On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 15:44 +0200, Julien Claassen wrote: I'm far from an expert on this. Anyway, here goes... If you feel like spending a little money, SE Electronics makes a thing which goes around the back of the mic and apparently absorbs some of the reflected sound. http://www.seelectronics.com/rf.html If you don't want to spend money, I'd face towards the windows (open if possible), not at the center of the room, but not too near the walls. Definitely not in the corners. With voice you shouldn't have too much of a problem with bass, but if you're finding the recording is very boomy, you could try moving the mic position around. The wooden ceiling and the carpet will probably absorb a fair amount of the reflections. The other thing you can do is pack bookcases with random spaced and different sized gaps, to diffuse reflections, same for furniture and suchlike. Asymmetrical rooms produce less unpleasant reverb than symmetrical rooms. A soft couch in there can't hurt. I've heard that the draped sleeping bag / duvet trick does work to some extent, never tried it myself though. Hang them away from the walls - they do a better job of absorbing longer wavelength (bass) frequencies that way. But you also need to be careful that you don't end up with lots of high frequency attenuation and too much mid to low frequency in the recording. bye John

Julien Claassen wrote: Is room noise/echo really a problem? Or is it house/street noise? I would put the mike near the center of the room (about 60:40 off center) and get as close to the mike as possible. Use the windscreen on the mike and put a nylon stocking in a loop frame (or buy a pop guard) and place it 1cm (or closer) from the mike. When you record keep your nose and/or lips on the pop screen. Why? Because sound energy dissipates in a 1/(r^2) ratio, If your room is 4m then the ratio between the direct sound (at 1cm) and the reflected sound will be at most 1/160000. With imperfect reflections and your head blocking the reflected sound path the ratio is greater. Add some compression to level spoken output and you might find the recording is so dry you will want to add some reverb. To get back some of the live room sound put more distance between the pop guard and the mike. Getting close to the mike can also help with overcoming house and street noise but not as much, then you will have to use the isolation techniques others have suggested. -- Jeff -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Best-recording-practise-tf4593231.html#a13147985 Sent from the linux-audio-user mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Hi John! I want to record voice only. It's mostly spoken word and sometimes a bit of singing. But not in one, those are seperate tasks. Btw. my microphone is a simple middle-class live-mic. Kindest regards Julien -------- Music was my first love and it will be my last (John Miles) ======== FIND MY WEB-PROJECT AT: ======== http://ltsb.sourceforge.net the Linux TextBased Studio guide ======= AND MY PERSONAL PAGES AT: ======= http://www.juliencoder.de