Avoid background noise & record your voice without an expensive microphone

We are going to see the techniques to avoid background noise during recording.

What is background noise?

In audio recording, noise refers to the ambient noises you sometimes hear during the quiet parts of a recording.

We can break down noise into three categories:

First category: the sound of the room. Professionals call it the room tone.

Second category: the reverb. When we talk we produce two kinds of sounds. One is called the direct sound. It's the sound that goes directly from your mouth to the microphone. Indirect sound, on the other hand, is the residual sound left bouncing in the room. The sound reflects mainly off the hard surfaces, causing echo.

Third category: the microphone response. All microphones pick up sound differently.

Most creators don’t use professional grade microphones.

Many creators record with their built-in laptop microphones, which tend to hear sound differently. They don’t pick up low frequencies effectively, and some may introduce microphone noise, a noise generated by the microphone itself.

To record a clean audio, and get a superior listening experience, you need a good speech-to-noise ratio.

Before recording, you have to choose the right equipment, and you have to create a good recording environment.

After recording, you can use an audio editing tool to remove remaining background noise in post-production.

We are going to see what we can do before recording.

Here are five things to do to capture a clean audio.

1. Record in the quietest environment possible.

The most obvious way to eliminate noise from your recordings is to find a quiet space.

Keep in mind that the sound of your voice bounces off hard surfaces like windows. Try recording in a room with carpet and curtains.

Soft surfaces are less likely to bounce back sound than hard surfaces like concrete.

2. Use a dynamic microphone.

A good microphone makes a lot of difference.

There’s now a wide range of USB microphones that conveniently plug directly into your computer or laptop. These are affordable and easy to use, but don’t perform as well as XLR microphones. XLR microphones are connected via XLR cables. XLR microphones are pricier but produce professional-sounding audio tracks and give you more control over recording levels.

Of course you should avoid to use your computer’s built-in microphone.

3. Get close to the microphone and turn down the gain.

The most effective way to improve your speech-to-noise ratio is by reducing the distance between your mouth and the microphone. About six inches (that's 15 centimeters) is a good rule of thumb.

Then turn down the gain. Even with a high-quality microphone, recording with too much gain will produce a lot of noise.

4. Point your microphone away from the noise.

Point it away from the noise, and away from solid surfaces, especially windows.

5. Record the room tone.

Capture a few quiet seconds of your environment before or after recording your voice. Room tone can be useful for noise reduction in post-production. The free software Audacity can be used to reduce the background noise of an audio file.

If you don't have the time and the equipment to create audios of high quality, you can use AI voices.

Thanks to machine learning, the monotonous computer voices have now been transformed into natural-sounding AI voices.

If you are interested in the opportunities of AI voice-overs for your videos, check this website Rollideo.

Rollideo can automatically create videos with auto-generated voice-overs and the exact subtitles.