plague so many amateur recording sessions. You can even. Get rid of as much of the ambient noise as you can Unless you’re a member of, you want to get rid of the noise. There’s very rarely a time when there is complete silence. This will be very apparent as you listen to your recording and start pick up all sorts of noise.

In fact, there are some organizations that actually pipe in “white noise” to make it easier to concentrate and be less distracted by surrounding conversations. In either case, you want to get rid of the noise you have control over. • Unplug office machines. Turn off fans and air conditioners. • Place your microphone away from your computer.

You might not realize it, but your computer makes a lot of fan noise (not cheers as in celebration of you, but the actual fan that keeps the PC cooled). • Tell everyone around you to be quiet. Put signs on the door. Hire an airplane with one of those banners to fly by your office telling people to keep it down. Do whatever you have to do to get rid of the noise. If that doesn’t work, consider the Hume technique. It’s based on actor Theodore Hume’s.

It’s a subtle, yet effective approach. It definitely gets the point across. Dampen the sound In a recording studio, the walls are designed to absorb the sound waves. You can do something similar.

In addition to sucking the life from your bones, cubicle walls are designed to absorb sound. In fact, I’m generally pleased with my audio recordings and I just record it in my home office which has a small cubicle set up. We once converted a storage closet into a makeshift recording room. We placed rails on the walls and hung some blankets from them. This also came in handy in case we were stuck in the building overnight.

I also know some people that built a portable studio using a PVC pip frame and curtains. They could quickly assemble the frame and then hung the curtains to it using shower curtain rings. Another trick is to like the image above. Of course, you could always if you’re not comfortable with your knife handling skills. Keep in mind, you’re building rapid elearning courses and not producing sound for a Hollywood production so you don’t need to be an audio expert. But you should learn a enough about audio and how to record to do a good job.

This blog post is a good start, but it’s just the beginning. Next week week we’ll look at how to do your own narration. In the mean time, what are some other tips about microphones and the recording environment? Also, what books or other resources would you recommend for those who wanted to learn more? Feel free to share them by clicking on the. Upcoming E-Learning Events • Webinar (University of California Irvine): December 13. How to Build a Professional E-Learning Portfolio..

2018 • Houston: January 17 & 18. Articulate Community Roadshow..

ATD members get a 25% discount. Free E-Learning Resources Want to learn more? Check out and free resources in the community. Here’s a for elearning, instructional design, and training jobs Participate in the weekly to sharpen your skills Get your and.

Lots of cool to check out and find inspiration. Getting Started? This and the will help. I recorded voice overs for the first time last week using a headset microphone and while it was a good quality headset the recording varied over time due to different microphone positioning. When researching the best microphones – I kept coming across the Samson and Blue Snowball mics you mentioned in your post.

I think I will end up going with the snowball for it’s awesome looks 🙂 In my research I came across a post by @retrogrrl “” that I highly recommend. Thanks Tom, look forward to the next post! I run Win XP and have had nothing but trouble with the Samson USB mic’s. The recording volume is way too low and they pick up alot of white noise.

Recently we’ve had excellent success with the ($90) and an audio interface. My question for Tom or anyone else is in reference to the portable sound booth picture, any tips on how to keep an 8 page script in front of you while your face is planted in a foam box? We’ve been using something similar, but I find it extremely exhausting for the arms to hold up a script around a foam box for sometimes hours. Just curious if anyone has found a solution???? I would always recommend you go for the best mic you can afford, a good mic will reject more background and have less self noise. In the reasonable bracket the Rode Podcaster is very good for its price and compares well to audio technica units I have at twice the cost.

If you going to be doing it all the time Neumann are the best mics available today, they save me lots of time cleaning up audio. If you want consistent level try using a pop shield as you can position yourself against it more easily than trying to figure out where you were last recording. If you really need consistent audio something like Adobe Soundbooth lets you set items at the same perceived volume which can be useful if you record one item in multiple sessions.

Thanks for the post Tom. I’ve been using a digital recording device called the Zoom H2 and getting great results. The Zoom H2 has some amazing features for working with all kinds of recordings, and I’ve found it to be particularly great working with Articulate.

It is a digital recorder that can be preset to record in a variety of.wav and.mp3 formats for those of us who like to pre-record and import narration and soundtracks. But it also serves as a fine USB microphone that does a splendid job of live recording. And it has some great bonus features: it comes with a windscreen, mic stand adapter and cables, it can record in 4-track surround sound, and for those musicians among us, it is a guitar tuner and metronome as well. I highly recommend it and it comes in at around $150. Very cool article! I recommend the new Snowflake by Blue to use in the Port-a-booth or self made “box”.

