What does your recording setup look like?

RosieBaggins · Post by **RosieBaggins** » October 10th, 2013, 11:28 am

Here is mine-http://i1138.photobucket.com/albums/n526/Chickengirloffire/photo_20131010131532.jpg

Problem: House is way way too loud in almost every room.
Solution: Go to my room where I can't hear anyone.

Problem: I don't have a desk in my room for my microphone.
Solution: Borrowed Headset Mic.

Problem: No matter how I adjust my headset I get plosives, you hear my breathing, etc.
Solution: My desktop mic. Sit down on the bed with my laptop and use strategic Pillows to hold desktop mic. Everyone is happy, until mom calls me to go do something and the precarious setup falls apart.

What does your setup look like?

DrewJ · Post by **DrewJ** » October 10th, 2013, 12:34 pm

Half of my face
The mic didn't come like that. I clipped a bit of foam from the packaging of some pears to cover the mic, helps with Plosives.

YouTube · Post by **Darvinia** » October 10th, 2013, 12:55 pm

While it's nice to see how different people record, we do try to keep the forum as image free as possible. This is to be friendly to those who are visually impaired and also to those of us with low-bandwidth usage.

Please upload your pictures to the internet (ge.tt, dropbox, imageshack, to name but a few sites available for free) and then just post the link here for those who wish to see it.

Post by **TriciaG** » October 10th, 2013, 1:00 pm

I have a Samson Q1U mic, which looks like a traditional hand-held microphone. I have it on a traditional microphone stand. The stand is bent over so that the arm is pointed slightly downwards, so the mic reaches forward and down slightly to me on my recliner in the living room. I record with my feet up, like a lady of leisure.

Laptop with the text is in my lap.

DrewJ · Post by **DrewJ** » October 10th, 2013, 1:22 pm

Fixed Darvinia, sorry about that, I didn't check to see if there were any specific rules about images.

TriciaG, quick question, how do you have your desktop set up?
I have a widescreen laptop, so I've got the text on the left, and audacity on the right.
Before that, I had audacity on the bottom, and the text on the top. But I realized I could go further without stopping to page down.

RosieBaggins · Post by **RosieBaggins** » October 10th, 2013, 1:24 pm

Sorry, I didn't know about that. I will fix it.

Post by **TriciaG** » October 10th, 2013, 1:27 pm

My mic is a bit on my left side, so I tend generally to have my text on the right side of my desktop, Audacity on the left, to avoid speaking directly into the mic. Or I keep the text in the middle of the screen with Audacity just peeping out from behind, but I don't recommend this to anyone but really experienced readers - it IS better to see the Audacity window when recording, to catch any problems.

DrewJ · Post by **DrewJ** » October 10th, 2013, 2:03 pm

I have to have audacity usable, when I make a mistake, I just delete the sentence, and start recording again.
Having to pull up audacity all the time slows me down.

Post by **annise** » October 10th, 2013, 2:08 pm

Most people just pause and repeat the sentence/phrase when they make a mistake then edit it out at the end . Some mark it with a tongue click or something to make it easier to find .

Anne

Cori · Post by **Cori** » October 13th, 2013, 7:03 am

Here's the inside of the Marshmallow Palace.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qdq4llkle278c2o/mp1.jpg -- Android tablet, Blue Yeti, pop shield. The paper pegged to the side is a listing of favourite tonguetwisters that I use to warm up with. Acoustic foam from ebay with two sewn-together king-size duvets, and a single duvet for the door.

This does NOT cut out sound from outside, but muffles it a little, as well as giving a nice cosy feel for my own sound.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8obs64rtqsj7de7/mp2.jpg -- The floor below the above shot. Regular mic stand. Stool with sawn-off legs, since I'm perfectly sized (for a hobbit) and want my feet flat on the floor when I record. Also pictured: the Ginger Whinger, who is actually quite good about going for a nap when he hears me start talking to myself.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/40hyivb4dld3c48/mp3.jpg -- The ceiling of the Marshmallow Palace. I browsed Pinterest recently to see what kind of blanket forts and Wendy houses other people were willing to admit to. And genius! lots of them had fairy lights. Previously mine only came out at Winterval, but now they're a permanent installation. The MP itself is two pole-framed camping wardrobes somewhat adapted. So the lights wrap around and up and down perfectly. The lacy stuff is the outside covering of the MP door, in a bid to make it look slightly more palatial and slightly less like a giant marshmallow. The fairy lights work rather better for that.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3vnfc1cdvy5wybm/mp4.jpg -- The corner to the right of the mic. The three non-mic corners look like this ... I didn't want to be staring at direct lights while I read, though, hence the plainer fourth corner.

