Skip to main content
D
dtlee412
Participant
June 23, 2020
Answered

Experiencing Static when recording voice over

  • June 23, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 2774 views

Hi all,

  I record vocals for company instructional videos. For the vocals, I use Audition with an AT2020 USB microphone. During COVID I took my equipment home and had no issues. Now that I am back in the office I am finding that my background noise is virtually nonexistent, but as soon as I start talking I get static. I am just using quick basic edits in the waveform, I start with a single band compressor, then normalize, then I do a light noise reduction process. In multi-track, I apply the podcast sound essential.  Anyone have any suggestions? Aside from going XLR which would be my preference 😉

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer SteveG_AudioMasters_

Doing NR after compression is counter-productive; it makes the Spectral Decay rate rather more obvious, because the compression has raised the effective noise floor relative to the maximum signal level. Generally the way to reduce these issues is to do as much NR as you can first, before doing anything else. And by 'as much' I mean doing more than one pass at it, using different FFT sizes, and taking off rather less at each pass. Yes you have to do a new noise print for each pass, for two reasons: firstly the remaining noise will have a different footprint, and secondly, changing the FFT size means that the existing print won't fit the processing anyway. If you do three passes, taking no more than 6dB off at a time, you'll end up with a significantly better result than you'll get from using a single pass. And do any other processing after doing this - that will almost certainly improve the results.

 

Oh yes, and don't use the podcast session template for anything - not even holding the door open!

1 reply

E
emmrecs
Legend
June 24, 2020

"In multi-track, I apply the podcast sound essential"

 

If you mean the Podcast Sesson Template, then get rid of it as soon as possible!  It may well not be the source of your problem, but it cetainly won't help!

SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
SteveG_AudioMasters_Community ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
June 24, 2020

Doing NR after compression is counter-productive; it makes the Spectral Decay rate rather more obvious, because the compression has raised the effective noise floor relative to the maximum signal level. Generally the way to reduce these issues is to do as much NR as you can first, before doing anything else. And by 'as much' I mean doing more than one pass at it, using different FFT sizes, and taking off rather less at each pass. Yes you have to do a new noise print for each pass, for two reasons: firstly the remaining noise will have a different footprint, and secondly, changing the FFT size means that the existing print won't fit the processing anyway. If you do three passes, taking no more than 6dB off at a time, you'll end up with a significantly better result than you'll get from using a single pass. And do any other processing after doing this - that will almost certainly improve the results.

 

Oh yes, and don't use the podcast session template for anything - not even holding the door open!

D
dtlee412Author
Participant
June 24, 2020

You know, I went through a lot of youtube and other various tutorial type things and that was the workflow order a lot of them recommended. The youtube has failed me. Simply changing the order of operation has improved my sound quality a thousandfold thank you so much!

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices