I had the pleasure of speaking with Terry Greene on his Gettin' Air podcast that will be airing... heh... get it?... soon and he is fond of referring to the "smooth, buttery" quality of my voice. I've elsewhere heard it described a "smooth bourbon before bed." I think it's nonsense and hate hearing my own voice as much as the next person probably hates hearing theirs, but, sure, I thought, let's run with it. So on today's episode I want to share with you my... process, my gear, my environment, and let you know how you, too, can achieve the same for not a whole lot of money.

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So, I've been doing this little podcasty thing for a while now and it absolutely did not start off sounding like this. You can just listen to the intro bumper (is that the right word?) to hear the change in quality because I recorded that on the same day I recorded my very first epiode. So, here, I'll play you a little clip from it.


(Clip from episode 0.)

Big difference, huh? Now, part of that is just ... confidence, I guess? Feeling comfortable speaking into a microphone in a studio-ish setting (as opposed to being in synchronous live meetings like class or webinars). It's a different kind of experience and a different skill set, really. I know people that are absolutely terrified of public speaking, as it were, but have no problem narrating into a microphone. Both, again, are skills that take time to hone for most people, but it can be done.

When I recorded that clip I played for you, I was using a Blue Yeti mic, plugged straight into the USB port in my computer, in a completely untreated room and, as you can tell (and I'm somewhat embarrassed about, now that I really listen to it again) I processed the snot out of it. It just doesn't sound natural or quote-unquote "buttery" and I plan on re-recording that probably over the summer. Maybe changing up the intro music and whatnot, too. We'll see. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. The point is that when I did that, I didn't really have any idea what I was doing. I had some idea from watching Youtube videos and, as I was using Adobe Audition, having experience with the Adobe suite, so the learning curve wasn't THAT steep, but still. It's just not very good, especially when bookened by what I'm recording now.

And before I get into the hardware demonstration portion of the episode, I just wanted to really put that out there and make it plain: if you want to start down a road like this one, it doesn't really matter what you're driving or how fast you're going when you start. What matters is that you actually go. You can always upgrade later, keeping in mind that in the world of podcasting or home voiceover (which you may end up dabbling with) there is less "overkill" and more "you can grow into it." Microphones, for example: I'm glad I started with a Blue Yeti because it gave me time to learn what's flattering for my own voice and what I wanted to do with the next "step up," even though I did definitely outgrow the micrphone pretty quickly, though that has more to do with the hardware of the microphone and its limitations based on me wanting to expand my setup rather than it does the actual specs of the mic.

So, I'm going to share with you the completely unprocessed, raw recording from a few different mics that I have, all used in the same exact partly treated environment. (I moved the computer into the closet and put up one homemade acoustic panel, which I'll share plans for in the shownotes -- if you have a circular saw you can bust one of these out in no time). Since I can't record everything at once because of hardware limitations, I AM going to have to do this in several takes, as opposed to the kind of on-the-fly switcheroo done by Mike Delgadio over at Booth Junkie. I will, however, do the same kind of tests that you would hear on, say, Podcastage, so some proximity and distance stuff.

Microphones I will be testing for you (remember, just straight recordings, no treatment at all) are: the built-in microphone on my Dell XPS laptop, an Audiotechnica mic plugged in via USB, the Blue Yeti also plugged in via USB, and my Rode NT-1 plugged in via USB through nothing but a 48-volt phantom power supply (I'll explain this part in a bit, just be assured that it's necessary). Everything recorded with the same wave file settings (which I'll put in the show notes) and at the same microphone level within Windows 10.

(Recordings go here. They include: me naming the microphone, me getting right up on it, at 1 foot away, then at 3 feet away. Then a proximity test and a volume test (yelling then whispering).)

Okay. That's all the USB options we have. Remember when I said I'd explain the phantom power thing? Well, the NT-1 mic is a condenser microphone. Because of that, unlike USB-powered mics, it needs what's called "phantom power" at 48 volts. Condenser microphones are, generally speaking (or maybe always, I can't say for certain) more sensitive because of this and various other reasons. Point being, you can't just plug a condenser microphone into your computer and go. There always needs to be an intermediate step. This could be a simple power supply like I was using just now, or a dedicated external sound card (often called a DAW or Digital Audio Workstation), a mixer that includes phantom power, or, like I now use, a dedicated preamplifier for this. 

