questions about recording

[jano]

I am trying to figure out the perfect settings for recording voice without background noise
what is your suggestion. AGC does not seem to work for me.
Thanks

[Anti_Luddites]

Hi,

This is more about microphone type and positioning than recorder settings.

To maximise the voice and minimise the background:

Mono hypercardoid or perhaps cardoid mic.
Or use the a simple mono electret such as the one that probably came with your player (depending on which player you have).

Point mic directly  at speaker.
Have mic close to speaker (but not so close as to have 'popping' on Ps and Bs during speach.)

Set levels so that during loudest speaking,  the bars almost, but not quite reach 0db maximum.

That's the short version.

And close the windows and tell the audience to shut up.

There's a very good recording guide by a guy called Framesaver on the mysticriver forums.

I'm not sure it would be good form for me to link to it here, but you should be able to find it.

Note the guide refers to iRivers with iRiver firmware, but most things apply.

[jano]

it seems tho yhat when i set the gain to higher + db the mic is more sensitive and picks up more background also when I use agc for speech the gain steadily increases (to become more sensitive) I do not get it?

[mlind]

To change the gain does NOT change the ballance between a) the sound you want to record and b) the background noise. It just changes the total level of the recording.
/M

[Febs]

it seems tho yhat when i set the gain to higher + db the mic is more sensitive and picks up more background also when I use agc for speech the gain steadily increases (to become more sensitive) I do not get it?

From what I can decipher (some punctuation would be nice), you're making two points:

1.  When gain is increased, the mic is more sensitive and picks up more background.

2.  When using agc for speech, "the gain steadily increases (to become more sensitive)."

Which one of these do you not get?  Number 1 should be intuitively obvious.  The mic doesn't have any way to distinguish background noise from the foreground.  Increasing the gain makes everything louder, including the background.

Number 2 is an extension of the same principle.  AGC increases the gain when things are quiet, and decreases it when things are loud.  So, AGC would decrease the gain when the voice is speaking.  When the voice stops, AGC increases the gain to compensate.  Since there is nothing in the foreground, this makes the background noise more audible.

Does that answer your question?

[jano]

yes, thanks
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