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help Isolating my voice

Profile picture for user real
Submitted by real on Sun, 10/05/2014 - 09:43

Hi Guys,

I usually work from home, and sometimes I have my children around, I normally do a lot of videoconferences and the sound of the children playing, etc totally interferes with that...

so I'm looking for a microphone that give me the best solution for isolating my voice from the environment... I did a bit of research in internet and seams that my best option is a Cardioid -Unidirectional - microphone, but as I'm not an expert I'm sure some advice will help me a lot.

A Cardioid microphone will do the job? I do not worry too much about the sound quality, the most important thing is that it only captures my voice, even if my children are screaming in the kitchen.

but maybe I'm asking the impossible... :-)

Thanks!

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Comments

Marco
Samplitude
pcrecord

There's also hyper-Cardioid to check on.
Common mics with good rejection are the SM58 or SM57.
You'd usually want to put the back of the mic toward what to don't want to record and talk very close (6 inches and less) to it with lower gain on the preamp.
You want to avoid condeser mics because they are usually more sensitive (even cardioids)

If you are videoconferencing, having a mic in front of you might not be ideal (for the look) You may want to investigate head worn mic or headsets.
Some consumer products could be enough; something like this : http://www.logitech.com/fr-ca/product/usb-headset-h540?crid=36
Or, you can go pro with http://www.akg.com/Head+worn+Vocal+Microphones-830.html

Just know that most musician mics need a preamp to operate them. Most audio interface have preamps and acceptable ones for what you do start around 100$ (presonus or focusrite)

Sun, 10/05/2014 - 14:31 Permalink
anonymous
anonymous

real, post: 419973, member: 48503 wrote: A Cardioid microphone will do the job? I do not worry too much about the sound quality, the most important thing is that it only captures my voice, even if my children are screaming in the kitchen.

Cardioid or Hyper Cardioid is the pattern you'd want, these will give you the most rejection away from center-front, but... you need to know that there is no microphone out there that will completely isolate you and ignore your kids screaming in the background, no matter how tight the mic's pickup pattern or how close to the mic you are.

If they are screaming, playing, yelling... any mic, regardless of price or quality, is going to pick that background noise up to some degree.

You could look at soundproofing your recording space.. but you're gonna need some pretty extensive work done to filter out the sound of your kids playing in the next room, and it ain't gonna be cheap.

Maybe a quicker and more inexpensive solution would simply be to record after you put the kids to bed? ;)

Mon, 10/06/2014 - 04:58 Permalink
Marco
Samplitude
pcrecord

This leaves me thinking.. Let's pretend I have the same problem and I'm a freak !! ;)
I'd still want to hear the kids in case they are hurt. So how can I remove some of the kid noises.

  1. Proximity is a must.
  2. use two identical mics one for my voice and the second (with inverse polarity) pointed toward the kids.
  3. Maybe a gobo between the 2 mics (to be tested)
    Well, it might be overkill. I guess an headset with noise reduction would be simpler !!
Mon, 10/06/2014 - 08:19 Permalink