The lower design fits nicely inside. The best quality for educational narratives are clear, engaging/sincere and with no distrations of poor quality.

So, it may be also important to highlight the need for hydration and mouth health to reduce that sticky mouth noise that really can distract the listener in a gross way. Sticky mouth?

Clean it with the bite of a green apple. Alsoexcellent posture and breath support helps to maintain a steady volume so learners don’t have to strain to hear the end of a sentence because the narrator ran out of breath.

Plosives/overaspiration (popping p’s & b’s) – These can be reduced by SMILING to stretch the mouth while speaking. Also, many people use like to emphasize words with more air to send a stronger messageand it is a very ineffective and “freshman” error in voicing.

You can place a finger or and outstretched hand of fingers in between you and the microphone if plosives are a HUGE problem and this deflects the air nicely sibilances/fricative sounds with s and f – For the esses, tongue placement and air control really helps. I recommend a practice session in front of the mic to determine your particular placement necessary to reduce the loud HISS of an “S”. My findings are a flatter looser tongue toward the front teeth works best for me.

For F soundslighter touch from the teeth to the tongue give the best results. If I think of more, I’ll be sure to follow with another post. Thanks again for the great article! Using a boom stand with the mic facing downward is also effective for reducing the plosive p’s and b’s. Position the mic so that it is above your mouth and slightly to the side. This way the air released goes under the mic and not directly into it. Like Kat says, make sure you take a nice deep breath before you speak, but take that breath off to the side a bit so that you don’t get a big whooshing breath sound on your recording that you’ll have to edit out later.

As far a mic’s go, I love my. It’s under $100 and has been great with a wide variety of voice types in our studio. While I know you often have to re record segments, I do my best to record the entire audio in one file at one sitting.

Then separate it out into audio to go with the slides. I also found a program called Levelator from the Conversations Network. It is great if you have an audio with two people and one was closer to the microphone. It will bring the two closer to the same level, much easier than using your audio editor to try to adjust the one louder person. I use Audacity and am always learning something new. I would like to hear about recommendations for recording software.

My brother records his own music and uses ProTools, but it works best on a Mac (it says PC compatible, but his experience has been very shaky) and I don’t have several hundred dollars to shell out for software and a Mac, then compatible hardware. I don’t mind investing a little if for nothing else than to get away from the basic Windows recording software. Perhaps open source software (does anyone have experience with Audacity:???) so I can allocate more to quality hardware? Ditto on Audacity. It’s a great, free program.

For a mic, I found this one at Radio Shack. It had many online recommendations, and it’s under $50. My tests have shown that it’s a very good cardioid voice-over mic for the low end price range: Radio Shack Technology Plus Super-Cardioid Vocal Microphone Model No.

33-128 I bought my desktop stand at Radio Shack, too. I’ve taken two voice-over talent workshops and attend my coach’s workouts. Use your favorite search engine to find voice coaches in your area. Or, take a Radio/TV/Film class at your local two-year college to learn the “acting” aspect of voice overs. We’ve found that it’s better for breathing and on the diaphram to stand up for narrations and editing in Audacity. You’d need a boom mic and a music stand for your copy.

But, if reading the narration in Presenter, then, of course, that won’t work. 😉 (My demos). As usual, thanks for such a great post Tom! These are really simple tips but make for vast improvements in recording. Nothing ruins a great course like crummy audio. I had figured out some of these things over the years after obtaining less than stellar results. But now I really want to build my own Port-a-Booth!

Or perhaps get my hands on Shane’s foam-brero. 🙂 In addition to Audacity, Wavepad is another great (free!)recording/editing program for narrations.

It has filters for minimizing the pesky popping p’s too. Great post, I just wish I would have had this information when I started recording. I have played with several microphones and I do have a favorite from Radio Shack. It was already in our equipment when I started so I have no idea how much it cost. I recently began using a pop filter to get rid of those P’s and B’s and it does work great.

I purchased it at Muscian’s Friend online for around $15 and it saves me a lot of editing time on my audio clips. I am looking forward to the next post. Keep them coming!

