Make the recordings

Practice makes perfect, so you need to allow a little time for learning how to make good recordings. If you are using a recording studio, you will work with a partner, one of you acting as recording engineer whilst the other is the voice talent. If you are recording at home, you will do both jobs yourself.

For 2023-24, students should use the University recording studios: instructions are below.

Microphone technique

Good technique is important for high quality recordings, and always remember that consistency is crucial, so take a few photos of the setup so you can reproduce it in subsequent sessions.

With a headset microphone, it’s important to place it to one side of the mouth to avoid breath noises

don’t place it below the mouth because you will still get breath noises from the nose

and don’t touch it whilst recording!

With a stand-mounted microphone, again you need the microphone placed to avoid breath noises from the mouth or nose, and kept at a constant distance (20-30cm). Make several test recordings to find a position that sounds good. During the recording sessions, the engineer should keep an eye on your voice talent: don’t let them move around in the chair.

Getting the recording level correct

With digital recording, it’s essential that you never ‘hit the red’ when recording because you will get hard clipping and that will sound very bad (as well as potentially interfering with the signal processing we need to do later).

But on the other hand, you do want to record at the highest level possible (what a recording engineer would call ‘hot’) so that you make the most of the available bit depth. Recording at too low a level is equivalent to using fewer bits per sample, and can also make any imperfections in the audio signal chain (such as electrical noise within the microphone amplifier) more obvious.

Recording software

If you’re recording on a Mac, then you can use CSTR’s SpeechRecorder software that presents each prompt to the voice talent, and saves the recordings in individual files. Here’s the manual. To load your own sentences into this tool, they need to be in Festival’s standard ‘utts.data’ format.

If you don’t have a Mac, then try this Python alternative to SpeechRecorder created by previous student Tim Loderhose, and now updated and maintained by Dan Wells.

Making good, consistent recordings

You will find that you can probably record for a maximum of 2 hours at a time, with short breaks every 30 minutes or so. After that your voice will start to become creaky. Stop when this happens: you need your voice to stay consistent (it may also be damaging to your voice to speak for excessively long periods). Some recording tips:

• Switch your phone, and that of anyone else in the studio, off or place it in ‘airplane’ mode (not just silent mode) to avoid interference.
• Take a bottle of water with you and take frequent sips during recording.
• Write down (or take a photos of) the recording levels you are using and set the same levels in every session.
• Ensure chair, microphone, etc. are positioned the same way in every session (again, photos are helpful here).
• Make sure any ventilation fans are switched off during recording.
• When you are speaking, ensure that you are not fidgeting, playing with any of the cables, your hair, etc…

Of course, you should make plenty of test recordings at the outset, and listen back to them carefully over headphones to spot any problems. Once you have perfected your technique, go ahead and record the ARCTIC ‘A’ set. You should build a voice from this, to confirm that you have made sufficiently-good quality recordings, before returning to the studio to record your own material.

During the actual recording, try to get each sentence correct in a single attempt. Don’t waste time on multiple takes, except in those few cases where you made a major error. The engineer should keep notes about any sentences that need checking after the recording session.

At the end of each session, make back up a copy of your recordings on a memory stick (if using a recording studio), and/or back them up somewhere secure.