The Basics of Acoustic Treatment

As you settle in to record your audio narration, you’ll obviously need to pay close attention to the acoustics of your recording space. Your two primary concerns are:

• Keeping unwanted sounds and background noise away from your mic, and therefore off your sound track.

• Deadening the acoustics of the room itself so that the sound waves don’t go bouncing all over the place, resulting in an echoey, boxy quality to your sound.

To accomplish the first goal, your best bet is to simply find the quietest space in your home or office. You needn’t worry about trying to “soundproof” your room - true soundproofing is difficult and outrageously expensive. If you have some cash to burn, you might want to consider double-paned glass on the windows (particularly if you’ve got a lot of noise from outside, such as traffic, children playing, etc.). If home/office noise is really bad, consider a sound isolation booth. These mini-rooms address both the above concerns wonderfully. They’re also cheaper and more portable than truly soundproofing your studio space. You should be prepared, however, to shell out upward of $2,000 for even the smallest, most basic booth. Even so, they can be a bargain if you’re losing all sorts of precious time rerecording segments that were ruined due to ambient noise. For those with the inclination, some good manufacturers are listed here:

• WhisperRoom, Inc. (www.whisperroom.com)

• Vocal Booth (www.vocalbooth.com)

• ClearSonic (www.clearsonic.com)

For the rest of us poor souls without an unlimited budget, the following tips will help you achieve maximum noise reduction for minimum dollars:

• Consider recording at different times of the day (or night) if you’ve got a lot of noise coming from outside. I live near a school, so there are certain times of the day I know to avoid when scheduling my narration.

• Alert your colleagues/roommates/family members whenever you record. You can even invest a modest sum in a wall-mounted “Recording” light to alert any passers-by. I suppose a printed sign taped to the door would work just as well, but what’s the fun in that?

• Finally, separate your recording space and your regular workspace if possible. At the very least, either get your computer CPU (with its noisy fan) as far away from your microphone as possible, or simply pick up a quieter machine. If you’re serious about creating an ideal recording environment, you need a computer that screams on the inside, yet whispers on the outside. High performance, low noise. Not many PCs out there can rise to that challenge. You can, of course, build one yourself, and a great source of information on constructing a quieter computing environment can be found at www.silentpcreview.com.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the time, expertise, or even the desire to build a Windows PC from scratch, let alone spend the extra time and dollars on shutting it up. As an additional kick in the pants, it’s clear that the major PC makers such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard do not consider noise reduction/elimination a top priority. But there is a PC builder out there who does. Puget Systems in Seattle (www.pugetsystems.com) builds custom computers for individuals and companies all over the world. One special service they offer is the construction of quiet, and even totally silent, PCs. My studio machine comes from them, and I can’t tell you how happy I am with it. And from the gushing testimonials on their (unmoderated) ratings page, it seems I’m not alone: www.pugetsystems.com/ratings.php.

I recently alerted Puget to the plight of my readers, who must endure amateurish recordings due to the buzz of their noisy PCs. They graciously agreed to help put an end to your suffering: Anyone who mentions this book when soliciting a quote on a new PC will receive 5% off their total order^[*]. So, if you’ve been on the fence about getting a computer that doesn’t sound like a shuttle launch whenever you press the power button, head on over to Puget Systems’ website, or give them a call at (888) PUGET-PC.

Now, the second challenge lies in making sure that your recording space is “dead” acoustically. Hard surfaces reflect sound waves and give the room an echo. In your recordings, you’ll end up hearing the room as much as your own voice - not ideal. For me, this became a real issue when I moved to Spain and suddenly had to contend with marble floors and plaster walls (for some reason, drywall isn’t as problematic).

If a voice-over booth is beyond your means, there are some things you can do. Fabrics tend to trap sound waves quite well, so if you really want a dampened recording space on the cheap, try capturing your narration in a walk-in closet that’s full of clothes. It’s an interior room with no windows, so you won’t have outside noise to contend with, and the clothing will keep any errant sound waves from reverberating back into your mic. There are a million of these cheapie techniques, from hanging up heavy curtains and blankets to utilizing strategically placed folding doors or dressing screens that are adorned with acoustic foam. One really simple idea I like is simply mounting your mic in a desktop stand, and then building a little “house” for it made from four squares of acoustic foam (three walls and a roof). Place a towel underneath to keep sound waves from bouncing off the desktop, and you’ve got yourself a cheap, portable “dead zone” in which to record your narration.

^[*]This excludes the purchase of one of Puget’s (non-customized) Certified Computer Systems, to which a 10% discount already applies.