Great post again, Tom — yours is the one blog I *always* read. Based on a lot of recording experience, I recommend the Rode Podcaster. As Diana wrote, speak across (or under) the mic, and you won’t even need the pop filter. And I just love the headphone socket built in. Pay attention to the earlier comments about posture — most VO professionals do short sessions standing, and long session on nothing lower than a bar stool so the hips are not fully folded. Keep the diaphragm ‘open’.

With a directional mic (like the Rode), there’s little/no point in putting the foam around the mic (unless you are much too close to a much too noisy computer). Shane is right — it’s the noise around/behind you that’s the problem, not stuff from behind the mic. So Tom’s right about controlling the environment, and Suzanne’s ‘closet recording’ solution is great for that. In the office, you may be able to find a small store room — ours came complete with rolls of fabric left over from something ancient that we could use to deaden reflections. Mattresses are good too, stood on end behind the person speaking. Software: you can’t beat the price of Audacity, and it’s pretty good.

Protools (I use the real one for top-end jobs, but there are lower cost versions) is definitely overkill and not for amateurs at all. Sound Forge, now published by Sony (after a corporate acquisition) is very good and not too hard to use — we have amateurs recording with that every week with only a few minute’s introduction. And on the Mac platform, I quite like Wave Editor which I also use weekly for editing recorded material into podcasts.

And they give great support! But if you have a Mac and you want *simple*, just use GarageBand in it’s Podcast mode — easiest multi-channel mixing on the planet! 🙂 And on that multichannel note, I wouldn’t like to share mics either (and I *was* there in the 60s!). I vastly prefer laying different speakers/people separately (I’m referring to “laying tracks”, people!), giving each their own track, and trimming levels/editing later. Excellent control over amateur things like teeth clicking, throat clearing, coughing etc when the person stops talking, as well as compensating for level differences. Even if you have to do a conversation in real time, I would always try to give everyone their own mic, their own channel, and expect to clean up afterwards. Also makes it easy to drop in theme music, stings, and so on — as well as chopping up into segments for training content.

I started out with a no-name headset mic actually intended for voip phone usage. Then I bought a Samson C03U (that’s a zero, not a letter O) USB mic, and now I have the deep, sexy resonance of a late-night FM DJ. I record in Audacity, which lets you edit out errant noises and the ever-present hiss.

I love both of these tools. I really think that the most important factors for sound quality are at the beginning and the end – the microphone and the headphones. Something to note about the Samson mic. It has the driver built in that self loads onto your computer the first time you plug it in. Be careful to give it time to load everything – there are long pauses – before you jump in to use it, or it doesn’t all load.

Then removing the drivers (so you can reinstall) is hard. An annoyance, but once it’s working well, it’s a beautiful mic. Lessons learned (Using Samson USB mic and Audacity) Use a microphone boom and speak standing up for better breathing and posture. Use a pop screen unless you’re really consistent at plosive avoidance. Record a few seconds of ambient noise at the beginning of each session to be used by the noise reduction feature. Use the least aggressive noise reduction setting that you can get away with – don’t strive for complete silence between passages, because aggressive noise reduction will cause distortions. Export as a high quality file (like.wav).

Articulate will do the mp3 conversion for you, and meanwhile if you want to publish a high quality version (to CD, for example) then Articulate will have the high quality sound files available. Great piece Tom! I have a question u might know a little about or know sumone who knows. I have my recording gear set up: a mic into a USB recording interface.

Drivers Para Hp Pavilion Ze5400 here. I record and it records fine EXCEPT it records the audio slightly faster and more high pitched. So when i play it back my voice sounds higher and its out of time with the music (its too fast).

Its not a problem with the interface coz i used it on the Mac computers at school and it worked fine, it just seems to be with Windows computers. Or know who i could ask? Hi all, I do a lot of Voice-Over work and would just like to ‘sing the praises’ of the.

It is a superb piece of kit and, to be honest, I do not get any problem with the ‘P’ popping sound even though I choose not to use a filter or sound box of any description. Whilst I don’t get ‘popping’ I can from time to time get a back of the throat ‘clicking noise’ and the more that I try to control it, the worse it seems to get! I find that the Blue Snowball mic works brilliantly with ‘‘ (my preferred audio system) and I find that Wavepad can do a good job of cleaning up my audio files so that any ‘clicking’ noise is all but eradicated. Damned nuisance really, some people have a problem with ‘P’ popping, some people have a problem with ‘S”s, and I have a problem with throat ‘clicking’.

