Audio Recording For Online Instructors

1. Course Overview: Here's a brief overview of what we're going to be learning in this course. First, we're going to cover gear, microphones and accessories that you need to make great sounding audio. I'm going to give you my specific recommendations and will even listen to a $12 microphone . Next, we're gonna learn how to set up your room for great sounding acoustics. We're gonna learn different recording techniques, for example, microphone placements. Next, we're gonna cover some troubleshooting. But most importantly, we're gonna learn that getting great sounding audio is both inexpensive and ridiculously easy. We are not going to be using any audio editing software during this course, like audacity or pro tools or anything like that. All you need is your normal screen recording software. All right, thanks for joining the course at Let's get Started, creating some great sounding audio 2. Why Good Audio is Important: before we dive deeply into the course. I just want to review why good quality audio is so important for any online course. How does this audio sound? Would you want to listen to this audio for a two hour course with the quality of this audio defector? Concentration your attention? Would it even affect your opinion of the instructors? Competence? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to listen to this. I would probably to now after the first lecture. Sure, that was some pretty bad sounding audio. But how important is the audio? Really? Isn't it much more important? Toe have compelling content rather than worrying so much about the delivery? Well, it's both. You wanna have great content and great delivery? Here are some consequences. Toe Having bad audio Number one It's simply painful for your students to get through the course. It makes learning from you unpleasant. It makes it hard to understand your material because their brain power is being devoted into straining toe. Understand what you're saying and not so much the content behind your words. It results in poor student engagement. Many students will simply drop out and not finish your course, and that can result in bad ratings or reviews. In fact, good audio is possibly more important than good video. You can have average looking slides, average looking video. But if the audio quality is great, your students can stay engaged. On the other hand, if you have the greatest quality video, but you have audio, that sounds like what I played a minute ago. Your students are gonna zone out so good. Audio is even more important than good video. So that's why good audio is so important. Now let's get on to the course. 3. How Good is Good Enough: when it comes toe audio for your online course, How good is good enough? How professional sounding doesn't need to be Well, here's the bad news. Audio recording could be complicated and expensive. You might hear that you need to treat your room with special sound dampening materials you need. You need $1000 professional microphone, a digital audio converter, Ah, sound mixer and then, finally, some complicated audio mixing and editing software. Well, now the good news, all of this stuff is overkill for online instructors. You don't need any of it. Remember, we're not recording audio for a professional television or movie production. We're not doing the audio for the next Halsey video. This is an online course. All you need is clear audio. That's easy on the ears. Easy for your audience to understand and pleasant toe. Listen to. And to do this, the only equipment you really need is a simple, inexpensive USB microphone. That's it. You do not need mixers. You do not need a professional microphone. You do not need fancy soundproofing, and you definitely do not need audio editing software. For most online instructors, you're probably using screen recording software already wish for the majority is either going to be camped Asia or screen flow. But regardless of what software you're using to produce your videos, you don't need any additional audio editing software. Just used the audio recording features that's built in to these software programs, and that's it. So how good is good enough? Just good enough to be clear and pleasant toe listen to anything else is overkill. 4. Use a Real Microphone: get a riel microphone. This is the most important part in getting great sounding audio. Now, most of you have probably heard of the 80 20 rule that 80% of your results come from 20% of your activities. Well, your microphone is the 80 in the 80 20 rule. If you do nothing else from this course, just remember to get a riel microphone. Let's start by comparing a few different types of microphones. The first microphone we're gonna listen to is the built in microphone on my I Mac computer . You heard this microphone before in the first lecture. Obviously, this is the microphone that will sound the worst. It is 10 e. It is echoey. It is actually a little bit hard to understand what I'm saying and certainly would be unpleasant for a two hour course now for our next type of microphone, which is the built in microphone you find on a headset. So