spoken word fx

I have been reading out some rough sketch poetry peices and placing them on wordpress at https://matthewofexeter.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/smile/
The noise of the mic is hissy and whiry as you may be able to hear
I have been gating - process track dsp’s - compress (around 1:8(at present)) - process track dsp - then eq5 (high and low turned down)
If anyone have any better ideas, that would be most welcome
I am on ubuntu not windows or mac - I currently have no pop guard

For me, the gating effect makes it more noticeable ! I would suggest removing the gate in order to let the ear/mind become used to the background noise. Perhaps the background noise is good?? There is certainly enough clarity on the words to keep it.

What mic are you using?

Sennheiser e8155
My pc is a bit whirry too. I will try taking the gate off. I see what you mean, the words are clear so thats all that matters. Its not like its for profit or radio is it.
Should I still compress and eq do you think?

Exeter-soundcloud

This is how it sounds with just compression and basic eq, is it too loud or quiet?>

Audacity has a noise reduction tool which works quite well, but like any noise reduction tool – less is more and garbage in garbage out.

Remember it’s a two step process.

First you select a noisy segment (no longer than one second) and get a noise profile (Effect>Noise Removal>Get Noise Profile).

The dialog will close.

Next select the entire noisy passage, Effect>Noise Removal and adjust the slider. Less is more here, keep the slider towards “less” and if necessary repeat the process.

Hmm I am thinking on the lines that it would cost a fair bit for a decent mic, stand, pop guard and queiter desktop componants. I may buy a handheld recorder and turn everything off while I record. I will not be able to for a few weeks though. I will give the audioacity noise removal a try, thankyou

I think for this kind of recording the words are most important; and they are clear enough. You could buy an extended mic cable and go into another room? Also - a pop shield is only really effective for high volume sounds - plosives and sibilance.

If you desperately want one; make one out of a coat hanger and some tights!

Well that is a great idea, and long a cable would be even cheaper agaain. You must be free from advertising and magazine propoganda in some way. I still have this to learn. I will look up about plosives and sibilance. Thankyou

Haha, yeah I dont think the marketers can get to me! One of my favourite books is the hidden persuaders` - about advertising in the 1960s…makes you realise how deep they went back then.

You might be interested in this collaboration I did a while back; the music and video are my work

The guys voice reminds me of the voice of a freerunner on youtube I was watching the other day, he was in the video doing his stuff and reading a poem too. The little colours twisting turn into cartoon characters, its quite subtle but it does work. I’ll look through the others now.