Hi everyone!
I am new to this site, and I still haven't recorded anything yet, simply because I can't find a good place to record without background noise.
I live in London, in a rented house, and during the day there is a lot of noise from cars on the street. I have an excellent mic, the Rode Podcaster, but every time I try to record, I can hear everything on the street. I tried everywhere in the house and it's no use. Also because the house is not mine, I can't simply build a mini studio here, like putting stuff on the windows to muffle the sounds.
I am really frustrated. I was wondering if anyone who lives here in London knows where I could go, maybe, to have some peace and quiet to record? Thank you!
Liana
Just another thing: my editing software is Adobe Audition.
Problems with background noise [one-minute-test OK]
Hi Liana, welcome to LibriVox 
first of all, don't panic. Most of us here have to deal with everyday noise during recording sessions. It all depends on the level of noise. Is it simply cars passing by in a constant humming tone ? If so, that can usually be cleaned up to a certain point with a good noise-cleaning function. I use Audacity and it's pretty good. I wouldn't know your program though so maybe someone else can give you helpful suggestions there. Also: have you tried closing the windows ? It helps to muffle the outside noise already.
If it is "sudden" noises, like honking cars or an ambulance siren, there I would recommend stopping your recording until it passes by, and re-recording that sentence, so you can cut out the honking sound altogether later on in the editing phase.
As a suggestion: please record our one-minute test (Peter Piper), or any other short text, and post it here in this thread. Then I'll have a listen to the level of noise you mean (it may be less than you think). I'll clean it with my Audacity program and post back to show you how it will sound then, and you can judge whether it's a better sound.
Let's see how "bad" it really is, before we despair.
Sonia
first of all, don't panic. Most of us here have to deal with everyday noise during recording sessions. It all depends on the level of noise. Is it simply cars passing by in a constant humming tone ? If so, that can usually be cleaned up to a certain point with a good noise-cleaning function. I use Audacity and it's pretty good. I wouldn't know your program though so maybe someone else can give you helpful suggestions there. Also: have you tried closing the windows ? It helps to muffle the outside noise already.
If it is "sudden" noises, like honking cars or an ambulance siren, there I would recommend stopping your recording until it passes by, and re-recording that sentence, so you can cut out the honking sound altogether later on in the editing phase.
As a suggestion: please record our one-minute test (Peter Piper), or any other short text, and post it here in this thread. Then I'll have a listen to the level of noise you mean (it may be less than you think). I'll clean it with my Audacity program and post back to show you how it will sound then, and you can judge whether it's a better sound.
Let's see how "bad" it really is, before we despair.Sonia
https://librivox.org/uploads/tests/1_minute_test_liana.mp3
Hi Sonia, thanks for your reply.
This is a file with absolutely no editing at all. You can hear the background noise and some mouth noises. Let me know what you think!
Liana
Hi Sonia, thanks for your reply.
This is a file with absolutely no editing at all. You can hear the background noise and some mouth noises. Let me know what you think!
Liana
[Your post went up while I was still typing away! Haven't edited what I said.]
Getting a sample would be great, as Sonia suggested
We'll help you work this out as best we can, hang in there! I know quite a few people here who can only record at certain times of day (Oh my goodness o'clock in the morning, or late evening are common options.) It's also possible to 'insulate' the mic against a little bit of the noise ... rather than creating a studio for you, you create one for the mic itself. If you have a Uni library near you, they generally allow non-students to sign up for non-borrowing-rights day access, and may have little study rooms that can be booked out for free or a token price.
Absolute worst case scenario, you record with traffic noise, and stick to reading books about transport, so at least it is thematically noisy.
Getting a sample would be great, as Sonia suggested
We'll help you work this out as best we can, hang in there! I know quite a few people here who can only record at certain times of day (Oh my goodness o'clock in the morning, or late evening are common options.) It's also possible to 'insulate' the mic against a little bit of the noise ... rather than creating a studio for you, you create one for the mic itself.
If you have a Uni library near you, they generally allow non-students to sign up for non-borrowing-rights day access, and may have little study rooms that can be booked out for free or a token price.Absolute worst case scenario, you record with traffic noise, and stick to reading books about transport, so at least it is thematically noisy.
There's honestly no such thing as a stupid question -- but I'm afraid I can't rule out giving a stupid answer : : To Posterity and Beyond!
ok I can assure you, I had to crank up my volume very much to hear the noise you were talking about. But I agree, there is a hum (albeit a slight one)
But nothing Audacity can't fix. How is this ?
https://librivox.org/uploads/tests/1_minute_test_liana-clean.mp3
Much better don't you think. I can assure you, this is absolutely a good quality recording.
And while we're at it, let's treat this as your official one-minute-test
I'll let you listen to it and meanwhile I'll write down some improvement notes for you...stay tuned.