I'm talking through my Plantronics headsets right now. Now this is going to sound better than the built in microphone, mainly because the microphone on the headset is obviously going to be closer to my mouth, but it still sounds far from ideal. It doesn't have that nice, rich, pleasant sound. Also, if you going to do talking head videos where you're actually showing a video of your face, it's gonna look awkward having that headset on. So for those reasons, I don't recommend headset Microphone. Okay, now for the microphone that I use every day, which is a simple USB microphone. In case you're wondering, this is the audio Technica, 80 are 2100 that you're listening to now. This microphone currently goes for $58 on Amazon, so you can see that this microphone, by far is the most professional sounding. It's the clearest. It's the richest. It's the most pleasant toe listen to. So there you have it. Simply get a real microphone and you're 80% of the way there to getting great sounding audio 5. Recommended Microphones: Now let's talk about some recommended microphones. First of all, you're going to hear a lot of terminology when it comes to microphones, thes air, all pretty technical details that you really don't need to concern yourself with. You just need to remember a couple things. Number one. Your microphone should be plug and play. That means you should not need any adapters, converters, mixers or any other piece of hardware, so this means your microphone should be a USB microphone. This is going to be a microphone that, with its included cord, will plug directly into the USB port on your computer. That's it. That's all you need. Everything you need will come in the box when you buy the microphone. One other terminology that you might want to be concerned with is, for the most part, you're looking for a cardio read microphone, which means it's going to be primarily picking up the sound that's right in front of it. This is as opposed to an omni directional microphone, which is gonna be picking up noise from all around it. So if you just want the most clarity without district distracting background noise, you're gonna want a cardio microphone. All right, so here are just a few recommendations that you really can't go wrong with their all relatively inexpensive on. They all cost pretty much the same. So the Audio Technica, 80 are Siri's. I believe the most current one selling now on Amazon is the 80 are 2005 USB. That's about $79. Ah, Blue makes a number of good USB microphones. The one I would probably go with is the Blue Yeti Nano. That's $99. This has the advantage of having a couple more controls, including that input volume in microphone volume controls that the audio Technica doesn't have. And then finally, another. A good option is the Samson microphones, so they make a lot of reasonably priced microphones. The one I'd probably recommend is the Sampson USB slash IOS microphone for about $99. Anyway, you can't go wrong with any of these three brands, and you really don't need to spend any more than $100 right? So that's a few recommended microphones. Get one like bees, and you will certainly do find 6. Lavalier Microphones: Let's talk about Laval ear microphones. Now. This lecture was recorded entirely with a $26 Laval ear microphone. My microphone is the J. K Mike J, which currently goes for about $26. US on Amazon. It's not the greatest Mike. It's a pretty low, low price mike. But it sounds decent, I think so. The question is, why would you want to use a Laval ear microphone? Well, for one thing, you'll need it for field recording. Obviously, you're not gonna be running around tethered to a computer when you're recording out there on the field, so it's going to give you freedom of movement. I mean, even if you are in front of your computer, if you use a level ear, you don't have to be absolutely still to keep your head that 6 to 12 inches away from your USB microphone and then the final reason till use a Laval ear is it simply just looks better. So if you're doing a talking head video and you don't want to see that big microphone in the corner of your screen, you can use a lovelier and it will just simply look cleaner. So when you see broadcast television, like on a newscast. The on camera talent will always be using a level ear. It simply looks much cleaner. Okay, so what's the disadvantage of a level ear? Well, number one size matters. Laval ears don't sound as good as the equivalent priced regular microphone. It's simply a matter of physics. And so therefore, if you want to get equal sound quality with a Laval ear compared to yours USB microphone, that means spending a lot more money. My $58 USB microphone. To get that quality, same quality of sound, I'd probably have to spend 5 to 10 times as much. So that's Laval ear microphones. I certainly think they sound good enough. Remember, we just need clear audio. It doesn't have to be extravagant. So if you need a level year microphone, go ahead and use one if you need to 7. Microphone Accessories: Let's talk some accessories, pop filters, shock mounts and microphone stands. First of all, let's look at pop filters and windscreens. What's the difference? Well, they both serve pretty much the same function, and that is to remove the distortion sound that is caused by wind or your breath. A pop filter you typically see in studio microphones. I'm using one right now. It's typically like a desk with some type of mesh in the middle on a windscreen is typically like a foam ball that covers the end of your microphone. Like I said, they both serve a similar function, and that is to reduce the disturbance and distortion caused by wind ice. I'm going to do a little experiment. First, I'm going to make a recording without using any type of pop filter or windscreen. Here we go. