When a colleague approaches you with the teaser “You just GOTTA hear this,” you know you’re in for something truly great.  And of course by truly great, in most cases, I mean truly bad.  And truly bad is exactly what it was.

And what it was was an eLearning course – narrated, produced and published by a peer in another department (and other state). Now, if you follow this blog, you know I’m a firm believer that just about anyone can effectively narrate an eLearning course – given a good script, the right equipment, and some common sense.  That said, we have all been subjected to commoner narration gone horribly wrong. And this was exactly the case here.  This particular narration was a textbook example of what not to do.  It was as if he had followed a checklist of Dos and Don’ts but had mistakenly confused the two columns.

Poor equipment (i.e. $10 headset microphone): check.

Recording in the office with too much ambient noise: check.

Trying to read the narration on the fly while fumbling to manually time the animations: check.

Lots of pregnant pauses, dead air, and voiceless mouse clicking: check.

These missteps guaranteed disaster, but what truly took this narration to epic un-greatness was the delivery style.  So over stylized and overdramatized that my first thought (which I inadvertently vocalized) was “Where’s the Benny Hill background music?”  The faux folksy enthusiasm gave the narration a distinctive Hee Haw vibe.  The adjective “cringeworthy” in this case would be too kind.

It seems the first instinct of a non-professional narrator when the recording light goes red (after panicking, of course)  is to make every attempt to sound like their idea of a professional narrator.  You know, the guys drop a full octave to try to sound as low and resonant as possible (Voice of God – gone wrong) and the gals jump a full octave for that dainty feminine touch.  By adding as much dramatic flair to the script as they can and rolling the inflection like a Six Flags coaster, they hope to pull off the charade.  If a little inflection is good, you see, then a lot of inflection must be better!  Enunciating every syllable with the care and attention of a diamond cutter and speaking unnaturally slowly to allow the listener to savor your words make the auditory illusion complete.

Unfortunately, these amateurish tricks almost never work.  Typically the results of such an approach are catastrophic.  There are a few things the non-professional narrator needs to recognize – and accept.

First: You are not a professional voiceover artist – but that’s OK!  You don’t really need to be.  This is an eLearning course, not an animated Disney feature. When was the last time you left a classroom-based course and thought “Wow, that instructor had a terrible speaking voice!”  Probably never. It just doesn’t happen.  Sure, we’ve all had bad instructors with terrible delivery, but their voice quality (aside from volume level) is typically not the issue.  All of us have “good” voices, in our own unique way.  Sure, we don’t all sound like these guys, but that’s why these guys get paid the big bucks:

Second: Your voice doesn’t sound as bad as you think it sounds.  We all hate the sound of our own voice.  I’ll bet even James Earl Jones cringes a bit when he hears his own voice on playback.  It’s human nature.  I hated the sound of the first course I narrated.  I thought for sure everyone else would hate it too.  Then I started getting positive feedback.  Surprisingly, they liked me.  They really liked me!  And they’ll like you too – if you can avoid the missteps of my Hee Haw-loving colleague from my example above.  (Sidenote: I still hate the sound of courses I narrate.  I’ve learned to live with it.)

Third: Delivery, not the character of your voice, is the key.  If you can read a script and sound like the natural you, you’ll do just fine. You don’t want your eLearning course sounding like those Hollywood voiceover guys anyway.  In fact, from my perspective eLearning narration that’s too good often comes off as synthetic and disingenuous.  And no one would necessarily want to listen to one of the guys in the video above narrate a two-hour course on sexual harassment.  Please folks, leave the dramatics for the movie trailers, the audio books, and the radio commercials – and the professionals who voice them.  Natural is what you’re looking for.  Like you, George Clooney doesn’t sound like James Earl Jones, but he can still do a good voiceover.  Why?  Because he knows delivery.  Actors aren’t hired because they were born with golden pipes.  They’re hired because they can recite a script and make it sound real.

Fourth: a good narration starts with a good script. Bad script = bad narration, no matter how great a narrator you are. Be sure to give your script plenty of attention before you start recording. Pare down unnecessary wordiness. Use contractions for a more informal tone. Inject a little humor to help connect with the learner. No one likes a stuffy classroom instructor, and the same applies to eLearning.

Voiceover professionals are a great source for advice on writing narration scripts. See Steve Anthony’s suggestion here, and check out Shelley McIntyre’s excellent document on formatting your script for voice talent (which could be you or a hired voiceover pro).

