How to Check Your Noise Floor | Voice Over Tips
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2021
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Bill, others charge a lot of money for the vast amounts of tips and suggestions and information you provide for free on your channel. Thank you!
Facts brother.
Great testing tips!. I would just add that you dont want to be peaking at your finished target of -3db when recording unless you know how to speak very evenly consistently. Its safer to give yourself more headroom like 6db for spoken word. For vocals we actually allow around 10db of headroom. If you clip even once the recording is ruined. You can always normalize to -3db after. Also,, you will probably need to use a bit of compression so that will raise noise floor a bit also so really i would say in addition to making sure your mic signal is ultra clean your noise floor should be -70db or better.
Good info. Here's a very easy way to measure noise floor and how I do it. You dont have to record anything. Do a test reading in your regular voice you will use,, while someone adjusts the gain on the mic pre so that you peak at -3db. Now come out of your vocal booth,, close the door and go over to your daw. Now simply reset the input meter and read the meter. Done. That is your noise floor.
Absolutely incredible explanation. Thank you Bill!
Very helpful, Bill. Thanks a lot for the simplicity of your explanation. My recording space is at -66.5 dB and I wasn't sure if that was good enough. Looks like it is.
Bill, thank you for all that you share gratis.
Mr.DeWees I relate completely. I record at -9db and when I normalize it peeks to -3db before I do that I apply "noise reduction " tool which reduces that humming that can't be picked up with the naked ear. Thank you Sir for being that guiding light that shines and shows us the way.
Another great video. :) When I'm done getting my home studio, I'll be using this method to see how I did!
Excellent video! Thank you for sharing your wisdom, sir!
Thanks. A much needed lesson to help set up my booth.
Thank you for the very informative content. Have a great one.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Thank you Bill - the best method !
Thank you for making these videos.
Excellent! Thanks, Bill!
Great explanation, and thank you for sharing!
Hey Bill, looking forward to joining your program one day!
Love the how you discuss it thank you so much :)
Great tips!!! Love it!
Great video & very well produced you have great presentation skils. .....
This is all good as long as you don't have to hit a loudness target. If you must add compression it raises the noise floor. Any thoughts on keeping the noise floor low while hitting a loudness target?
The method that I’m using with my focusrite itrack one pre-and an AT2020 is I’m recording straight into the mic Which is producing a small wave form, but then I’m normalising it to -3DB so that when I’m checking the noise floor. The noise floor is at a maximum of -58 to 60db.
Does using a system like this seem sensible?
PS I find your videos, so useful and helpful and clear to understand and grasp. Thank you
I do something very similar. First I establish the base-line of approximately -3db for vocal peaks. I'm not fanatic about it. Once I've established that and my interface is set, I'll rerecord - first sitting quietly (holding my breath) for 10, 15, 20 seconds, then I'll begin reading some script. What I measure are the quiet spots between sentences with the goal of getting as close to or below -60db as possible.
Thank you!
Will give this a try in Davinci Resolve.
Hi Bill, great explanation. Do you know how to measure the noise floor in the DAW Reaper? I'm trying to do what you did in Reaper and I'm having trouble and online explanations are not clear..
Awesome.
I tend to set my gain too low for speaking vocal and would never peak at -3 dB as you did. When you record, without any plugins, just the raw track, what would your “normal” RMS be? I need to practice punching up my gain. I don’t like to normalize as I think the recording itself should generally be within dB parameters that don’t require normalization. I’m not including compression. Perhaps I’m wrong but I’m of the school that if you have to normalize it was not recorded correctly to start with. I’m open to respectful disagreement. I use Pro Tools 12.6 and frankly find that it is not normalization friendly, but that could be my fault. Thanks Bill. You don’t know who I am by me name but you coached me and produced my demos in 2013. Thank you sir!
Fantastic, did you use speak easy to boost your audio to -3db?
Your Speak Easy Console, what application is that? Thank you for the video.
Hi Bill, I enjoyed watching this video but I have a question. I'm sure it's a newby kind of thing, but you adjusted the input gain in Console: Speak Easy and that raised the waveform in Adobe Audition. What is Console: Speak Easy? I'm trying to find away to control my input amplitude with Audition and am not having any success. Thank you!
It would be interesting to show people the spectral view of that minus 64. It wouldn’t change anything obviously but we could probably see some shading ha.
thx
Thanks for the video Bill. What are some other daw’s (preferably free ones)?
Hi there! No problem. Audacity is the best free option out there when you're just getting started. I highly recommend it. Many of the other options out there (like Garageband or Protools) are meant for editing music. I'd go with Audacity to start. Hope that helps! :-)
The frequency monitor shows -50db at 100hz descending to -80db or lower past 2khz. The more sound treatment I add to the room does almost nothing to the bass end. Mid to high end is quiet. -80 to -100db. Using Virtual Analyser for PC, Win 10. Am wondering if my issue is the room, the microphone, XLR cable, the audio interface which is plugged in to a powered USB 3.0 hub. Thinking there may be electrical noise coming from the AC adapter.