Good job I haven’t got all three as I doubt even Wavepad would clean that lot up. I use a lot of sound effects and music also and my Blue Snowball picks up the audio from these superbly well just by placing it in front of the computer speakers. It’s a brilliant ‘all-rounder’.

Thanks Tom, and everyone, for all the great tips. @ Kat regarding the “page-turning sound”: I learned early on to prepare a script ahead of time and make sure that the natural breaks in the script fall at the page breaks so I never have to turn a page while speaking. That way, I can edit out the sound without affecting the VO. Yes, it sometimes means a bit of “wasted” page space, and sometimes a bit of extra time laying out the script slide by slide.

But well worth it to avoid the editing woes! (I prepare my slides in PPT with pretty intricate animations, record and edit the narration in Audacity, then sync the two slide by slide. I keep the breaks invisible to the learner by publishing multiple slides together into swf files by lesson or topic.) From time to time I do get a gravelly or garbled sound in the VO; not sure where it comes from; any ideas, anyone? @ Janice This may be a response a little late in coming since you wrote your question some months ago, but I ran into this thread again while ego-surfing and couldn’t help but try to give you some ideas on your random gravely or garbled sound.

I believe you may be describing what could be the result of latency. This is what happens when your memory cache gets overloaded and doesn’t keep up with recording. This sometimes sounds like a warbled voice with a pitch change, it could also sometimes just sound like a squeak. The gravely sound may be when it slows more drastically. The best way to correct this is to clear your cache, run only what programs you need to run during recording and disconnect from the internet. You may want to verify your cache settings at this time to see how much your system is allowing to store and make adjustments accordingly as well as verify your start up sequence and check for any programs that run automatically that you may be able to remove from your start-up queue.

As far as page turning, at first I thought you were directing your comments at me, but realized you were not. I’m with you on preparing your scripts. However, if you happen to include a page turning or laptop clicking or bodily sound while recording, you can edit that out quite simply with just a little practice. Eels Meet The Eels Rar. I hope this helps. Hi: I appreciate your post.

I am a hypnotherapist, and record my sessions with clients for them to listen to for self-hypnosis. I am not satisfied with the sound. I don’t have the luxury of using a desk mic (there is no desk, i am standing next to the client) and laying the music separately from the voice track when recording a session. I am using Audacity, which does create two tracks, but I find that the voice track picks up a lot of the music track as background noise, as well as general white noice, and it is difficult to get a clear voice track balanced with a softer music track. Any suggestions for a novice-friendly program or equipment that will help when recording live in a session with a client?

@Jennifer I’m trying to figure out what you are doing to determine the best way to pitch in and help with your issue. You mention that you are recording in stereo for the music input. How is the music coming in? Is it being recorded with a separate mic, or channeled internally and recorded from there? Also, would you be willing to upload a clip somewhere to hear a sampling to explore the issue? Obviously, you cannot include a client’s personal information, but can you upload something that would be safe for assessment? If I can fix it, I can tell you what I did so you can replicate it for future use.

However, the main goal is to see what can be done to prevent the issues. I would love to be of assistance to you if I can. @Zac: yesworks best if they’re Siamese twins, but two people standing together works, too. Actually, the unidirectional mic is designed to pick up the audio coming in from one direction.

If you have two people on the same side with the mic between them and their mouths pointed in the direction of the mic, you can pick them up. But it’s probably not going to be ideal since you’ll also get a lot of ambient noise. Many of the mics today, like the Samson Go Mic above have uni and bi directional switches. If you record two or more people, it’s worth the investment to get good sounding audio. I have noticed a lot of questions regarding which is the best Mic for the dollar, in my experience, the is superb! I paid $99 on Amazon for mine and everything from no latency headphone monitoring to every known mic pattern is self contained in the Yeti, as well as headphone volume and gain, along with a desk top stand. I have made side by side comparisons with a Neuman U87, a Sennheiser D421, Lawson L47 and Harlan Hogans MXL mic, and the Yeti, in the proper setting (room acoustics, pop filter and so on) beats them all.

The Yeti is also strictly plug and play into your USB jack and records at a 16 bit 48k rate. I use Audacity, wish I would have had this in the 70’s when I started my career. I agree that most people prefer a “natural” sounding voice over but not an amateur sounding recording. No one wants to hear a noisy, popping, recording with a voice over that has no rhythm.

