Hack64.Record and Add Background Ambience

Hack 64. Record and Add Background Ambience

Using background ambience can add a sense of place and time to your podcasts. Learn to record these sounds and mix them effectively into your sonic landscape.

You can talk about the rain, or the howl of the wind, but to hear it brings the listening experience to a whole new level. These sounds, which can be the muted conversation in a restaurant, the wails from a crowd, or the chirps of birds in trees, are lumped into the term ambience.

It's a joke among sound engineers in the broadcast industry that any noise in shoddy recordings that can't be removed is ambience.

Creating the ambient sound you hear in well-produced radio shows is a real art. Knowing how to create quality ambient sound can mean the difference between a show that draws you into a theatre of the mind, and one that feels flat, like a voice in a can. The technical aspects involve choosing the right microphone and finding the right location to get the sound. But the real art is in knowing what you want and having the time and patience to find it. Atmospheric effects, such as thunder, you simply have to wait for; when it's so loud that it clips, or so soft that it's indistinguishable from noise, you will just have to wait some more.

Ambient sounds serve two main purposes. The first is to provide background material for the story. An example is the crunch of leaves underfoot accompanying the voice of the narrator telling listeners about a recent hike. The second purpose for ambient recordings is to provide smoother transitions between studio segments and field recordings. Ideally you should record a minute of background ambience before an interview [Hack #36] for this purpose.

9.5.1. Recording Ambience

To record ambient sound you will need a portable recording unit, such as an iPod with a Griffin iTalk, an iRiver, and a mini-disc, DAT, or solid-state recorder [Hack #69]. You need something that is small and light enough so that you can chase the sound around a bit and record from multiple angles. Your microphone [Hack #13] options will be limited to a dynamic microphone that requires no power, or a self-powered condenser microphone.

For the ambience of a room where you want to get a wide field of sound, I recommend a handheld dynamic microphone such as a Shure SM57, Shure SM58, or Electro-Voice RE-50. These are all relatively cheap and almost indestructible.

For a more contained sound, such as the rustling of the wind in trees or the crunching of feet in a forest, I recommend a short shotgun microphone. Examples include the Sennheiser K6/ME66 and the Audio-Technica 835B and 897.

These are general recommendations. What really counts is getting out and looking for creative ways to get the sound you want. Once again, the key is in knowing what you want and finding any means it takes to get it. You can capture the sound of howling wind in the small crack in a window; you can find the sound of crunching snow in a box of packing peanuts.

9.5.2. Editing the Sound

With the sound in hand, use your editing program to create multiple tracks in your show recording. Always put the ambient sounds in their own track so that you can control their volume independent of the voice and music tracks.

Getting the right volume for the ambience is critical. You might want it to start strong and then fade away completely. Or you might want it to start soft, fade to strong, fade away, and then come back again. It all depends on the story you are trying to tell. Using your program's gain-enveloping feature is the easiest way to control ambience levels.

For a very complex mix of voice, music, and ambient sounds, you might want to invest in a Musical Instruments Digital Interface (MIDI) control surface [Hack #61] such as the Behringer BCF2000 ($239.99). This is a MIDI controller that you can use in conjunction with applications that support automation (e.g., Pro Tools) to control gain, stereo pan, and other effects during playback using sliders and knobs.

9.5.3. See Also

• "Pick the Right Microphone" [Hack #13]

• "Choose the Right Audio Tools" [Hack #50]

• "Set Up a Home Studio" [Hack #61]

• "Assemble a Small Recording Rig" [Hack #69]