We occasionally create online training modules at work. This sometimes requires me to do voiceover. Since we're remodeling the office, our manager has agreed to include a nice little 5x8 soundproofed booth so I can record in peace - the way I've been doing it is at my desk, in the middle of a busy office, waiting for quiet moments But since the manager is an old dope, he insists our sound booth should be equipped with a full blow recording studio mixing board . Well, everybody but him knows all you need for the little bit of sound editing we need to do (and it is NOT a lot!) is a decent PC sound editing program. Any suggestions?
If you're not looking for anything incredibly sophisticated, then I recommend Audacity, which is free and supports (though you'll have to download and install some patches yourself) pretty much any audio format you could want. Its fairly straightforward to use, and is free.
If you are going to be using a mixing board and I assume you will have a workstation setup to connect all the hardware and board to then the prosumer industry standard is Pro Tools. http://www3.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=141&navid=507 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Tools
I have Audacity! No mixing board! That's the point - we don't NEED a mixing board, we just need good sound software for a PC workstation.
That makes sense, especially if you aren't going to need to hook up multiple instruments and won't be working with lots of sound effects that you will be blending together to create music. Bear in mind though that by going the soundcard route, the quality of recording through the soundcard without having a mixer or preamp in the line is can be fairly poor.
basically all we do is online training modules. The basic form is essentially a powerpoint slide show with one-person voice-over reading the slides, or from a script. This is done in Adobe Captivate with the narrator (me) reading into a single mic at my desk. The other format would be a videotaped lecture edited in, say, Ulead Studio, into something that isn't quite as crashingly boring as being there.... and come to think of it, there really isn't any sound editing to do there. Although we might need to clean up the audio to get rid of the lecture hall echo and background noise. That's pretty much it!
Audacity combined with the sound booth you described above should fit your needs perfectly then. By using the sound booth there should not be that much background noise and interference to clean up and you can clip together the best parts of the audio using Audacity software. You can even strip in audio .mp3 tracks with "mood" background music (say for instance the "Star Wars Symphony"? ) if you wanted.
If you buy a lip mic, you wouldn't even need to build a sound-proof audio booth. We use these all the time with the air conditioner and generator running in our live vans and there's almost no background noise at all. Probably a lot cheaper than building a booth, too.
Did you tell her the other way to us it is to turn it over so the probes go up yer nostrils and record your brain?
Doesn't want to share spit. I looked up Cakewalk - holy crap, that's a lotta functionality for $200!! That's way more than we'll ever need (and it never hurts to have more than you need )
You don't share spit with one of those. We keep alcohol wipes in the trucks to clean the mic before anyone uses it, anyway.
Does Audacity have the ability to record sound emanating from your computer? I hope it does. I call it the Hope of Audacity.
So, basically, you have to put an external mic then record off your computer speakers? That suxx. What if I fart?
Sounds to me like Audacity would do it. Along with ProTools, Adobe Audition is another industry standard. Downloading and installing the patches never seems to be as easy for me as everyone says it is, but then I'm an old fart anyway. If your boss is dead set on spending money needlessly, you could just get this little beauty for a couple hundred $ and just use Audacity. Audacity includes noise reduction which could come in handy along with some other pretty good bells and whistles.
What if you fart...The rooms will stink? Your stinky, gaseous bowels aside, that's not how it works, the mic-in connects to the sound card in the PC. The recording has nothing to do with computer speakers. It is a digital link from the mic to the sound card.
Hrmm...ok, I have downloaded Audacity. I went to Edit, Preferences, and under Audio I/O, I set the Playback and Recording to Realtek HD Audio (the sound card.) I then go and hit record, and play a YouTube video, but I get nothing! It just records a silent, blank line. What else should I do? I'd like to get this to work, cause it would be really useful to record sounds off the computer. EDIT: Nevermind. I got it to work!!! sdajfksadl;gj lska;gjslka;gj sdg;lg al;k dgj Thanks!
