Episode: 4366
Title: HPR4366: My audio setup and editing
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4366/hpr4366.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 23:43:55

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4366 for Monday the 28th of April 2025.
Today's show is entitled, My Audio Setup and Editing.
It is hosted by Semla's N. St. Louis and is about 11 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, recording with a dynamic microphone, monitoring in real time with headphone, and
then editing it all.
Hello from HPR, here is Antoine, and I am sharing about my audio setup and editing.
As you see, I do not edit everything.
My mistakes are here to prove.
Like one, as you see on the show notes, hello, my name is Antoine.
Top two, I list them to you.
A, comment from Archer 72, audio setups are definitely between esterisks, definitely
of interest to hackers.
From the HPR community news, for March 2025 to 2025, they said, I'm not going to read
your long comments Antoine, they said something like this, and give a show on it, because
some comments of mine were long, I am so long sometimes.
So I listened to you to give a show about my audio setup.
Thank you, good voices, Goddy, for reading my comments anyway.
Topic 3, my audio setup, my best here is the notebook with an audio interface and a microphone
dynamic microphone with XLR connection, it is a Pro 63 of audio technique.
My headphones are plugged in the USB audio interface, and I monitor in real time, like on
the shows, the video podcasts that you see the people with headphones, if you never experience
a dead of hearing your voice in real time, they do basically need an audio interface for
it.
It's a good experience, so it's a way I think I can get a better audio quality apart
from the editing, that is my topic number 4, what I do?
There are three things, maybe more, but three things that make your audio be the best
after record, because in general, at the quality of your recording is 90-95% on recording.
Don't try to, oh, it's very noisy, or the frequencies are not good because the microphone
was of the smartphone or the laptop microphone, so then now what can I do?
Three record, if you can, it's the best thing sometimes, but after you have a nice recording,
you have to adjust the volume, I like to normalize initially to minus 3 dB, the maximum volume
is 0 dB, you want a margin to work on, so I initially do minus 3 to see the waveform
on the audio program, I use the audacity, audacity, you see the waveform better, and after
adjusting the volume by normalizing to minus 3, you can do the compression, what is the
compression?
I'll give you an example right now, I'll put the original audio I recorded, and then
the one with the addition I've made.
So if I speak a little far away from the microphone, you get this voice with obviously lower
volume, and also less dynamics, as I am far away from the microphone, it captures less
bass, less the grave, the bass of the voice, and you have more the acute, the higher frequencies
because of this distance, and when I, now I am back on my original position, my original
voice tone, and you will hear that same thing, now normalized will the compression, that
is the dynamics are adjusted for all the show, it's an equal sensation of what is bass,
what is median frequencies, but are higher frequencies because of this adjustment.
So if I speak a little far away from the microphone, you get this voice with obviously
lower volume, and also less dynamics, as I am far away from the microphone, it captures
less bass, less the grave, the bass of the voice, and you have more the acute, the higher
frequencies because of this distance, and when I, now I am back on my original position,
my original voice tone, the compression is very good, but you can, or you can make errors
with it, like compressing too much, and your voice will have no dynamics, like, listen,
only a bit, ten seconds I put, of that same fragment of audio, now with a compression
that is very aggressive, that is, I want all the volume, if I speak very loud, and if I
speak in low, low voice, melody, melodic voice, and if I compress it, you will have this
result with an aggressive compression, I want, all the volume, if I speak very loud, and
if I speak in low, low voice, melody, melodic voice, and if I compress it, and you will
have this result with an aggressive compression, I am not very good on compression, I hope
I have explained some concepts of this too, that is, something that makes the radio so,
nice to hear, it is the, the volume, if it's higher volume, you have a sensation of
authority, radios have this compression too, in a hardware apart that does it automatically,
and we listeners get that radio sensation with a good compression, and the third step,
because the first one is a normalization, then, after you can have a normalization at 0 or
minus 0.3 dB, you have to see what's the best option for your volume, and let's say this,
there is an option of loudness normalization, so you don't normalize in reference to the maximum
of 0, so minus 1, minus 3 dB, no, you don't use that, you can have the loudness normalization
is too dead, available in audacity too, it sees the general volume, and goes to a default
of media, generally, it's minus 19 or minus 20, like for Spotify, etc, they have
default of loudness normalization to minus 19 or minus 20 depends on the platform,
so in general, if you have a good compression, after you can normalize to, to this parameters,
last of all, you can play with equalization, some frequencies are captured too much depending on
the microphone or the environment, if there is reverberation, you can see some frequencies,
like if you speak tune here of the microphone, you can reduce the frequencies below, let's say
30 Hz, because that's the very base of the frequencies, the low frequencies, you can have
low cut there, and also S, yes, if your S is so pronounced, normally you can reduce
like minus 2 dB, minus 3 dB, only in that region, to reduce a little of the siblings of the voice,
I will try to take this fragment of audio, the third example of this show, with the original
voice, with the original recording, and now I will show it, reducing the frequencies, and I will
put how I've done it to you, if your S is so pronounced, you are ending the show and I didn't
experience the difference of nothing, with your examples, if you're hearing the speakers of
this smartphone, or the laptop speakers, no matter how good they are, normally you can't
discern the frequency cut, etc, because they are so focused on the medium, they don't reproduce,
so so nicely the lower frequencies and the higher frequencies that make that dynamic,
that makes the difference for someone hearing, for example, with professional speakers,
or in the most simple, the simplest earbud, the ones that came with smartphones, and if you have
the most simple earbud, or headphone, you can hear the difference because they are near to your
ears, so even the basic ones will reproduce more frequencies than the basic speakers, and you will
have a better perception of the difference, I think I thought too much, I talked too much,
I hope it was pleasant to you, as it is pleasant to me now, doing it for you, but there is the last
topic, number five, I have some work now, and different from what I was doing, so just expect
it to be good to me, and that it can be good also, as the time can allow me doing it, so for this
new working time I have, I ask you if you can do a word of prayer to God in favor of me, thank you all.
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