Self-Introduction Recording
Self-Introduction Recording
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I recorded my voice using a condenser microphone connected to a soundboard. The soundboard featured a mixing station, a built-in noise reducer and vocal presets that altered pitch and depth.
The live noise reduction system was the most valuable part of the audio interface. Although my room is fairly open, it contains a lot of appliances and furniture for sound to bounce of off; the left side of the room also has a thin glass wall that allows sound from the outside to enter. The denoise function was able to limit a large portion of the echo and disturbance.
To further minimize the issue, I kept my recording time from 10 PM to 12 AM to ensure that most of the people in our neighborhood were asleep. At the same time, I positioned the mic as close to my mouth as possible, speaking at a low volume to avoid both echoing and peaking; as well as slightly away from the microphone to avoid pops and pronunciation artifacts.
The on-board mixing station also proved to be quite useful; it has 3 modifiable tones, treble, mid-range and bass. For this recording, I raised the bass by a couple levels, similarly increased the mid-range but by a smaller degree, and decreased the treble slightly. I've found that this configuration gives my voice a much fuller sound.
This mixing is mainly based of experimentation and my experience hosting live events, and as a result, I feel they are not ideal and definitely can be significantly improved. Aside from that,
Sound of a Pencil Writing on Paper
Sound of a Pencil Writing on Paper
Recording non-voices with the condenser mic and the soundcard was a challenge. The device was specifically tuned for human voices; and this same idea applies to the noise reducer, immediately tuning out any low-volume and repeating sounds.
To compensate, I turned off the denoise effect, but as a result, some light static can be heard in the background. In hindsight, I could have possibly prevented this issue by covering myself, the mic, and the pen and paper with a thick blanket while recording.
That decision may have allowed the sound to be picked up, but it didn't change the fact the sound was still low volume. Initially, I did record an actual pen, but it was way too quiet. I tried pressing it down on paper, making long strokes and writing on thicker paper, the sound was still incredibly quiet.
I gave up, and thought about redoing the introduction to change the sound I would need to record. After failing to recreate the quality of the take I submitted, I revisited the idea of the sound of pen on paper. I shifted my attention from recording a pen, and instead recording what a pen sounds like.
I attempted using other various writing utensils: a marker, a bigger pen, a highlighter, and a pencil. Eventually, I landed on an old stiff colored pencil that could no longer write on paper. It scratched the paper at the right angle creating the tonality most similar to a pen, but at a much louder volume.
However, although louder, the sound was still too faint. I used the mixing station to bump up the volume of all three settings, increasing the overall volume of the input. At first, I tried raising only the lows, thinking that I would capture the most amount of "writing" sounds while avoiding the noise. Unfortunately, this made it sound more like chalk instead of a pen or a pencil, and a lot of noise was still audible. I ended up raising all three knobs to different levels to minimize the amount of noise.
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