Hey Guys! 

I could really use some advice! 

As many of you are already aware or have picked up on, we have been working on a film series of the Gospel books. 

Our entire voice cast have just been volunteers who want to help bring this to life. 

This means going out to their homes with the mic set to record in almost every case, as to not too much inconvenience anyone. 

(Too much inconvenience, and we may not have much of a voice cast at all.)

We always shoot for recording in the smallest room possible. 

But of course, sometimes the only rooms they have for us to record in are bigger more open rooms in their house. 

And even with prop up surfaces we bring to their homes, not every set-up gets each cast member comfortably to the exact narrow and close distance to the mic. 

In these things is where not having the money to rent a studio or compensate the cast for their time and gas is really catching up to us. 

In one case with a cast member, it was both in a bigger open room and with him speaking about an inch too far from the microphone as his physical comfort point. 

He is an older man, and we were not going to ask more of him than he was able to comfortably do. 

He ROCKED the part.  And I mean this senior citizen ROCKED it!!  He was amazing!!!! 

So far, I have been doing all of the audio editing on Audacity - and my husband is about to take a shot at it. 

I have not been able to get the difference in this recording set to budge on not sounding distant or like he is speaking from a tunnel or an echo-ey room. 

(Umm... Is echo-ey a word?  Well, it is for now. :-D )

I think it is more so about the inch or so of extra distance from the mic than anything else, but not sure. 

Any advice from any of you guys on here who are experienced with audio would be very greatly appreciated!! 

Thanks! 

~ Kimmie

www.TrackingJESUS.net 

--> More Information On This Bible Film Production Can Be Found At: 
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If it's a 'reverb' problem, then maybe something like this:
https://riddlermike.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/deverb-for-free-removing-reverb-using-free-plugins/

I don't use audacity, so I'm thinking you *may* need an audio app that accepts the above (ie: that can utilize an OFX plugin)
The above plugin is free. There are also free audio Digital Audio Workstations available.

Another method is to use 'gating' in Audacity to 'chop off' the tail end if reverb or echo, but results nay not be great that way.

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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

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Since you seem to record in various locations maybe using a portable sound booth would help.
HERE is one example that could help.
HERE is info on them and useful ones.

Jeff



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Couple things you should try in your audio editor. First you should use the "normalize" effect to get a better audio level. Then use a "compressor" effect to make it more punchy.

You guys are all awesome! 

We are going to look at all of these this evening. 

Thank you guys so much!!! 

~ Kimmie

www.TrackingJESUS.net 

--> More Information On This Bible Film Production Can Be Found At: 
www.TrackingJESUS.net/Productions 

--> Become An Early Subscriber To The 'Tracking JESUS' YouTube Channel At: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEMx91AySc3QuF-SS_3mGQQ

one of the easiest ways to address sound / mic reflection issues is to use a quilt to stop environmental audio.

I once made a makeshift vocal booth with just quilts on the walls to control the reflections,  sounded great ....but simply recording with a quilt or thick blanket over your head achieves the same results.  It minimizes the reflections and exterior sounds in the room.

after that is about post production,  compression ,  eq's and denoisers. Also,  try to have a reference vocal you can aim to match your recorded vocals too, trying to make each track sound it's best will only get you so far ,  you want all the tracks to sound relative to each other to give the illusion they are in the same environment.

good luck with your project. :)

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You can also make or buy a soft box for recording.  I made one for around $20 (about $10 for the foam sound insulation, which gave me enough for two or three boxes, and then bought a pack of four folding clothes boxes for about $10) but, honestly, for you I think I'd just buy this:

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Isolation-Recording-Shield-Box/dp/B0117DB5TI/ref=asc_df_B0117DB5TI/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312154365034&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1063658963328998547&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1015094&hvtargid=pla-599171649324&psc=1

So you don't have to worry about it.  (If you want to spend a *bit* more money, this is closer to what I ended up with:)

https://www.amazon.com/TroyStudio-Portable-Sound-Recording-Vocal/dp/B07H6VJHX2/ref=psdc_11975721_t1_B0117DB5TI

OR, if you are feeling handy, here's what I used to make my own (except I see now the bins are out of stock - you might be able to find something similar looking around):

https://www.amazon.com/Polyurethane-Charcoal-Convoluted-Foam-Packing/dp/B01G61TJCG/ref=psdc_11975721_t3_B0117DB5TI

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LRDTSW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(You want something 14" all the way around, and the foam fits easily inside).

No matter what you do, you'll end up with an extremely lightweight "sound booth" that's perfect for putting a quality mic (something like the Yeti) inside and recording ANYWHERE.  The sound will be wonderful no matter how noisy the environment is.

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Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Sorry, I misread your original post, thinking you had to fix already recorded audio.
As mentioned by all the other great posts here, you can't beat recording optimally in the first place.
Hard surfaces (walls, ceilings, floor) reflect audio, hence the 'quilt' and 'blanket' approach to prevent the rebounding sound waves.
And the portable booths are a really great help if you don't have an insulated sound room. (I've been looking to pick up one myself).
De-verb (and similar approaches) are a last resort, more for 'salvaging' audio takes that simply can't be redone.



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Please be patient with me ..... I don't always 'get it' the first time 'round - not even the 2nd time! :(  - yikes! ... 

● MSI GT72VR Laptop, i7 7700HQ 4-Core 3.8 GHz 16GB RAM; Nvidia 1070, 8GB Vram ● iClone-7.93 ● 3DXChange Pipeline 7.81 ● CC-3 Pipeline 3.44 ● Live Face ● HeadShot ● Brekel Pro-Body ● Popcorn FX ● iRAY ● Kinect V2 ● DaVinci Resolve17 ● Mixcraft 8.1

Sonic7: You did not misread my original post. :-)  You read it quite correctly. 

Yes, we are trying to fix already recorded audio.  But the sound booth suggestions here are to prevent future fixes. 

~ Kimmie 

www.TrackingJESUS.net 

--> More Information On This Bible Film Production Can Be Found At: 
www.TrackingJESUS.net/Productions 

--> Become An Early Subscriber To The 'Tracking JESUS' YouTube Channel At: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEMx91AySc3QuF-SS_3mGQQ

KelleyToons, JLittle, and PlanetStarDragon: 

Thank you for the very helpful suggestions for recording future audio! :-)  

~ Kimmie

www.TrackingJESUS.net 

--> More Information On This Bible Film Production Can Be Found At: 
www.TrackingJESUS.net/Productions 

--> Become An Early Subscriber To The 'Tracking JESUS' YouTube Channel At: 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEMx91AySc3QuF-SS_3mGQQ