Microphone Settings for Narration

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Thoman

[Note: I tried to reply to the post by Billy C on 7/8/04,
4:39pm pst, but it
does not look like it showed up as a recent question, thus I
am
creating this as a new question]

I found the information from Bill Dilworth to be quite useful.

As a follow-question, once I have my microphone, what settings am I supposed
to use? And how do I determine this?

Between the Control Panel and 2007 PowerPoint Narration options, there are
mono/stereo, 1/2 channels, bits, Hz, kb/sec, PCM. What does all this mean?
And where/how do I set the volume - based on what I can hear through the
speakers? At max volume? Min? Something else?

And finally, on my machine with Vista, "set Microphone settings" opens; but
on my XP machine, it gives and error message. Is this important? Is one
operating system going to give better results?

I want to make a high quality narration, but I don't want to hire/become an
audio engineer to do this.

Thanks for any advice you can provide to alleviate my confusion.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Steven Rindsberg was kind enough to answer my question as part of the
original post (7/8/04), so this post is now obsolete.
Thanks again Steve!

Thoman said:
[Note: I tried to reply to the post by Billy C on 7/8/04,
4:39pm pst, but it
does not look like it showed up as a recent question, thus I
am
creating this as a new question]

I found the information from Bill Dilworth to be quite useful.

As a follow-question, once I have my microphone, what settings am I supposed
to use? And how do I determine this?

Between the Control Panel and 2007 PowerPoint Narration options, there are
mono/stereo, 1/2 channels, bits, Hz, kb/sec, PCM. What does all this mean?
And where/how do I set the volume - based on what I can hear through the
speakers? At max volume? Min? Something else?

And finally, on my machine with Vista, "set Microphone settings" opens; but
on my XP machine, it gives and error message. Is this important? Is one
operating system going to give better results?

I want to make a high quality narration, but I don't want to hire/become an
audio engineer to do this.

Thanks for any advice you can provide to alleviate my confusion.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Dilworth said:
I've always found this to be more a function of the microphone and set-up
then of the sound card. Sure you can de-noise a narration post recording,
but using a quality microphone with a limited pick-up pattern into a
standard sound card will give a much improved initial recording.

The microphones that are included as part of most computer packages are
omni-directional, meaning they will pick-up the noise from the refrigerator
compressor as easily as the narrator's speaking. They also have a more
restricted frequency range and a poor distribution over that range (they
favor the higher frequency ranges rather than an even distribution). A
quality microphone (from a real sound system, not a computer system) will
usually do a much better job of picking up the sound you want it to and
record it truer to what it really sounded like.

Another problem I've run into is narrators that do not use their speaking
voice when recording. They talk quietly, quickly, and mumble. It's better
to be standing rather than sitting. It's better to imaging speaking to a
room of people, rather then the monitor 2 feet in front of you. Don't rush,
remember you know the material already, they are just hearing it for the
first time.

Not everyone has a sound room in their basement, but you can reduce the
amount of background noise significantly by recording nothing. Leave the
microphone on and record for a minute or two. Play back the recording at an
elevated volume and see what you hear. If the furnace or air conditioner
kicked on, maybe you can turn those off while recording. If you hear
traffic from the street, consider recording in a different location or at a
time when traffic is not as heavy. If you get a lot of echo from the room
you are in, than consider temporarily hanging a blanket or curtain against
any large flat surface or windows. The foam packing does a good job of
soaking up stray noise, as does pink Owens Corning fiberglass insulation,
but you may not want to get that involved.

Microphone technique also plays a role in quality sound recordings. Don't
spit P's and T's into the mic, instead you may want to talk slightly over
the mic to prevent the popping this causes. Vary the distance from the mic
in accordance with your speaking volume in order to maintain an even sound
output. Sure this can also be done post-recording, but boosting your voice
will also boost any stray background noises.

Just a couple of thoughts,

Bill D.
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