Annoying Voice Recording Problem

Marcus Crassus

Marcus Crassus

Member
Hi folks.

I have recently began creating videos with my son and posting them on youtube. This is new territory for me and I am still trying to iron out the bugs. One bug in particular is that my voice recording often has pops and cracks and sometimes distortion if I cough or laugh too loudly.

I have had this problem before when recording vocal tracks through mixing desks and the usual remedy is to turn down the gain output to the recording device.
My son is running the same setup as me and his vocal sound is always perfect, however his recorded sound has travelled through Skype first.

I am using a Logitech webcam connected via USB for sound recording. I do not produce this distortion over Skype, Mumble or Ventrilo, only when recording game play videos. I use Fraps for game recording which seems to be very sparse in the settings department.

There is a lot of head scratching going on here so any suggestions would be appreciated. Also it would be interesting to hear from anyone else who is having this problem.

Many Thanks
 
George Anderson said:
Hi folks.

I have recently began creating videos with my son and posting them on youtube. This is new territory for me and I am still trying to iron out the bugs. One bug in particular is that my voice recording often has pops and cracks and sometimes distortion if I cough or laugh too loudly.

I have had this problem before when recording vocal tracks through mixing desks and the usual remedy is to turn down the gain output to the recording device.
My son is running the same setup as me and his vocal sound is always perfect, however his recorded sound has travelled through Skype first.

I am using a Logitech webcam connected via USB for sound recording. I do not produce this distortion over Skype, Mumble or Ventrilo, only when recording game play videos. I use Fraps for game recording which seems to be very sparse in the settings department.

There is a lot of head scratching going on here so any suggestions would be appreciated. Also it would be interesting to hear from anyone else who is having this problem.

Many Thanks
Click to expand...
What software are you using to record your voice for gameplay?
 
George Anderson said:
Hi folks.

I have recently began creating videos with my son and posting them on youtube. This is new territory for me and I am still trying to iron out the bugs. One bug in particular is that my voice recording often has pops and cracks and sometimes distortion if I cough or laugh too loudly.

I have had this problem before when recording vocal tracks through mixing desks and the usual remedy is to turn down the gain output to the recording device.
My son is running the same setup as me and his vocal sound is always perfect, however his recorded sound has travelled through Skype first.

I am using a Logitech webcam connected via USB for sound recording. I do not produce this distortion over Skype, Mumble or Ventrilo, only when recording game play videos. I use Fraps for game recording which seems to be very sparse in the settings department.

There is a lot of head scratching going on here so any suggestions would be appreciated. Also it would be interesting to hear from anyone else who is having this problem.

Many Thanks
Click to expand...
Do you have Audacity? If you don't, you can download it for free. Just Google for it. :) When you've downloaded it, import your audio track in. You can use Audacity to remove most of the background noise, annoying hisses, etc. Just do Ctrl+A, Effect > Noise Removal > Get noise profile, then do Effect > Noise Removal again. For step 2, I don't do anything normally except changing Noise Reduction to 11 dB. That's the range I'm comfortable with. When the noise has been removed, you can then export out the audio file as an .mp3 to wherever you want. You can then import this .mp3 file into whatever Video Editing program you use. Hope this helped! :)
 
Because you cannot adjust the gain in Fraps per se -- I'd recommend turning the microphone down at the source and positioning the microphone as close to your mouth as possible. This will help cut down on ambient noise as well.
(1) Right click the speaker icon on the windows task bar, (2) Go To "Recording Devices," (3) Find the microphone and select "Properties," (4) Go To the "Levels" tab and turn the microphone down.

Without a pop-filter on the microphone, try to position it in such a way that you are talking over it. Additionally, you can make a cheap pop-filter out of cushion foam or nylon stockings (pantyhose).

Edit: This is kind of assuming you only use the webcam for sound recording during your sessions.
 
Thanks Arthur... I did try lots of that, the major difficulty I had was finding a way to hold the webcam close to me. So... The answer was to use an analogue mic through a mixing desk. This allows me to control the gain outside the PC. We have not recorded any new videos as yet for posting on youtube but the experiments we have done so far look or sound good. So after Episode 13 there will be great improvement.

PS Your channel looks awesome... Subscribed.

Thanks again
 
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