Sonia
But nothing Audacity can't fix. How is this ?
https://librivox.org/uploads/tests/1_minute_test_liana-clean.mp3
Much better don't you think. I can assure you, this is absolutely a good quality recording.
And while we're at it, let's treat this as your official one-minute-test
I'll let you listen to it and meanwhile I'll write down some improvement notes for you...stay tuned.Sonia
Ok, so first of all, your reading is absolutely fine, nicely understandable and clearly enunciated. So you have what it takes to make good audiobooks As for your "mouth noises" I didn't hear anything too disturbing. Yes maybe you can cut out a very audible "smack" but if that doesn't happen too often, and if you don't gasp like you just ran a marathon before recording, a little bit can be endearing at times. Only computer-generated voices don't smack and don't breathe, but I personally like to have the feeling a real human has read this story to me 
(warts and all - or in this case, smacks and all). I'm sure many people would agree.
As for your technical settings, we need to change the bitrate. Yours is 192 kbps, but we need 128 kbps. Well, not knowing your program, I cannot tell you where to change the settings, hopefully you know your way around it. If not, someone else is bound to have the answer, we have some techies here who know much more than me in that area.
Other than the bitrate all was perfect. If that had been ok, you would have passed the test even with the background noise. I only did a round of noise-cleaning in Audacity, to show you the difference. But it would have been acceptable even without that.
So that said: could you try changing your bitrate settings, and uploading your initial recording (not mine, which was already enhanced). I only want to check whether you managed to change the bitrate and then you'll get your OK on your one-minute test and can start recording for real. Don't worry about your noise...it's really not as bad as you think.
Sonia
As for your "mouth noises" I didn't hear anything too disturbing. Yes maybe you can cut out a very audible "smack" but if that doesn't happen too often, and if you don't gasp like you just ran a marathon before recording, a little bit can be endearing at times. Only computer-generated voices don't smack and don't breathe, but I personally like to have the feeling a real human has read this story to me (warts and all - or in this case, smacks and all). I'm sure many people would agree.As for your technical settings, we need to change the bitrate. Yours is 192 kbps, but we need 128 kbps. Well, not knowing your program, I cannot tell you where to change the settings, hopefully you know your way around it. If not, someone else is bound to have the answer, we have some techies here who know much more than me in that area.
Other than the bitrate all was perfect. If that had been ok, you would have passed the test even with the background noise. I only did a round of noise-cleaning in Audacity, to show you the difference. But it would have been acceptable even without that.
So that said: could you try changing your bitrate settings, and uploading your initial recording (not mine, which was already enhanced). I only want to check whether you managed to change the bitrate and then you'll get your OK on your one-minute test and can start recording for real. Don't worry about your noise...it's really not as bad as you think.
Sonia
https://librivox.org/uploads/tests/1_minute_test_liana.mp3
there you go, the original file with 128 kbps.
thank you so much for the help Sonia
there you go, the original file with 128 kbps.
thank you so much for the help Sonia
great !!!!! you know your program, what a relief. This helps a lot to speed up matters. 
Well, you tech specs are fine now. You are ready to roll ! I'll mark this test OK.
So are you a bit more comfortable with the new level of noise, after I cleaned ? Then you need to check in your program whether you also have this noise-cleaning function.
If all else fails, Audacity can be downloaded for free, it's super easy, many of us use it.
As a suggestion, maybe start out with a small section, a poem or something, to learn the ropes a bit. Always better to get a bit of training in with a small section than with a 1 hour-chapter. If you mess up anything on the first trial, at least you will only have spent some 5 minutes on it all. But it's really up to you what you want to do next.
Good luck and have fun here !
Sonia
Well, you tech specs are fine now. You are ready to roll ! I'll mark this test OK.
So are you a bit more comfortable with the new level of noise, after I cleaned ? Then you need to check in your program whether you also have this noise-cleaning function.
If all else fails, Audacity can be downloaded for free, it's super easy, many of us use it.
As a suggestion, maybe start out with a small section, a poem or something, to learn the ropes a bit. Always better to get a bit of training in with a small section than with a 1 hour-chapter. If you mess up anything on the first trial, at least you will only have spent some 5 minutes on it all.
But it's really up to you what you want to do next.Good luck and have fun here !
Sonia
FWIW, I edit in Adobe Soundbooth, but use Audacity solely for noisecleaning. Sb does have a cleaning feature, but it left nasty sound artifacts behind. (I actually record in a third program, and use a fourth to check settings, so ... it's fine if you can use the same tool for everything, but also fine if you use different ones depending on what features you need.)
P.S. I agree with everything Sonia said. I was expecting a motorway, and heard just a little bit of background hum. No worries, honestly!
P.S. I agree with everything Sonia said. I was expecting a motorway, and heard just a little bit of background hum. No worries, honestly!
There's honestly no such thing as a stupid question -- but I'm afraid I can't rule out giving a stupid answer : : To Posterity and Beyond!