How do you reduce background noise in your audio recordings?

My walk-in closet is my "booth" for recording audio. The hanging clothes are a great replacement for acoustic foam or other echo absorption material. Also, closets are usually in quieter parts of the home, away from main living spaces. Most are windowless as well, which helps keep "street" noise from seeping into your recording.

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The more sensitive (better) the microphone is, the more background noise it's going to pick up, and condenser mics tend to be more sensitive than dynamic mics. A $1000 mic in a bad recording environment will sound worse than a $100 mic in a good recording environment (like the closet full of clothes that Grayson Thagard mentioned. There are several professional voice actors who make a ton of money in their closet.) A quiet location and proper room treatment are key to good audio. In fact, the quality of the recording environment is even more important than the quality of the mic! This isn't to say that you should get one of those $25 mic packages off of Amazon, but there are a number of mics in the $100-$150 range that work well.

Most plosives and popping sounds can be prevented by proper mic placement. Instead of putting the mic directly in front of you, place it about 45 degrees off to the side and point it at your mouth. This way, the air goes past the mic instead of into it, and plosives and popping sounds are prevented. Foam and fur windscreens tend to dull the sound by cutting down the high frequencies the mic hears. They are, of course, usually necessary outside, but not indoors.

Noise gates are very difficult to set up properly, and can result in very annoying-to-listen-to audio. When background noise is present in a recording, a noise gate will drop the audio to complete silence in between sentences, but the noise will still be present during the script. Thus, the background noise pops in and out of the audio, resulting in a very unnatural sounding recording. Noise reduction software is better, but as mentioned, must be set up and used properly to avoid unwanted artifacts. The Waves Clarity and Izotope Rx plug ins work very well when set up correctly.

Great tips and may also want to work with a friend who does audio and book their studio or share time with a music producer to record in their space. Also prepare for issues with free music tracks to cover challenges that might arise.

Be picky of where you record, and wear sound limiting headphones. Alabama Public Radio mentors journalism students at the University of Alabama, many of whom are used to using earbud style mini phones. When outfitting them for field work, I often say "the headphones we use are as big as your recorder, and there's a message there." That message is that "hearing" what you're recording is as vital as the recorder itself. Also, we teach diplomacy if an interviewee is in a room where there's air conditioner noise, or the fan of a personal computer is audible. Ask to go to another and quieter room. I tell APR interns I've never had someone say "no, I want to sound bad on the radio."