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. And now, with the pop filter, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Now, admittedly, that was pretty unscientific, but I think you get the idea. Next we come to shock mounts, shock mouths as you see in these photos are kind of like cages that look like spider webs. It's when you suspend the microphone inside that elastic suspension cage, and what this does is this reduces shock to the microphone. So, for example, if you accidentally jar your desk or or hit your mike stand, the suspension will keep it from disturbance and will keep the noise quiet. I'm gonna call this one optional, so it's not really required. But if you're the type of person that, like gestures a lot with your hands and you might be knocking things around, you might want to look into it. And then finally, microphone stands. Now any USB microphone is going to come with a tabletop stand like you see on the left, so you don't really need to spend anything on it. On the other hand, there are some other types of stands you can use that make things convenient. I happen to own Ohio pl to t stand, which actually costs more than my microphone, but I simply like it because it's convenient. It hangs my microphone up in the air, and when I'm not using it, I can swivel it out of the way so it doesn't clutter my desktop. It's mainly a manner of aesthetics and convenience that I use it, but again it's optional. Your microphone will come with a stand, and that's it for pop filters, shock mounts and Mike stands. 8. A $12 Microphone: I've talked about some very good microphones Thesis AM Sung the Audio Technica and the Blue Yeti. And all of these microphones, I think, are reasonably priced at less than $100. But what if you don't have $100? How about $12? Is a $12 microphone good enough to make an online course? Well, let's see. Okay, First up is the mighty audio Technica. 80 are 2100. Hey, diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle The cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon. Okay, Now let's shift over to a $12 microphone. Okay, this is the microphone that I'm testing now it costs $12. It's kind of this generic Chinese microphone that I got on E bay. Let's see what that sounds like. Actually, you're listening to it right now. Hey, diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle. The cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such sport, and the dish ran away with the spoon to find this microphone. I just went to e Bay and I typed in USB microphone and I think it was right there towards the top of the list. Yeah, here it is. Okay, here it is. For 16. 99. I found it for 12 bucks. So here it is. This just this generic microphone you confined on eBay and get it worldwide. So what's the bottom line? Is a $12 microphone good enough to record an online course? Well, yes, I think it ISS now. Is it as good as what I consider to be a real microphone? Like the Blue Yeti or the Samsung or the audio Technica? No, it's not. It doesn't sound as rich or as detailed, but it still sounds clear enough to be listened to. And if you're listening to it for an entire course, you'll get used to it. And you probably wouldn't notice too much of a difference. So do I recommend it? No. I still recommend that you spend the money on a better microphone, But bottom line, A $12 microphone. Yeah, that could work 9. Room Acoustics Intro: in this section of the course, we're going to be discussing setting up your room for the best possible sound. But before we dive into the details of that, let's just spend a minute talking about the principles of room acoustics. Imagine this is you. You're sitting there at your desk in front of your computer screen and you've got the microphone in front of you. Whenever you talk, you're going to be generating sound waves, and those sound waves are going to go in all directions, and any time they hit a surface, they're gonna bounce off and keep on bouncing. Now I've Onley drawn a few lines to represent sound ways, but imagine an infinite number of sound waves bouncing all around you in every direction. That's what creates that echoey hollow sound that's hard to listen to, its unpleasant, and it's hard to understand. This is what we're trying to avoid. So when we set up our room for good acoustics, we're gonna be placing sound absorbing materials around ourselves. Now, in this picture, I've just used pillows to represent sound absorbing materials, but it could be any type of cloth, whether that's carpeting underneath your feet. or towels or blankets or sheets or do vase or anything that you can think of that is soft and sound absorbing. When you place these materials around you and the sound waves hit them, they're not gonna bounce off there simply simply going to stop dead. And that is what the objective is when you're treating your room for the best possible acoustics. So ideal acoustics are going to be as much soft, sound, absorbing material as possible in front of you on the sides behind you everywhere you can think of. And if you do that, your room is going to be set up for the best possible sound. 