My point is it is more cost effective to hire the right voice over person who is capable of providing a natural, realistic sounding performance than it is to purchase all the recording equipment needed to make an amateur recording work. If you want your e-learning to be taken serious or you are selling your product to large companies poor sounding audio is a real deal breaker which really hurts after you have spent so much time getting the course right in articulate. Thank you so much for the info you have provided on how to get good quality voice recordings. I have a problem with mouth clicks. No matter what I record or how I talk off mic i still get these annoying clicks that I wind up either lowering the volume on them or deleting.

I have a windscreen on my SM-57 mic and a pop filter. I record using Adobe Audition CS5.5. I’m very new at this, although I have worked in broadcasting for many years with American Forces Radio. I’m now trying my luck at doing voice promos and some imaging for a few Internet stations. I’m not at the point where I can charge for what I do, but hopefully later I will be able to do so.

Right now I’m more concerned in polishing up my product. I watch a lot of videos on YouTube of voice over talent working very close to the mic and they get no clicks. What’s the secret. Thank you for your time. Really appreciated. Let me set the record straight. None of the mics mentioned here are ‘real’ mics.

‘Real’ mics are analogue and have to converted to a digital signal. That’s why when its said that spend the best xlr mic you can afford and the signal chain overall(such as cables,pres,etc). You will need to buy an XLR mic and an audio interface along with a preamp for truly exceptional results. Yes you will have to break the bank for this. Unfortunately though, this is how ‘real’ audio recording is done.

Not with usb. The problem is that usb mics are fixed digital and they get unusable when you want an upgrade.

When you want to spend a better mic(which are all xlr) in the future, the usb mic you bought will thrown out the trash. Whereas if you buy a quality xlr mic instead of usb in the first place, money won’t be wasted and your gear will be keepers. (The more xlr mics you buy, you have more mics to record more things at the same time!).

What a great conversation! I am looking to upgrade the mic that we use for audio recording.

After doing my research (and reading this blog-thank you!), I am leaning towards the Snowball. However, while on Blue’s website, I came across their new product, Nessie. It seems pretty awesome, however, it will not be available until end of April/beginning of May. I’m debating on whether to just go with the Snowball so I can start using it ASAP, or if it would be worth it to wait & purchase the Nessie when it’s available. I would like to upgrade our mic sooner rather than later, however, I’m willing to wait for a great product. I would be really interested to hear from anyone that’s currently using the Snowball and that has checked out Nessie.

7 If you need to mix two music tracks, or maybe you have a baseline and you would like to add your voice on it, try this easy to use mixer which lets you move, cut andmix all the tracks you need. By simply dropping the audio files into the time table display, you will see a wave display of your music, one per channel.

Once you have all your files loaded, try to move them in the timeline, to cut and move the bits or to apply radio, add more bass, club sound mode and flanger effects. If you feel like to sing your favourite song and you wish to record your voice, give it a try with the function provided in Easy audio mixer.

Although the application claims to remove voices from any song, so that you can add your voice, it didn't quite work with me. The final effect was just the original song with a lower volume. The program also fails to resize the frame as you need. This can be really annoying when you are working with more than two channels and you need to move tracks on the timetable. Whether what you need is to mix a song with a base, or you want to sing and add your voice to the original track, give Easy audio mixer a try, although you will soon find some usability issues. Author's review. Have a recording studio at your disposal.

Mix music, create presentations, podcasts, or record yourself singing. Do this and more with Easy audio mixer! Easy audio mixer is a multi track editor designed for average users. With it, you will be creating your own audio projects even if you never used a multi track editor or a mixer. If you need to create presentations, podcasts, or even music. This software has all tools to make your work stand over the rest. Easily import music, record audio, apply effects and edit channels.

Once finished, export your project to wave and windows media audio files. If you are a singer, Easy audio mixer will be really useful to you. Simply import a song, remove the vocals from it, and record yourself singing the song.

Plus, various sound effects are included that will help your recording sound professional. Forget about the hours needed to understand how to use a multi track editor, download Easy audio mixer. Plus, various demonstration videos are included, to get you to master Easy audio mixer in no time. Screenshot Features: - Simplified interface, designed after professional studio software. - Import wav/mp3/ogg and wma (windows media audio) files. - Remove vocals from imported audio files.

- Record audio from your soundcard microphone or line input. - Apply effects with just one click (multiple effects presets are included). - Easily edit audio clips. - Export to wav/wma files that you can play in most music players. - Multiple video tutorials.