Increasing the quality of sound of my documentary.

deleuze3

Well-known member
Hi,
this is my short documentary on history of strong women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpd4uXtIFgk

I recorded my voice on a rode lavalier plugged into an audiorecorder pcm-m10.

When i listen to the sound, there seems to have a poor signal to noise ration, there are noise a bit in the recording, the voice doesnt come up that good.

Any tips ? Is it because it is a voice over and it would be better if it was done with a mic specially made for voice over ?

Thanks in advance,
Deleuze3
 
Hi Julien and firstly I have had a lot lot worse but here are some pointers regarding your recording.

1: The mic sounds very sibilant and artificial but I think that is the lavalier that you are using as low end rode mic's seem to have that sound.

2: I presume by signal to noise ratio you mean the room tone that is prevalent and you can also hear the mic cutting in with some slight background noise.

3: I think you would get a better recording using a large diaphragm condenser mic but you will need to make sure that you can get rid of the room tone and there are numerous threads giving advise of how to do this.

As for a mic you could consider the SE X1 as it has a high pass filter and a -10db attenuator and they sell it with a mount and pop screen, there are other mics but you will find that having an 80hz high pass filter will cut down on the low frequencies when you use it close and the -10db pad will allow you to maximise the levels into your recorder.

It may also be easier to book a voice over recording session but if you consider the acoustics of the room at home it may be that you can add some treatment to assist, I personally have some foam acoustic tiles in the space where I record voice overs but it is also about learning to place and use the best mic. I use the SE X1 but also have a rode NT2000.

I did this video for our charity recently but to keep continuity the same sennheiser radio mic with ME2 was used for the voice over as well as the in vision pieces that were recorded over several years: https://youtu.be/8-KpV46AEyI
 
Yes Deleuze3, your VO sounds muffled and noisy. Lavs are usually not a go-to mic for narration but should sound decent. Did the initial recording OK or did happen in post ?
No comment on the performance.
 
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