And of course there’s no reason you can’t (or shouldn’t) pay for voice talent if you have the resources to do so (and lack the time to do it yourself).  There are plenty of talented and experienced professionals that can provide a high quality narration that doesn’t sound unnatural (read: “too Hollywood”) or disingenuous.  You simply need to tell these folks what you’re looking for – and provide a script that reflects the style you’re after.

For the love of all that’s holy, please, please (please!) avoid those robotic auto-voices you see advertised for eLearning development. Shun them like the plague. Sure, clicking a button and watching your script get auto-narrated is an appealing prospect for many reasons – the benefit of your learner not being one of them. Nothing tells your learner you don’t care about them (edit: you really, really dislike them) than to subject them to these ridiculously phony narrations. And anyone with an ear can recognize these as phony by the end of the first sentence. How would you like to sit in a classroom and listen to an animatronic “instructor” synthesizing a canned script? Yeah, me neither. People like to listen to real people, especially when they’re trying to learn, and people are never going to embrace eLearning until we can inject some humanity back into it. Your learners deserve a narration voiced by a real human – and the time/money it takes to do it.

I often define the sound and style of eLearning narration I enjoy as “natural.” But what is “natural” exactly? I’m not quite sure how to define it, but I know it when I hear it. And so do you. But how can you accomplish it? To start, by avoiding the obvious faux pas outlined above. Also, try to read your narration at the same pace and style that you would normally speak it. Yes, it sounds much easier than it really is. This will require some practice. As I record, I find it helpful to read ahead several words with my eyes so I can verbalize the script at a natural pace. You will likely end up with more errors this way (necessitating more takes), but the end result will be worth it.

Here’s an example of a screencast narration that to me sounds natural and authentic, making me feel comfortable as the learner/listener:

Note the natural (read: fast) speaking pace, genuine-sounding enthusiasm and friendly, approachable tone. Would this guy be hired for a movie trailer voiceover? No way. But he sounds great in this context. And you can too, if you can just avoid the temptation to try too hard.

With a small investment in some quality recording equipment (see some of my equipment reviews on this blog), a good script, and a smart approach, you too can create your own eLearning narration that your learners not only won’t be repelled by, but will actually enjoy. And when a learner enjoys a course, odds are pretty good that he/she will actually learn something from it.

Today I’m reviewing the Samson C03U Recording Pak. This almost-all-in-one (more on that in a bit) solution looks well-suited for eLearning narrators who want high-quality recording on a modest budget.

The C03U is a USB microphone that gives you excellent recording quality while offering the convenience of a plug-and-play USB connection. The Recording Pak is a Samson bundle that includes the microphone, desktop stand, shock mount and USB cable, neatly packed into a nice molded-foam-lined aluminum case for easy storage or transport.

The microphone itself has a solid heft, and its excellent build quality is evident. Unlike my Blue Snowball mic, there’s no plastic to be seen on this baby. A 3-way pattern switch lets you select between omni, supercardioid, and figure-8 pickup patterns, which give you some flexibility in sound control based on your recording environment and situation. The figure-8 pattern, for example, is designed for recording, say, a group of people sitting around a table (if you ever run into such a need in your eLearning audio work).

The stand is short, heavy, and padded with foam underneath. There will be no inadvertent toppling of the microphone with this setup!

Being the type who jumps into a new product without first reading the instructions, I was befuddled by the microphone mount for a minute before I realized you have to remove the Euro adapter before mounting the mic (or the shockmount) to the stand.

This fact is mentioned in the owner’s manual, to my chagrin. A few quick turns with a nickel and the adapter came free, allowing me to mount the shockmount to the stand (and the mic to the shockmount). I did find it odd for Samson to ship the kit with the Euro adapter installed when the Euro adapter does not fit the stand provided in the kit.

Samson missed a golden opportunity by not including some type of pop filter with this kit. Those of us who are amateurs at voice recording have not mastered the art of plosive control, and a pop filter is absolutely essential. Samson could easily have crafted a custom-fitted pop filter for this kit for very little cost. Instead, one must rely on a third-party pop filter, which, as you can see in this photo, may not be (and likely won’t be) an ideal fit. I’m using an MXL metal pop filter, which comes affixed to a fairly large arm mount and a long flexible gooseneck. Too long to be easily maneuvered into the ideal location on the stubby Samson stand. The pop filter tries mightily to rise up and away from the microphone, as the gooseneck is not entirely pliant while it struggles for space to accommodate its excessive length. Fighting with the thing alternates between comical and frustrating, but ultimately ends up just being frustrating.

