Sound Recording programs?

SSJVegita0609 · Post by **SSJVegita0609** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:58 pm

I have a mic for my laptop, and was wondering if anyone knew any programs I could use to record my voice. I need something that can preferably record in AIFF format (for editting in Final Cut), but anything that can record in Wav or MP3 would be ok as well.

Iamshadowkiller · Post by **Iamshadowkiller** » Sun Oct 16, 2005 3:14 pm

as far as freeware...there's only two off the top of my head...

<a href="http://audacity.sourceforge.net/">Audacity</a> and <a href="http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/">Wav Pad</a>

/end

maciko · Post by **maciko** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 8:17 am

You raise a very interesting point here; you mention that you are using final cut and AIFF. (Obviously a Mac user.) The only problem is that the microphone most people generally use with voice recording is a basic plug-in microphone; USB or basic dynamic microphone, such as the one that may come with your web cam.

I could perhaps advise you on a much simpler way of capturing audio, with a device you may already have.
Today almost all consumer video cameras have a built in microphone, and all of them are a condenser class microphone. Some even stereo.
Condenser microphones have a very good transient and frequency response, they also have excellent signal to noise ratios. So basically you are better off using the microphone in you camera to obtain you results. You will find that it will easy for you to import the audio into final cut by simply using USB or Fire Wire. Naturally you will be able to separate the sound from the vision in final cut, and then discard the vision component.

Some hints when recording voice.
Play around with the distance of the “microphone” from the source of sound “mouth”.
Bringing the microphone closer to you will make the sound more “intimate” or warm.
It will have a distinct lower frequency response. Moving the microphone will “thin out the sound” it will give it more “air”. If you stand further away you will find that you will also capture the reflections of the room you are recording in. This also bring up a point about where you are recording, if you are getting too much “room” sound then I suggest hanging some blankets or towels on any hard surfaces near the camera.

If you still are having problems, go the following, open up a closed where you keep you clothes, place the camera on a tripod inside so that it is facing you and that the clothes are immediately behind it. If your closet has doors hang some towels or blankets on the open doors, thus eliminating the hard surfaces. So in fact you’ve created a padded half-booth, all the towels, blankets and clothes act like an acoustic dampening.

See how you go. I think you’ll be surprised with the result.

SSJVegita0609 · Post by **SSJVegita0609** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:12 pm

I appreciate the advice, but I'm actually recording on a PC, then taking the files over to a mac and using that for editting.

maciko · Post by **maciko** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 6:06 am

PC, MAC, the capture method remains the same, how you extract the audio sould make no diff...