10. My Room Setup: Now I'm gonna show you my recording. Set up how I set up my area simply and a zero cost to get this great quality audio. First of all, here is my normal workspace when I am not recording. As you can see, there's nothing on the floor. There's no carpet, it's a hardwood floor. I've got a hard desktop surfaces in front of me and behind me, along with these glass monitors. There's nothing on the wall. There's no fabric ord window drapes at all. So in other words, I'm surrounded completely by hard services. This is the worst possible environment for recording audio. Now here's what my room looks like. When I am recording, I take a Duve a and I simply drape it over the desk behind me. I put a pillow to the left of me. I drape a flannel shirt over my microphone and I drape a towel over my extra monitor. So taking a closer look, this is a cotton flannel shirt. I use this because it's very lightweight, and I can easily drape it over my microphone boom arm, and it simply creates a little tunnel. So any sound that that comes from my mouth is simply going to the back of that tunnel and dying and off to my right. I simply take my extra monitor and drape a towel over it. So that's pretty much it for how I do my room. Acoustics. There's zero cost. I'm not using anything. Fancy these air, just household items that are lying around me that I put to use. Okay, so for the rest of this lesson, please pause and put on some headphones so you can hear exactly what's happening. Okay, for this first test, I have removed all of the sound treatment I've taken away. The Dev A the pillow, the found flannel shirt, the towel, everything. So now I am back in my untreated environment, and this is the sound that you get. Now. Let's listen to the sound. With the treatment back in place, I put back the duvet cover, the pillow, the flannel shirt and the towel. You can clearly hear that there is a difference, and most of the echo is gone. So here are a few of my observations. Number one. The sound is clearly better with the sound treatment. It is less echoey, and it is clearer and easier to hear. However, you can't really hear the difference without putting on some headphones. The untreated sound is still pretty darn clear when heard through computer speakers, and that's because the microphone it's what's getting you 80% of the way there. So remember getting a good microphone is the 80 in the 80 20 rule, so my take aways don't spend any money on acoustic treatment. It is simply not needed. And don't spend too much time and effort on it either. Just take a few normal household items that you already have around you an old blanket, an old towel and old shirt and a pillow, and that should be plenty good enough. Test a couple different setups, and that's all you need to do. And that's my recording set up 11. Talking Head Videos: as an online instructor. Many of your videos are probably going to be talking head videos. That's when you are actually recording your face as you're talking to your webcam. So here's my set up. When I do a talking head video, I pretty much everything is the same except behind me. I replaced the duvet cover with a piece of white foam core that I use as my backdrop. Otherwise, everything else is left in place. The pillow, the extra towel and the flannel shirt. Okay, this is what it looks like, obviously, without the debate cover and with the white backdrop, it looks more professional. It looks better, but it still sounds pretty good. The bulk of the echo is still removed by the flannel shirt, the towel and the pillow. So this is how I do talking head videos. Now you can just see the corner of my pop filter in the video. Uh, I don't mind that Look at all. However, if it does bother you, you could always take the pop filter, often move the microphone a little bit further away, so it's out of view of the camera. However, the video audio quality will suffer just a little bit. Um, another thing you can do instead would be to simply to use a Laval ear microphone. And that's my set up for talking head videos. 