#ALSO I can't use them with my audio interface when I'm recording

[accidentalmistress]

I've been working on this for a long time, and I still didn't go over everything I want to go over, so this is going to end up being a multi part series on how I make my wavs, as well as a bit of general audio engineering.

Reed Behind the Scenes Part One:

Microphones and Recording Environment

A couple of notes before we begin:

For this series I'm going to focus on audio recordings, not video recordings, as they are very different mediums with different requirements. I am by no means an expert, I just have a little more experience with audio production than the average person.

All of my equipment is in the Android/Microsoft ecosystem, and as such I do not have much experience with Apple products. I apologize in advance if anything I discuss does not work within the Apple ecosystem.

Let's talk about microphones. You can't make a recording without one, whether it's the one in your phone or a standalone mic. I use the latter, but some phones have decent mics. Since we just mentioned Apple products, I will say that I have heard that the microphones in iPhones are pretty good these days. When I record on my phone, I prefer to use a dedicated recording app, because it allows me to record directly to an mp3 or wav file that I can then export to my computer for editing, as opposed to recording a video and trying to rip the audio later. I use an app called Voice Record Pro, but there are plenty of voice recording apps out there.

For my best quality work, I use my microphone. You don't need a super fancy mic to make good recordings, but the kind of mic you get is important. There are many different kinds of mics at many different price points, but they generally fall into two categories: USB and XLR. USB microphones can plug directly into your computer, whereas XLR mics need to pass through an interface first. For the vast, vast majority of people looking to get a mic for making fetish content, I am going to recommend getting a USB mic, and the main reason is cost.

For XLR mics, you need two pieces of equipment: the mic itself and an audio interface to run it through to a computer. Not to mention XLR cables, a stand, and a mount. Even if you get a relatively inexpensive XLR mic, after you get all of the other equipment and accessories you need, you may as well have splurged on a decent USB mic.

I only recommend investing in a good XLR if you want to pursue a professional audio career of some kind, and even then I'd wait to sink serious money into it until after you've gotten your feet wet and know that it's really what you want to do. These can be very difficult industries to break into. I do professional voice work, so for my setup I have a Neumann TLM 103, Focusrite Scarlett Solo audio interface, and a Surface Go tablet for recording. More on that in a bit.

In both USB and XLR there are generally three types of microphone: condenser (which is also sometimes called capacitor), dynamic, and ribbon. I'm not going to get into ribbon mics, because you don't need one just for snz content, and I'm not well-versed in them anyway. Most of the mics you will encounter when shopping for one online will be either condenser or dynamic.

Condenser mics are more sensitive than dynamic mics, so they're generally clearer and better suited for voice work. I'm using the word “generally” a lot here, because there's such a wide range of mics, and you may very well find a dynamic mic that works better for your voice and your space than a condenser mic. Unfortunately, the only way to really know for sure is to get one, try it out, and return it if it doesn't fit your needs.

There's this idea that dynamic mics are better for untreated spaces, because they're less sensitive and will therefore pick up less background noise. That's not exactly true. Dynamic mics do pick up fewer audio frequencies than condenser mics, so if you have some background noise that's outside of your mic’s frequency range, then that may not get picked up. Your average background noises, though—loud neighbors, motorcycles and trucks driving by, your cat meowing, the hum from your PC fan—those sounds will still get picked up. The best thing to do is to sound treat your space, but we'll get to that later.

I'll post a few recommendations, but I haven't used any of these mics for myself, so these are recommendations from the voice acting community at large as good budget mics. Any prices are USD, and unfortunately I don't know the global availability of these mics.

USB Mic Recommendations:

Blue Yeti USB

AudioTechnica AT2020 USB (Note that there is also an XLR version.)

Both can be purchased under $100 pre-owned. Both retail for around $130 new. If you're in the US, the nice thing about the Blue Yeti is that you can walk into just about any Best Buy and pick up a brand new one on the spot.

XLR Mic Recommendations:

RØDE NT1 5th Gen

AudioTechnica AT2020 XLR (As mentioned above.)

The AT, at about $100 new, costs less than half as much as the RØDE at $250. If you're set on an XLR but shopping on a budget, that may be the mic for you. The RØDE, on the other hand, is a great introductory mic for professional voice work. For these mics you'll need an audio interface, also called a preamp. A solid one for the budget-conscious, and what I use, is the Focusrite Scarlett Solo, which will set you back about $100 new.

The microphone I use, a Neumann TLM 103, retails for about $1,200 new. You can sometimes find them under $600 pre-owned. They're pretty much the gold standard in the animation industry for how well they can handle loud sounds, like yelling and screaming, without clipping. I invested in one several years ago when my husband got a nice bonus from work, for which I am eternally grateful. Do not go this far unless you are serious about voice work.

Now that you've learned far more about microphones than you ever wanted, let's talk about sound treatment for your recording space. Whether you're using a dedicated mic or your phone, sound treatment will always elevate the quality of your recordings. Even the highest quality mic in an untreated space will sound worse than an average quality mic in a well-treated space.

