E-Learning Challenge #45: Challenge | Recap
If you’re like many course designers, you’ve probably had to record some audio for your e-learning courses. And recording audio is one of the si...
Published 11 years ago
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Hi everyone, great tips! Here's my entry.
My equipment: M-Audio Fast Track USB audio interface, M-Audio Nova condensator microphone, shock mount on a modified lamp stand, pop filter and Sennheiser monitoring headphones.
I recently tried a Shure SM35 headset. Good quality, low noise pickup level, but the distance of the mic to your mouth is difficult to control and I don't like wearing the headset with my glasses.
Recording tool: Until now I have recorded directly into Presenter or Storyline, without using a tool like Audicity. I have used the built-in audio editor for cutting out unwanted noises (e.g. breath intake, mouse click at the end of my recording) and to increase volume of the complete track when it is too low. I always dreaded the extra work involved in recording in an additional audio tool (and didn't understand how to apply filters). After reading your tips I will experiment with recording into Audicity, though. Has Articulate considered incorporating some simple editing tools (noise cancelling, normalizing, compressor, EQ) in their Storyline audio editor?
Recording locations:
- I have recorded in my attic with a curtain mounted behind me against the echo. Pretty good result.
- In a storage room at the office (great dampening due to all the books and binders, but later I noticed - with monitoring headphones - that the airco rumbling is really bad, although the average user will not hear it on his PC speakers).
- At my desk in my office area in the weekend. Our office floor is large and open, so there are no echos. I turned the airco off during my recording. Best result so far.
Settings:
- M-Audio interface mic gain at 30% to avoid excessive input and too high noise level (although I have started to wonder recently if my condensator microphone is too sensitive or damaged, because even at relatively low input levels the sinus wave signal in the editor is quite pronounced. Anybody experience with this?)
- Windows Sound card input level at 50-80% and 16bit / 44kHz. I never got completely comfortable what are the ideal settings. I try to avoid a signal in the audio editor which is over 50%. Would love some feedback on this one.
Tips:
1. I had loud " ticks" in my recordings, until an audio engineer told me to cut my audio sinus waves at the zero point.
2. When you publish your course make sure to set the audio bit rate at 64 kbps or more, otherwise the audio quality of your output will suffer noticeably and most of your audio tweeking has been in vain. If you reinstall your Articulate software on another PC (e.g. if your PC got stolen....), realize that you have to change the settings for publishing from their default setting.
3. Occasionally just leave a slip of the tongue in your recording, it will prove you are human and will save you the hassle of redoing a recording that is perfect except one stupid slip!
@Ellen K - Nice setup. I general I wonder how people talk into the mic in their portabooth and at the same time are able to read a script from paper? Do you hold your paper script next to the booth or behind it?
My equipment: M-Audio Fast Track USB audio interface, M-Audio Nova condensator microphone, shock mount on a modified lamp stand, pop filter and Sennheiser monitoring headphones.
I recently tried a Shure SM35 headset. Good quality, low noise pickup level, but the distance of the mic to your mouth is difficult to control and I don't like wearing the headset with my glasses.
Recording tool: Until now I have recorded directly into Presenter or Storyline, without using a tool like Audicity. I have used the built-in audio editor for cutting out unwanted noises (e.g. breath intake, mouse click at the end of my recording) and to increase volume of the complete track when it is too low. I always dreaded the extra work involved in recording in an additional audio tool (and didn't understand how to apply filters). After reading your tips I will experiment with recording into Audicity, though. Has Articulate considered incorporating some simple editing tools (noise cancelling, normalizing, compressor, EQ) in their Storyline audio editor?
Recording locations:
- I have recorded in my attic with a curtain mounted behind me against the echo. Pretty good result.
- In a storage room at the office (great dampening due to all the books and binders, but later I noticed - with monitoring headphones - that the airco rumbling is really bad, although the average user will not hear it on his PC speakers).
- At my desk in my office area in the weekend. Our office floor is large and open, so there are no echos. I turned the airco off during my recording. Best result so far.
Settings:
- M-Audio interface mic gain at 30% to avoid excessive input and too high noise level (although I have started to wonder recently if my condensator microphone is too sensitive or damaged, because even at relatively low input levels the sinus wave signal in the editor is quite pronounced. Anybody experience with this?)
- Windows Sound card input level at 50-80% and 16bit / 44kHz. I never got completely comfortable what are the ideal settings. I try to avoid a signal in the audio editor which is over 50%. Would love some feedback on this one.
Tips:
1. I had loud " ticks" in my recordings, until an audio engineer told me to cut my audio sinus waves at the zero point.
2. When you publish your course make sure to set the audio bit rate at 64 kbps or more, otherwise the audio quality of your output will suffer noticeably and most of your audio tweeking has been in vain. If you reinstall your Articulate software on another PC (e.g. if your PC got stolen....), realize that you have to change the settings for publishing from their default setting.
3. Occasionally just leave a slip of the tongue in your recording, it will prove you are human and will save you the hassle of redoing a recording that is perfect except one stupid slip!
@Ellen K - Nice setup. I general I wonder how people talk into the mic in their portabooth and at the same time are able to read a script from paper? Do you hold your paper script next to the booth or behind it?