((( GLENN AUDIO )))

Great song, even greater to the importance of how you record.

Without going into too many details, the audio “signal chain” as it’s known is the entire network of interconnected equipment between your sound source (voice, musical instrument, etc.) and your playback system (headphones, speakers).

What is in between those two points makes all the difference in your final perception of the sound and the recording you are to make.

This week’s posts will be dedicated to each piece of equipment and what it’s doing to improve your sound.

Let’s call the whole thing acoustic diffusion.

Some people have asked me to clarify the differences between a popshield and a windscreen. So I will.

A windscreen is intended to do what it’s name implies; namely preventing the sound of wind from becoming a droning noise in the background of your recording. The windscreen is typified by the “man on the street” reporter and looks like the afro of the microphone world.

Obviously, not all windscreens are created equal. Differences in foam desities, thicknesses and overall size will impact price but for average use, something like this Shure A5 8WS will work just fine.

The popsheild, or the pop filter, is usually used in a controlled studio envrionment to prevent what are called plosives, ie. P’s, T’s, B’s, etc. So, when I say, “Today on the Program”, you don’t hear the wind noise of either syllable. Popsheilds are usually thin mesh or nylon suspended between a plastic or metal ring, all of which is anchored to an arm that allows it to be attached to a mic stand

Above is the buy it from a store solution. More expensive, less hassle.
Here is the popsheild on a budget solution. Less expensive, more hassle.

To remember which is which, think of wind being something that’s outdoors and the sound “POP”. Maybe you can think of a better way to remember

One says, “I’ve had words with that bar keep before.” The other replies, “that guy? He looks tough”. The first responds, “ya, but his bark was worse than his byte”… ouch. Sorry, it was the best I could do this early.

So who needs a separate hard drive in this age of terabytes and 4 GB RAM chips? YOU DO. Why? Because if you’re storing you’re audio on the same drive as your running your programs off of, you are taxing your system more than it needs to be.

The hard disk will be constantly moving between the program data and the audio data it is reading/writing. Adding a second hard drive, either internal or external, depending on whether you’re running a desktop or a laptop, will allow your drive to access information faster on both disks and you’ll run into way fewer CPU overload errors in your recording, or none at all if you’re lucky.
Be sure to get a drive that runs at least 7200 rpm. The disk’s storage capacity is up to you but depending on what you’re recording, podcasts for instance, you’ll likely want to go bigger; 1 minute of wav. quality audio is about 5 MB so just interpolate from there.

You know when you meet someone at a soiree and you just wish they’d back off a little bit? They are just too in your face? That’s kind of like “proximity effect”. The phenomenon happens when a more directional microphone, like the cardiod I discussed in my last post, is up really close to the speaker and you get this very “boomy” low end heavy sound. Great if you’re looking for that, but what if it’s affecting intelligability?

Omni-directional microphones, unlike cardiods, can pick up sound somewhat equally in all directions. This makes this polar pattern typical in lavalier microphones or lapel mics. The reception of audio in all directions works to reduce proximity effect and minimize that low frequency boost for a smoother sound across all frequencies.

Next time you’re looking to invest in a lav mic, think about the polar pattern. Remember that you’ll never make bad sound good, just less bad.

This is not a blog about bears in the artic making snow angels. Though I’m sure one exists somewhere.

Polar patterns are a the various directions in which microphones pick up sound. Cardiod or the “heart shaped” polar pattern is typically used in live sound situations because of it’s rejection of sound from one direction and it’s sensativity to sound in the other. This fair degree of “directionality” would allow the microphone to pick up the voice in front of it, while rejecting some of the noise from behind.

Think of how useful this is when there is a noisy computer fan right beside where you record. You in the front, fan in the back. Less noise! Seemly easy but very useful.

More fun polar pattern “trickery” to come.

In my post Location, location, location, I expounded upon how the environment in which you record can make all the difference to sound quality. Luckily for the individual podcaster, being located in a noisy room doesn’t have to make you cancel your latest show.

SE Electronics has come up with a wonderful device known as the Reflection Filter, that helps reduce room noise without need for a full vocal booth. Through a multi-layer acoustic material process, the filter is able to incrementally reduce noise over a wide frequency range. Well done sE!

I got another good question about “what mic is the best” to use for podcasting. I am sure this answer differs among many however, I quite like the Audio Technica ATR35-S. It’s self powered and can be had at a decent cost of about $50-80 US.

Doing a quick search on Amazon revealed a great offer for this mic and another with a wireless system.

I’ve always had great success with Audio Technica. I love their vocal microphones and am sure this system provides the same quality and reliability.

This isn’t a fancy way of saying be sure your next launch is on target. Monitoring your destination is an essential technique that makes sense but many may not consider. I was reminded of it after a problem someone told me about at the last TorCamp.

Often in the heat of battle, you may neglect to ensure that what comes out of your audience PA (Public Address) is what’s being recorded to your recording medium. Always be sure that you are checking the output of your recording device for issues with the audio signal, such as drop outs, hum or buzz or rf(radio frequencies) rather than assuming everything sounds the same.

Dealing with these noise issues is a whole other topic but for now, keep your ears glued to what’s being recorded and you’ll save yourself the headache when you listen back later.

Nobody likes noise, unless it’s white noise, and even then, you’d hope it was coming from something other than your T.V. But noise has been public enemy number one for audio engineers since audio could be recorded.

There are classically a few methods of reducing noise in a curative fashion, but, as I’ve been preaching (I guess I’m doing that now), prevention is always better than a cure. With this in mind, be aware of your surroundings before you press that little red button for you next podcast recording.

If you are hosting a conference, see if you can find a location for your panelist or speaker that’s NOT beneath the air conditioning vent. If you are doing a solo thing, try to stay away from your computer fan, open windows or other noise generating machinery. Keeping a close proximity to the microphone will help as well, but don’t forget the potential for clipping at that distance.

A cleaner, less noisy recording will come out sounding infinitely more professional and you will have fewer sonic anomolies if doing any processing to the sound and when you compress your raw sound file to an MP3 or AAC, etc.

When will the standard of podcasts begin to be as well produced as the best T.V. or radio shows we’ve all grown to love? In listening to my weekly dosage of ATS it occurred to me that the lengthly format with seeming lack of pre-production just made me angry; especially for a guru of new marketing. A 30 second spot may be old but at least you get the point and can move on.

If podcasting is to become the radio of the future, it’s content producers must strive to do a better job of producing. Let’s begin to raise the bar now. Why not become an innovator?

By the way, cheers to all the podcasters who are doing the pre-production needed to put together a nice tight show. Personally I’m going to credit Paul Figgiani here because I know how hard he works at it. He is the consummate professional.