I record to a laptop which sits just outside the Palace. I don't spike my sound all that often (and if I'm recording a shout or similar, I'll tend to do 3-4 takes at different distances from the mic, so I know I'll get one that's okay.) I also compress my recording (just a little!) so it evens out the levels overall. As Anne says, I pause and repeat, rather than stopping and starting. Known as the 'punch and roll' technique, I have done it in the past, but I found that it greatly extended the amount of time I spent in the recording booth, since I was effectively doing the first pass of the editing there. I prefer to edit in a more comfortable environment, even though it does make that phase take longer.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » October 13th, 2013, 7:52 am

Oh crumbs! What a magnificent construction! I also use a Yeti (with the Blue pop filter attached, which has made an enormous difference to me). However, my well-behaved Yeti simply sits on a book on my desk (to bring it to a suitable height, and to minimise any vibration) and comes to heel whenever called.

I am lucky, I suppose, that my house is generally quiet, and when I bought my computer I specified particularly quiet components.

Ruth

Post by **MaryAnnSpiegel** » October 13th, 2013, 8:35 am

HOLD ON! I Demand a Picture of Tricia, the lady of leisure, recording in her recliner with her feet up!

My set up is here: http://i1275.photobucket.com/albums/y442/mas595/LV/podcast_134_maryann_recording_setup_zps18e67b12.jpg

It can't hold a candle to the marshmallow palace, but it serves as a less elaborate self-made sound enclosure just big enough for me and my well-behaved Yeti.

I read from paper and do not watch the screen (although Audacity is open on my computer). Once I verify that Audacity is picking up the mic, I turn to the microphone and read away, pausing and repeating at any mistakes, until I reach the end of the section. Only once have I turned around to discover that I hit the pause button when the phone rang and somehow forgot to "unpause" when I started reading again. Otherwise, I see no need (and find it distracting) to watch Audacity while I read.

MaryAnn

DrewJ · Post by **DrewJ** » October 13th, 2013, 5:40 pm

...So most people don't stop when they make a mistake and edit it out right then?

And here I thought I was the majority.

My recording room is a storage room above the carport. Turn off the fans and the upstairs AC, and as long as no dogs decide to sing

and I'm good to go.

gypsygirl · Post by **gypsygirl** » October 13th, 2013, 6:13 pm

DrewJ wrote:...So most people don't stop when they make a mistake and edit it out right then?

I do. I have an autohotkey script that I use in audacity to emulate true punch and roll. I don't know if I gave it longer than Cori and got the kinks smoothed out, but I really don't find that it adds more than a couple of extra minutes to my recording session over my previous method (which was to snap my fingers after making a mistake to make a nice, visible spike in the wav form).

My recording place is my closet: monitor on a little folding table; mic and pop filter on a mic stand; wireless keyboard/mouse which sits in my lap as I'm reading; clothes provide muffling from most sides, and I have a couple of peg boards covered in foam tiles to muffle the two bare walls; tower computer sits on covered, unused sink just outside. Editing is done on my laptop (which I replaced, for recording purposes, because it kept glitching mid-recording and losing bits of words/phrases), which, along with the tower is connected to the house wifi so they can share files.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » October 14th, 2013, 12:52 am

...So most people don't stop when they make a mistake and edit it out right then?
And here I thought I was the majority.

I don't. But, to be honest, I will frequently record difficult sentences and phrases half a dozen times and decide during editing which take I like best. I have a very weird and time-consuming recording method, which I do not recommend. I like the end results, but my productivity is terrible.

Ruth