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Topic: Recording really loud voices/sounds

Whenever you yell at your microphone loudly enough, or make any sort of really loud noise, the recording gets this annoying bad quality, kind buzzy sounding.
If you don't know what I mean, just yell at a mic, and play if back, you should hear it.

Now what I'm wanting is to avoid this. Often times in films I have parts where people are screaming extremely powerfully, or laughing like mad.
If I go away from the mic enough, the loud voice echoes awkwardly about the room. The further away I get, the more awkward and strange this echo sounds. By the time I'm far enough away for there to be no buzz, it sounds really pathetic.

Anyone have any ideas?

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Re: Recording really loud voices/sounds

I don't know how good your mic is, but maybe try taking a piece of foam and putting it over it like a windscreen? If its a bad mic it might make it too quiet. That's all I can think of off of the top of my head.

Last edited by Realm of the Unreel (August 16, 2012 (05:07pm))

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Re: Recording really loud voices/sounds

Try yelling not as loud as you want to, but then bumping up the volume slider (you use Audacity, right?).

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  • Joined: July 21, 2012

Re: Recording really loud voices/sounds

But in my opinion yelling isn't so much about the volume but the tone of voice. Yelling makes your voice sound very different, of course, and so I imagine that's ANP's problem. Because or else I imagine he would just raise the volume in post.

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Re: Recording really loud voices/sounds

I use a Blue Snow Ball.

minifig051 wrote:

Try yelling not as loud as you want to, but then bumping up the volume slider (you use Audacity, right?).

Decreasing the volume after you record, or turning down down the intake volume on audacity doesn't help. It still have the odd somewhat buzzy sound, it's quieter, but still there.

But in my opinion yelling isn't so much about the volume but the tone of voice. Yelling makes your voice sound very different, of course, and so I imagine that's ANP's problem. Because or else I imagine he would just raise the volume in post.

Exactly.
Yelling with lots of force sounds a lot different from just turning the volume up on fake yelling.
I don't want to hurt anyone's ears.

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Re: Recording really loud voices/sounds

Well, in that case, putting something between you and the microphone like Realm said is the only thing that might solve the problem (I got nothin').

Last edited by minifig051 (August 16, 2012 (05:27pm))

Not literally dead, just no longer interested in Lego or animation.
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Re: Recording really loud voices/sounds

Just asked my dad (he's an editor). He said a windscreen might help, but what's probably happening is that your recording is becoming 'saturated' so you need to turn down the levels (not in post though, before recording) hope that helps in some way. Also I just looked at microphone on Wikipedia and scrolling down to the section about windscreens has got some interesting info.

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Re: Recording really loud voices/sounds

Hanging up thick blankets and other sound absorbents around your recording area can help deal with some of the audio bounceback.

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Re: Recording really loud voices/sounds

Jargon wrote:

Hanging up thick blankets and other sound absorbents around your recording area can help deal with some of the audio bounceback.

Egg cartons!

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