Preparing your studio

Microphones are non discriminating devices. They will record every sound including the sounds that you don't want.

Sounds that you unconsciously ignore will become intrusive as the background noise to a recording. During pauses and quiet sections, unwanted background sounds will intrude into the listeners consciousness. Trains, planes, cars, kids and music machines all need to be addressed.

You have to control the audio environment in order to deliver the image that you want to create without distracting the listener.

A 'pop' shield might be necessary if the actor is going to be close to the mic to stop words with Ps and Bs upsetting the recording levels.

Choosing a studio

Because you want to keep out extraneous noises, a room remote from people, plumbing, doorbells and life in general is impossible to find. You will have to make a lot of compromises.

You find the near perfect room close all the doors and watch the temperature rise. There is no point importing a fan as it is much too noisy. And just watch all the scripts fly about when you turn it on. So you open the window and remember you are on the flightpath to the local airport.

Forget perfection. Find something that is workable. You can do retakes and edit to remove occasional noises. Select a location that is relatively free from routine noises from people going up and down the communal stairs.

You might find that schools and colleges can be very cooperative if you have an ensemble, especially if you can slot your sessions in before the place is locked up for the night. And you need to be on good terms with the cleaners.

Sound waves are reflected from hard surfaces and absorbed by soft surfaces. A crisp sound has little or no reverberation but a warm sound has a controlled amount of echo. You want the direct waves to dominate the vibrations that reach the microphone. Curtains, carpets and furniture can be used to adjust the acoustic of your studio. Closing the curtains can adjust the reverberation a little. Soft furnishings only attenuate the higher frequencies. You will have to find other ways to deal with lower frequencies. Fitted carpets help to stop the floorboards reverberating.

It takes a bit of practice to develop an ear for these things. Don't believe what you hear because your ear does a wonderful job of adapting to the environment. You might need to record some samples and listen to them later before choosing the right location and setup.

Try to record all your sessions with the same setup. The human ear is remarkable sensitive to subtle clues about place. If you move location for later recording, the listener might perceive this which can detract from their perception.

Every room has acoustic characteristics. The amount of bass tones is set by the dimensions. Size matters. Big rooms provide base. There is also a distance from the speaker to the listener where the direct speech and the reflected sound arrive at the same time. In acoustics, this is known as the Critical Distance.

This is more relevant to concerts and large studios but it is worth thinking about as "echoey" recordings are produced if the mic picks up the direct speech and then several reverberating images that have bounced off the ceiling and walls. This can make the spoken words hard to understand.

The ear can extract one sound in a noisy room when it has visual and other clues. When the same clever ear is focusing on your recording it will be extracting copious amounts of subtle information. Your aim is to make sure that only the message you intended to reach your listener is being communicated.

Size

Small spaces can produce rather brittle recording. You might also need space for the small team of helpers. It is not impossible to make a recording alone, but it is much easier if you have some help. The end product will benefit if it is the product of many minds.

Before you decide to tackle the whole process yourself just look at the jobs that need doing.

Is there enough space?

Refreshments

You need to be relaxed but professional. Save the celebrations until the session is over. Even tea and coffee are banned from some studios because cups, spoons and saucers make noise. If you need refreshments, use plastic.

Liquid and the electrical equipment do not mix. You don’t want to know what happens if water is knocked into a disply and carbonated drinks can produce a range of unwelcome sounds once they get inside a body. Ban fizzy drinks from your studio.

Stick with water during the session and keep it with the bags and coats, well away from the business in hand. Only the reader(s) need a beaker of water to hand.

Some people like a sip or two of warm water to listen up the cords before they start to speak. Don't forget, voices need warming up.

Lighting

Creative lighting can help the work along. The focus needs to be on the reader. It can help to concentrate the attention of those taking part if the main lights can be dimmed or turned off when it is time to start work leaving just the script illuminated.

Spotlights generate a lot of heat so think about using low energy bulbs.

Supplies

You can never have too many blank tapes or disks. You do not want to be wasting precious time trying to re-find where to start on a cassette tape. Put a new tape in but just make sure that you write (have a pencil and indelible pen handy) on the media what you have recorded on it. Do not make any exceptions to this rule. Mark the media before it goes into a machine. You can always recycle the test media ready for the next session.

If you do decide to re-use a tape, put it in and re-record it with the gain set low and no mic or other input. This 'scrubs' the tape ready for use. That way you will avoid the small burps that occur when a tape is stopped and re-started. This only happens with analogue tape.

Countdown

Do provide an audio trailer. it gets the voice warmed up, lets the equipment and people time to settle.

On the countdown go 'five, four, three' then count the next 2 seconds silently.

Some technical issues to check

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