Speaking of which, let's move on to the other hardware that's now in the mix. I'm going to turn them on one-by-one so you can heard the difference it makes.

First, untreated through the preamplifier. This is a Behringer Ultragain Pro and right now it's just basically providing juice and sending the signal out to the mixer. There's no eq being done on the mixer, no compression, no nothing except passing the signal on to the computer (I'm skipping using a Zoom recorder for this step just to keep everything directed through uSB for consistency; normally I would skip the computer entirely and go straight to a dedicated audio recorder). There's some other stuff I do with it normally that I won't go into here.

Now, I'll turn on the equilizer. This is a dedicatd DBX 32-band equilizer and not the one on the mixer board, which is just three-band and doesn't provide the same kind of control. I use this to mainly remove some of the room noise and as a bit of a de-esser, which goes toward removing the S-sound in the voice.

Okay, now that we've got the audio the way we want to hear it, I'll turn the Behringer compressor/limiter/gate on. What does this do? Okay, I'll try to explain it but compression is a bit hard to wrap your head around at first, so let's start with the limiter/gate. The gate pretty much does what it sounds like: through the controls, you tell the gate at what volume level the sound should basically be muted. That way, when you're speaking, you get recorded but... when you're not and there's just maybe noise room or a truck driving by, the recording is muted. Loud = gate open, quiet = gate closed. Simple as that. Limiting prevents spikes in the volume that can cause your audio to "clip" or be so loud you lose signal data that can't be recovered. The compressor... well, it's basically a ratio of volume reduction. I'll try to explain.

Let's say you have a pretty large range in your vocal volume. You tend to speak quietly and then get really loud. Problem is: for the quiet parts to be recorded properly, the loud parts end up clipping. The compressor helps stop this from happening. Basically, you can say, for every X number of decibels over a certain volume level I go, I want to turn the volume down. How much you turn it down depends on what ratio you choose. So, for the sake of understanding the math, let's say you set the threshhold (the point at which the compressor turns on) at 0db and your ratio at 2:1. If your volume goes up to 20db, the compressor kicks in and brings it down to just 10db. See? For every 2 decibels the volume goes up, the compressor allows only for 1 decibel of increase. How about if you go up to 24db and have a ratio of 4:1? Yup, for every 4 the volume increases, the compressor allows for only 1, so while you're actually producing 24db of volume, the amount of increase passed through the compressor is only 6db. Four to one. That's a pretty standard compression level for vocals but you're encouraged to play around with this for your own voice and environment. Why would we do this? Well, again, it allows for you to still sound like your voice has that great dynamic range, as they call it, without clipping and losing signal. This is especially good for quiet speakers, so you can crank the gain (the mic sensitivity) and then, when they laugh or do get loud, you don't blow your signal out.

Now. All this gets fed into the mixer which then passes it on to the computer or recording device. Simple as that. I do some simple clean-up in post, like removing noise and doing some loudness matching between tracks, like if I have a guest on and they're just recorded quieter than I am, but other than that I do everything in the hardware.

The main pro for doing this? It's instant. I can change things on the fly. Also, when I'm teaching or in a meeting, I can get the same benefits in that setting as I do in this one. The cons? Well, it's destructive. By that I mean that when the signal finally makes it to the computer or the recorder, it's been permanently changed. There's no going back. A pure signal going into the computer or recorder that's edited with all these effects in post can be recovered if a mistake is made in the processing. So, that's a concern, sure. Another con is that all these bits of hardware do take up space and they cost money. You can usually find used rack equipment like what I use at media exchanges and instrument shops or even online. They are perfectly servicable used. All my rack equipment is, after all, except the mixer.

I know this all sounds like a lot and it kind of is if you just try to jump into everything all at once. But if you grow slowly, identify your needs as they come up, and make smart decisions at the beginning (like making purchases that give you room to grow), you'll do just fine. I should mention that this setup is also appropriate for a home studio for musicians and singers, not just someone who talks at people for a living.

Of course, your environment is also a large factor in what kind of quality you'll get even if you have top-notch equipment. Moving your computer and its noisy fan out of the way is helpful, turning off your ceiling fan, closing windows and doors, picking a not-noisy time of the day to record in, all these things make it much easier for you in the long run. Other than that, it's just mic technique and experience.