12. Mouth to Microphone Distance: your mouth to microphone distance is going to affect both the quality of your sound as well as the character of the sound. So in this lesson, we're gonna take a listen to different mouth to microphone distances and see how it changes the quality of your audio for this lesson. You might also want to put those headphones back on so you can clearly hear the differences for this first sample. I'm gonna be literally one inch away from my microphone. So as you can probably hear it is Bumi Basie breathy? This would be pretty fatiguing to listen to for a whole course, so I definitely don't recommend that you get this close to your microphone. Okay, In this second example, I'm about six inches from the microphone. This is pretty close to what I normally do, and I believe this is a pretty good distance. It still is rich and not tinny and yet and clear. But yet it's not kind of overwhelming, like one inches. Now I'm about 12 inches away from my microphone. This sounds not too dissimilar from six inches. I still think it sounds pretty good, so normally I recommend anywhere from 6 to 12 inches and you're probably pretty good. Now I'm 24 inches away from my microphone. At this distance, the sound quality is definitely starting to suffer because I'm so far away that it is picking up more of the room noise and less of the direct sound from my mouth. So you're hearing more eco, and I probably wouldn't recommend getting this far away. So here are some takeaways regarding microphone placement. If you get too close, there'll be too much bass. It'll be to Bumi. There'll be a lot of mouth noise and breath noise, and it will be just overwhelming and fatiguing for your audience, so don't get too close. 6 to 12 inches is a great rule of thumb. This is a sweet spot. It sounds clear and yet still rich, So this is a recommended starting point. If you get too far away from the microphone, they'll be too much echo or room noise, and you'll begin to lose sound quality. However, keep in mind one thing. Every single microphone is going to be slightly different, so you're going to need to experiment. Maybe the sweet spot for your microphone is five inches or four inches or 15 inches. So just experiment and find out what works best for your set up in your equipment. So that's mouth to microphone distance, an important component of audio quality and character. 13. Reducing Plosives: in this lesson, we're gonna talk more about microphone techniques, specifically reducing those PLO sieve sounds. When you say the letter P and other mouth and breath noises now off course, we're going to be using a pop belter, which is going to help a lot. But sometimes it's not enough. You're still having those problems with PLO sieves. So in this lesson will talk about a couple different things that you can try if you're having problems with PLO sieves and other mouth sounds. Even with a pop filter, the first thing you can try is to move the microphone up just a little bit like this. If you point the microphone more towards your nose or your eyes, then that's going to be a little bit more indirect airflow, and it might do the job in getting rid of those PLO sieves and mouth sounds. Here's another thing you could do. You could also just try moving the microphone back a little bit, So if you're using about six inches of space between your mouth and the microphone, try eight inches, trying nine inches, just moving away a little bit, and often that will be enough to reduce the PLO, SIVs and the mouth sounds. The other thing you can try is turning the microphone slightly to the side, as you can see in this illustration, which is looking top down instead of the microphone pointing directly at your mouth if you angle it a little bit, that will also help reduce the PLO sieves and breath and mouth sounds. Lastly, make sure the pop filter is not too close to the microphone. It's easy to have that pop filter almost right up against your mike. You want to make sure that you bring it back at least a few inches away. That will give the pop filter a little bit of room toe work to reduce those postive sounds . Okay, so that's just a couple really quick tips on using PLO sieves. You might try a combination of them. Just number one. Move the pop filter slightly away from the microphone, move your head back maybe a couple inches, and turn the angle of the microphone away just a little bit. And then that will probably be enough to reduce or eliminate those PLO sieves and unpleasant mouth sounds. 14. Reducing Sibilance: Let's talk about reducing semblance. First of all, what is semblance? Well, siblings is the sound. When you speak words within S and them, for example, Sally sells seashells by the seashore. Now you may or may not have a problem with civilians. It has to do with not only your microphone, but your your voice itself. You know the shape of your mouth and and how you form words. So you may or may not have a problem with siblings. I don't really have a problem with it, so I never really need to address the topic. But for some people, I know it is a problem. So what are some of the things that you can do to mitigate siblings problems? Well, first of all, you can try moving your microphone down. Generally speaking, there is a richer sound, deeper, less trouble as you move down to the mouth and closer towards that upper chest. So you get a richer sound down that way, and it's a little bit less harsh. So that's one thing you can try. Another thing you can try is to move your microphone a little bit further