Good Sound - Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish - page 121

To get a strong signal without clipping, you need to make sure
that your actors are the optimum distance from the micro-
phone (Figure 8.2). This will vary from mic to mic and will
possibly be included as part of the instructions that came with
your microphone.

One source of clipping is the introduction of “plosives” in the
dialog. Plosives refer to the small blast of air that is produced
when you make a “p” sound, or, to a lesser degree, “t” and “b”
sounds. The air hits the microphone and is the equivalent of
someone smacking the thing, producing a pop in the record-
ing and often, a clip. The simplest way to mitigate plosives is
with a screen, as shown in Figure 8.3. Screens are cheap, but
you don't even have to purchase one. A simple plovise screen
can be constructed from a 5

Figure 8.2 The voice talent on the mic

loop of metal coat hanger
covered with two layers of nylon stocking and clamped to the
microphone stand between the mic and the actor.

-6

With your actor the proper distance from the mic and plosives
taken care of, you just need to set the proper recording levels.
If you are using a noncomputer recording device, it will almost
certainly have a “clipping” indicator. The iKEY that I used has
a simple red LED to indicate clipping. If you are recording
directly to your computer, the recording software that you are
using, one example of which we'll see in a moment, should
also have a clipping indicator. Basically, you want to have
your actors speak into the microphone, just as they will when
recording, while you keep turning up the recording volume.
Turn up the input volume until the clipping indicator begins
to trip. When that happens, it means that you've gone a little
too far. Back off on the input volume. Have your actor read through the lines again ( just the louder ones if
there are a lot) and pull the input volume back until you no longer see the clipping indicator.

Figure 8.3 A screen for avoiding plosive clipping

Some Sound Processing Basics

If you already have and know how to use a sound processing program, you can skip this section. However,
those of you who do not are welcome to download and install Audacity, an open source, completely free
sound processing program that runs on Windows, OS X, and Linux-based computers. Audacity is available at
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and is included on the disc that comes with this topic.

Recording with Audacity is as simple as running the program and pressing the large “Record” button that is
shown in Figure 8.4. It uses the familiar icons for play, pause, stop, and record. One of Audacity's features that