I would love to know what that console app is and where I can find it.
I have been trying to determine my noise floor and it appears mine is about -57 db. Also, I am trying to set it up the way it is in your tutorial but I have two screens, one on top and one on the bottom half.
Hi Bill, thanks for this advice. I'm using Audacity for my DAW, and the lowest measurement for the sound starts at -60 dB. Am I looking at this wrong? I change the view on the track to dB, and it shows the bottom as -60. I'm trying to lower the sound floor, but it doesn't look like it will register on my DAW lower than that. Right now, I'm peaking at around -57dB. If I am to get it lower, it won't show any lower than -60 dB. Any advice on what to do?
-60 is fine for the vast majority of jobs. If they want it lower, tell them to pay for studio time.
Really struggling to get noise floor below -40db. I was gifted a WhisperRoom booth by my wife. Would adding more sound panels on the inside help or should I aim for placing moving blankets on the outside?
Make some 6" rockwool panels and add to all sides of the interior of the WhisperRoom, including the ceiling.
This is for Bill or anyone who can help. I am a beginner, I finally realized (from watching Bill) that my Noise floor is due to my laptop. I could never get my Db to -60, I tried many things! How do I still record well if I have to put my laptop out of my recording closet? Ideas?
Can you adjust the noise floor without messing up the rest of it?
When I record my wife, I monitor the input with a spectrum analyzer and a level meter ( in studio one). My dead sound is around -65 downwards -70 when no one is in the other room. Hey, I want to get into voice over work. I already have a home studio I have my large walk-in closet setup as an editing room.
How to remove electric sound from voice overs in audacity? There are umpteen videos on methods to remove mouthclicks plosives , noise etc but not a single one to remove electric sound from voice overs in audacity. Is it not removable? Pls do a video on this topic Mr.Dewees..it'll be truly very helpful. Pls give a solution
Hi, Bill!
Mine is -30db cause of the AC. I can't switch it off as I'll be forced to open the windows which will attract road noise. I live in a busy street. My vocals peak at -6db. Is there a way to reduce this?
Turn the AC off with the windows closed and sweat it out ... Totally normal. Take frequent breaks and sip water. Good for health in general.
All the best.
Slightly confused as I have auditioned maybe 100 times on a well-used Pay to Play voiceover website, and booked one job so far, shortlisted a number of times, but last night, for the first time, I had feedback from an audition - needless to say, I didn't book - as follows 'Audible Room Ambiance'. I have listened to the recording back and I know it won't be always evident to the human ear - to add I also have tinnitus in one ear now too - but I think my studio is pretty quiet. It's a basic setup, but seems to have been ok otherwise. I usually go for Dynamics Processing in my Adobe Audition to reduce noise as much as I can. I thought some ambient noise was preferable. I have captured my noise floor for about 30 seconds and it goes between -56 dB to about -44 dB. I do note there are some birds outside the window of my recording area, but apart from the other usual house noises, nothing untoward. I am questioning now whether my set up has cost me some work. Or whether there is something more I can do in my DAW. I normalise to -3dB before I submit auditions. Thanks for all your knowledge, Bill, useful as always...
That is interesting. Have you sorted out this problem, and if so what levels is your noise floor like now? Mind sharing what you had to do?
It's not easy getting to a -60db recording space in your home Argggg.
how can i check my NF on Garage band
This plug in doesn't work in my Audacity app. When trying to add the plug in, I get this error message: failed to register: could not load the library
What email can I use for VO demo critique?
Hi Anthony! Unfortunately, I only do demo/read reviews for my Blueprint members as I have limited time.
My computer is in a different room to my mic so I have to keep moving between to edit. :-)
This mic is huge
There’s some VA’s I’ve talked to in the community who insist to not have your peak be at -3 db in post but either -1 or -0.4 since it’s digital audio and it won’t overload or be distorted. The general idea is that people prefer the louder audio even if it’s not audibly noticeable much from -3 db but there’s a fullness or it’s crisper to the listeners ears. What are your thoughts on that?
Ha, Caught myself holding my breath too. IM a dork
To get a truly quiet electronics you would have to design the electronics to work at an extremely cold temperature and even after all the expense and effort it won't be completely quite just bell below anything the aver measurement device can detect. A few hundred thousand per unit? Something really expensive and the ROI on that would probably be zero.
You keep saying "holy grail" ...so does that mean it's unattainable 99.9% of the time?
I'm pretty sure this means it's the ideal that everyone is going for.