away from your mouth to control semblance. Now, of course, if you move it too far away, you start introducing some other problems, like room noise and echo, but it is worth giving a try. You can also try draping a handkerchief or old T shirt or scarf over your microphone. Now this is different than the function of a pop filter. Pop filters really don't do much to help prevent siblings. This is more in the nature of covering up the microphone a little bit to muffle it and thereby taking off some of that high end. It's worth a try. There are a couple other things you might want to try. For example, if you have a microphone that has a gain input, you might want to reduce the gain on your microphone or reduce the input volume on your computer for the microphone. If you reduce the gains, sometimes that reduces the semblance. And as a last resort, you can try the old chewing gum trick, which is too, too up some gum and then stick it to the roof of your mouth. It changes thes shape of your mouth a little bit and could help reduce the siblings a little bit so that's reducing semblance. You may or may not have a problem with siblings, but if you do hear are the few things that you can try. 15. Some Thoughts on Field Recording: I want to spend a few minutes discussing recording in the field. Now, field recording is more of an intermediate concept. I'm not going to cover it in this course. However, I just want to give you a quick flavor of what that may look like and the steps involved. So what do I mean by in the field? Well, suppose you're doing a course on fly fishing or on pottery or on doing skateboard tricks, and you're doing demonstrations. Obviously, you're not going to be at your computer, so using your trusty USB microphone is probably not going to be an option. So you need to find a way to record your audio while you're in the field. There are two primary ways to record audio in the field. The first way is to use a separate audio recording device. You can buy, for example, a Zoom H one, which is a popular audio recorder. Or you can even use your smartphone as an audio recorder. There are APS built for that. The second primary way to record audio is to use the same camera that you're using to record video and simply using audio onboard that device. However, whichever way you decide to go. Please remember, do not use the built in microphone. Don't use the built in microphone on the zoom recorder or on your smartphone or on your camera. You're going to be using a dedicated Laval ear microphone for this when it comes to using a separate recording device, whether you're using a recorder or your phone, a couple things to keep in mind. The advantage of using this separate device is that this gives you the most controls over the levels over the quality of sound. The disadvantage is that using one of these external recorders means you're going to need to sink the audio with the video. Now this is not as hard as it seems. Don't be intimidated. There are tons of tutorials online on how to do this. But just keep in mind that you do need to sink when you're using your camera as your recording device. Couple things Number one. The biggest advantage is that there is no sinking required. The camera is automatically going to be sinking your audio and video together so you don't need to worry about that. The disadvantage is that this is gonna have the fewest degree of controls. And you also need to make sure your camera has a separate mic input because, remember, you don't want to use the built in microphone on the camera. So that's just a really quick look at some of the things you need to think about when recording in the field. If you decide that you need to do some field recording, I just encourage you to look online for some tutorials on sinking, and then you should be fine. 16. You Don't Need Audio Editing Software: Let's talk a little more in depth about why you do not need any audio editing software as an online instructor. Is this the answer? Do you need to use and learn a very complicated new program to massage your audio to perfection? Sure, if you're a professional audio engineer and you are recording Taylor Swifts next album, you need to use very sophisticated audio editing software. But for an online instructor, you do not need any of it. It is 100 times better and ah 100 times faster, simply to get good enough audio to begin with. For example, would you rather buy and use a $12 pop filter or spend 40 hours trying and mostly failing to remove PLO sieves with audio editing software? Would you rather find a really quiet place to record or spend 30 hours trying to remove ambient noise with audio editing software? It is simply no contest. Getting good audio to begin with is so easy. Simply use a really microphone. Use a pop filter, position your microphone correctly, set up your space with sound dampening materials and require record in a quiet area. That is all you need to do And that's why you do not need any audio editing software. Just stick with the software program you're using to record your online course, be at Camp Tasia or screen Flow or any other software. 