Sound Question

[InsaneFool]

Does any one know how to take a sound file, that is fairly low quality (taken through a PC Microphone, and recorded with Windows Sound Recorder) and make it sound more professional?

That is, without re-doing it in a recording studio.

 

[the Dark Knight]

increasing the bitrate wont necessarily make it sound better but it might make you happy. other wise you might try adding a small amout of reverb or negative reverb works too.

 

[Agent4054]

Hmm, windows sound recorder prolly isn't the best thing to use *cough* goto download.com and get something a bit more formidable. Or whatever. Upping the bitrate and sampling rate will indeed take the fuzzy sound off of it, but using a better mic will increase the quality tenfold. If you're not an audio extremist just go for something like a PZM. they're only like $80. a good cheap mic. Errr... a $30 circuit city mic could also work. heh

Yeah like dark knight said, a small amount of reverb would also do it.

 

[SpuD]

Plantronics .Audio 90, great for games, has good headphones, and really clear recording. $30

 

[drummy]

Can't polish a terd.

But if you must try, your best bet is some EQ, Compression, and Stereo field wizardry.

 

[InsaneFool]

Are there any specific recording programs you would suggest?

 

[drummy]

Soundforge.

 

[Agent4054]

lol was just gonna say that. Soundforge 5 is better than 6 tho. weird.

 

[CitrusC]

If you want truly professional sound, record to another medium first, for instance - connect a mic to a Minidisk recorder, record you audio, then put it into your computer to edit it. This will give you almost perfect sound, as recording directly to a computer puts a electrical current (very small) through the microphone, causing that humming noise you hear in the background.

Also, if you wish to get a decent microphone, get a Sennheiser Evolution. They are excellent mics, and don't cost a arm and a leg.

EDIT: Also, if you are looking for a excellent sound editing program, I recommend Cool Edit Pro 2. The other program isn't too bad, but I didn't find it to my liking.

Hope this helps!

 

[piGfreeZer]

Sniper is right !
by the way, Cool Edit Pro2 is now distributed by Adobe, its name is now Adobe Audition...
$300...

 

[CitrusC]

*grins at PF*

Hey mate

Also, I forgot to add that the best bitrate to have for quality/size balance is a 128 bitrate .mp3 file. You get a free MP3 encoder with cooledit pro.

 

[Agent4054]

I HIGHLY recomend you do NOT use mp3's. That is unless hl2 uses them. Use ogg's. For a large variety of reasons. Mp3's suck bigtiome when it comes to quality/size. A 1 minute mp3 file is about 1mb. While a 1mb ogg is about 500-600kb. Also, the lower the bitrate for mp3's you hear this watery distortion. bad. Lower the bitrate for ogg's and you get a very slight fuzz, just light a radio. To add to the greatness of ogg, the encoding is free. [/ramble]

I agree with sniper about the sennheiser mic. Tho, even a fairly cheap condenser mic would be good. For vox, a large diaphragm condenser is best for along with a popfilter. The minidisc thing is a good idea.

When I first got into audio, i didn't realize how expensive everything was. Man, it's VERY expensive. You get a condenser mic, then realize you need a phantom mic pream, then you need a good recording medium, then, maybe some compressors, then an editing program (still loyal to soundforge), then monitors..the list goes on. ok i'm going on my own rant. blah.

 

[CitrusC]

MP3 is generally good for generic sounds, but I see you point in using .ogg - .ogg does use better compression software, but it doesn't seem to handle bass too well, in my experience.

The thing is, MP3 cuts out HIGH freq. sound to compress, while .ogg does the same with LOW freq. sound. Shame someone can't make something in-between.

 

[drummy]

HL2 supports 128kbps mp3s for music. That's what it uses now at least.

I'm pretty sure sounds and all that are still wavs.

 

[TheRook]

Steinberg Clean Plus

can get rid of hisses and crackles...
might help you

TheRook

 

[piGfreeZer]

drummy> yep, SFX are still wavs, because we'll be able to place an header to the file that tells the engine a few things about how the sound should be... or it's like in Doom3: a sound-shader in a separate text-based file.

 

[CitrusC]

If you want a good quality mic, pretty much anything German will do ^_^ They are damn good at producing quality mics, you know.

 

[Agent4054]

Something like a Nuemann?

 

[Logic]

If you have already recorded sounds, and you want to clean them up, there's a lot you can do in programs like, say, cool edit pro 2 - noise reduction, eq, possibly some compression and reverb can do a lot for the quality of a recording, but the best advice would be to re-record it. You don't need to go overboard with an expensive mic if you're not going to be using it for much - fairly cheap dynamics will even be ok for the job. The main thing is to record it in such a way that it won't produce noise (ie on to a decent soundcard, or external device).

 

[CitrusC]

Hear hear, Logic ^_^

I got my sennheiser evolution for £50 (cheap)

 

[Agent4054]

how are those E series mics anyways? I expect they are good. Everything sennheiser is good. Sennheiser, Alesis, Neumann, and Soundcraft are the few good companies i go with.

 

[CitrusC]

Excellent, crystal clear, man. They are quite weighty, mind.