What is sound treatment? Sound treatment is taking steps to reduce and eliminate the amount of background noise and reverb from the space you are recording in. Have you ever noticed a slightly echoey quality to your voice in recordings? Like you can "hear the room"? That's reverb. When you speak, the sound waves go from your mouth to the microphone , but they also go out into the room and reflect off of the walls before coming back and hitting the microphone again, creating that slight echo. You'll need a sound treated space to prevent that from happening.

One fairly easy and inexpensive way to do this is to utilize thick moving blankets. You can try tacking them up in a closet or hanging them from a booth frame. I currently use a recording booth made from a PVC pipe frame with a double layer of moving blankets hung around it and draped overtop. (Here’s a link to a video tutorial on how to build your own). Another method is to use sound dampening panels hung on the walls of your recording space. A lot of folks use those textured foam tiles. Just be careful with those because if you get really cheap ones the foam can be poor quality that doesn't dampen sound very well. (The Foam Factory sells great acoustic foam, but the cost can add up quickly depending on the size of your space.)

I've also seen booths that are made by lining the walls of a closet with carpeting, so if you happen to have some carpet remnants that might work for you. I’m upgrading my own recording space by converting a closet into a recording booth. I'm building sound panels made from wooden frames filled with sound dampening insulation that I’ll hang on the walls. (Here's a link to that tutorial as well, but that option costs a few hundred dollars in supplies.) If nothing else, a closet filled with hanging clothes can do in a pinch to dampen background noise.

Let's talk a little bit about computers while we're on the topic of background noise. Remember way back when I mentioned my Surface Go tablet? Now remember when I talked about how mics can pick up PC fans? The Surface Go is how I get around the problem of PC fan background noise. The Surface Go doesn't have a fan, so it doesn't make any noise. I can bring it into the booth with me, hook my interface up to it, and use it to run my recording software. I'll then transfer the file to my main PC for editing. If you can do so with your space, you could potentially get cables that are long enough to leave your PC tower outside of the recording space so you can't hear the fan. Definitely cheaper than buying a tablet just for recording.

For editing, I use Audacity, which is a free digital audio workstation, or DAW. Another popular DAW is Reaper, which is "free" in that they don't limit the trial version, so you don't need to pay to use the full version (although they'd really like you to buy a license). I'm not going to go too far into depth on software and editing here, since I plan to do a Part Two on how I edit my recordings. Besides, this post has gotten long enough, and this seems as good a place as any to end it. I'm always open to questions on this kind of thing. Like I said, I'm not an expert, but I'll answer what I can, and if I don't know the answer I'll do my best to find the information for you. Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you've learned something that's helpful or at least interesting to you in some way 😊

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary18

9/22-23/2023

listening to brainiac before bed.

i did 5 songs today but only 4 are like things i redid, i got a new short song down, exciting. have to wait a bit before i can listen to it and think about lyrics for it i think, it's fresh and i'll want to mess with the guitars too much i think.

i just spaced out listening to the guitars in 'this little piggy' i'm so fucked right now. thankfully the process of fixing everything will be over soon, hopefully, probably, and hopefully i'll fall in love with everything.

i should think about reverb a little, if the record needs it or not. i really avoid it cuz it feels cheap, not like it sounds bad, i mean i feel cheap using it cuz it used to be such a crutch for me i feel like, when i was making jungle and stuff.

thinking about cheapness, and jungle i guess, apparently people spend huge amounts of money getting synths to make "ps1 jungle" now, i didn't ever consider that. it's massively fucked up, all the music i've made i've never spent a dime on, making everything i've done super cheap, which i think is sort of cool. it's fucked up to me how people will spend huge amounts of money on equipment without ever really putting anything out with it. i just don't understand having really nice things and not really doing anything outside of putzing around with them. it's not like it would become okay if they did make anything though i guess, if someone spends 2000 dollars on a synth to imitate a sound that came from a sample pack that a japanese dude used to put a song together in a day, they are wasting their time. it's also fucked up because, at the time at least, in 2019 when i was making this stuff, it felt basically liberating to make that stuff because it let you be cheap, now it's gotten super particularized. i can't really touch breaks anymore, not because of these people who i never considered until today, but more because so much mediocre breakcore is being put out, and so many people love sewerslvt, it makes me feel dire, and i decided to just give up i guess.

i went looking for old mp3s of my jungle stuff so i might put it here or something and instead i found a bunch of other old stuff. reminded me of how much i miss having access to my cousin's audio interface for recording bass and guitar.

here's some stuff from when i was trying to do guided by voices in 2021.

these kinds of songs are so fun to make. i'd like to do it again some day. it's easy to hear how bad i am at guitar, but i really did love playing at that time. i still do, i just can't record it, i just get tabs/ ideas out and transpose them to midi, so i'm basically playing fucked up hardcore only right now. or not that fucked up. i love octave chords, and then sliding up a note so it's two notes right beside eachother. i think that's such a pretty sound.

anyways. the current state of jungle makes me sad. guitar music has always only ever made me happy, even when i was sad.

what does it mean, what does it mean.

well it's not entirely true anyways. some guitar music blows and it pisses me off like all the sewerslvt adherents. some electronic music has only ever made me happy. i love everything at the end of the day and it makes me sick i guess.

it's 6 am! i spent all this time reminiscing about my old music, but i have new music, i have to keep its heart alive too. i want to keep every heart i ever found alive. i'm an awful doctor!!

okay anyways #byebye!!