17. My Audio Recording Process: Now I'm gonna take you through my audio recording process from beginning to end. First. My gear. My famous audio Technica 80 are 2100 microphone and a $12 pop filter. That's pretty much it. My audio editing software. None. I don't use any audio editing software. I simply use the included recording process that's in my screen capture program, which is screen flow. Step one is going to be toe. Adjust the input levels for my microphone if necessary. You may or may not need to do this, and even if you do do it, you only need to do this one time and then you're all set for the future. I use an apple computer, so I'm in my system preferences. I'm just going to click on sound, and then you can see where it says input. I've got two choices my built in internal microphone and then my audio technica USB microphone. So what I'm saying is that the very first time you try your microphone, you may or may not need to adjust your input levels. You don't want the input levels going all the way to the end, which means you're overloading your microphone and clipping it. So you just might need to adjust this input volume up or down, and you just play around with that. And once the input volume is set, then you pretty much never need to touch this again. If you're using a Windows computer. Ah, there's a similar function. Just do a Google search for how to adjust microphone input levels and then you'll find it. So you may or may not need to do this, but you only need to do it once. Step two is to prepare my special acoustic materials, my div. A pillow, flannel shirt and towel. Step three. Position the microphone 6 to 12 inches from my mouth. Step four. Hit the record button on my screen capture program and start talking. Step five Onley If necessary, I can go into my screen capture program, select the audio track and maybe adjust the volume up or down if I need to. That's it quick and easy. If you're spending hours trying to tweak that last 5% audio quality for your online course , in my opinion, you're doing it wrong that time is better spent, creating great content 18. Troubleshooting: Let's do some troubleshooting. Suppose your sound is tinny. This is a common complaint. Here are some things to try. Number one. Make sure the correct microphone is being selected and that your computer is not using its built in microphone to record number two. Try moving the microphone closer to your mouth for a richer sound number. Three. Make sure the mic is facing the right direction on some microphones. It's not entirely obvious. What's the front and what's the back? So just double check your manual and verify that you've got it right. Number four. Test the microphone by going to a totally sound absorbing environment. So, for example, in bed underneath the covers. If you're still getting a tinny sound, then well, then you know it's not the environment. It's probably your microphone, and so you might want to try a different microphone. So these are the some of the things to do if your sound is tinny. If your sound is echoey, there are two things that you can do. Number one. Move the microphone closer to your mouth and number to add more sound absorbing material to your recording room, whether it's blankets, pillows, towels, whatever you need to soften up the sound. If your sound is distorted, there are a few things you can try. Number one turned down the input volume on your microphone or on your recording software number to move the microphone a little bit further away from your mouth. Number three. Check your cord in all your connections, you might have a loose or fraying cord. And lastly, if all else fails, just try a different USB port. I mean, your computer probably has several, so just try a different one to see if that was the problem. What if your sound is excessively bumi or muffled? Well, Number one movie of microphone further away from your mouth, it's probably too close. Number two. If you're using a lava Lear, is it hidden underneath your clothing that might be muffling it? Number three. Make sure the mic is pointed directly at your mouth and not at your throat or chest. This will give it a brighter sound. How about if you have overwhelming PLO sieves? Well, use a pop filter. Use a second pop filter. If you need to raise your microphone a little bit higher, turn your microphone slightly off access or move your microphone a little bit further away . How about excessive semblance? Well, if that's the case, moved the microphone down, pointed at your throat or upper chest. Cover your microphone with a scarf or handkerchief turned down your microphones. Gain or input volume, and then try the old chewing gum trick. But wen and out remember this to test one variable at a time. So if your sound, for example, is 10 e, don't try to change the microphone distance and a different microphone and your room treatment all at the same time. Onley Test one factor at a time so that you can zero in and identify what the culprit waas . And that's troubleshooting. If you're having issues with your sound, test one thing at a time until you identify the source so you can correct it.