Not only is the pop filter difficult to situate, but it also poses the issue of where to store it, as there is no place to put it in the molded case. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a pop filter designed for this very kit, with its own storage slot in the case? Why, yes it would! Alas, this is one those head-smacking moments where a manufacturer stopped just short of providing the ideal solution. Samson, please consider designing a custom clip-on pop filter for future kits like this. You are so close to greatness…

The kit also comes with Cakewalk Sonar LE recording software for Windows, which I will ignore for this review as I use GarageBand on my Mac for my narration recording.

Sound quality is very good – close to my current mic of choice, the MXL USB.009, which I reviewed a few months ago. Perhaps a bit less full and a bit more harsh to my admittedly non-expert ears. I’ll let you decide for yourself, via my admittedly non-expert sample recordings below.

Samson C03U

MXL USB.009

In addition to the difficulty of attaching a pop filter, my other niggle with the Samson kit is the height of the mic stand – or perhaps better stated the height of the mic when mounted to the stand. Even with my chair adjusted to its lowest point, I had to hunch over slightly to get good mouth-to-mic placement. The much taller MXL USB.009 mic poses no such problem for me.

Overall, the Samson C03U Recording Pak is an excellent, high quality package for eLearning developers who need a good recording solution without breaking the bank. Had Samson only included a pop filter in the kit, I would have deemed this mic a home run for budget narration recording. Without it, I’ll call it a solid triple. You can pick up the kit for just under the $200 mark from various online retailers.

Might I suggest Amazon?

You don’t plan to keep recording your eLearning narration with that cheap-o headset mic, right? Right???

I’m excited to be writing what is my first hardware review here on eQuixotic. My thanks to Mike Descher of the MXL Technology Division of Marshall Electronics for providing test units of three USB microphones for my review: the Studio 1 USB, the USB.008, and the USB.009. The USB.009 is the mic I used to record the narration for my Evernote tour, which was honored with a silver in the 2009 Articulate Guru Awards. The Articulate staff had high praise for the “excellent” sound quality of my narration, hence they had high praise for the sound quality of the USB.009. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First, it’s important to note that these are USB microphones, allowing you to plug them directly into your computer for audio recording – no breakout box required. Audio pros may scoff at USB microphones, preferring their expensive XLR mics and breakout boxes or mixing boards – and probably rightly so. But I’m no audio pro. I just want to plug in and go. I don’t want my desk covered up with more junk than needed. Nor do I want to have to fiddle with dozens of knobs and switches. So a USB microphone fits my needs perfectly. Sometimes it’s nice to be a simple man with simple needs.

The biggest complaint I’ve read about USB microphones is that the sound level afforded by the amount of power that can be provided via a USB connection can be low. In which case, why don’t we see Firewire microphones instead of USB? But I digress.

For a couple of years I’ve been using the Blue Snowball microphone, which is also a plug-and-play USB mic.

At the time I bought the Snowball, there were only two desktop USB mics on the market. Now there are many to choose from. And while my Snowball has served me well (and looks super cool), I suspect it may have a hard time holding its own against its younger competitors. We shall soon find out.

MXL is kind enough to include a case and a stand for each of these microphones, neither of which was included with my Snowball at the time of purchase (though Blue now includes a desktop stand with the Snowball, and they were gracious enough to send me one free of charge once they started bundling them with the mics). The cases are a nicety but not a necessity to me, as my mic remains in permanent residence on my desktop. Each mic also conveniently includes a 10′ USB cable, so you won’t have to boost a cable from, say, your printer every time you want to record some audio. (Now if only printer manufacturers would get a clue and include a USB cable with their printers…)

As you can probably imagine, these three models are at different levels of the microphone food chain, and their prices reflect that reality. Let’s jump into the nitty gritty of each, shall we?

Disclaimer: as I mentioned above, I’m no audio pro. I don’t pretend to be an audio pro. I have no idea what audio pros know. So I’m not going to get into things like frequency response, sampling rates, A/D converters, and whatnot. If you’re serious about such things (and I’m not saying you shouldn’t be), check the MXL website for the detailed specs. Me, I’m just looking for “Plug in, sound good.” *grunt*

Also, I’m not going to opine on the sound quality of each mic. Sound is, after all, one of those highly subjective things. And I’d just sound like a fool if I tried to pontificate about honey-smooth midranges and tinkling highs. I’ll let you be your own judge via some audio samples I’ll provide at the end of the review. Logic would dictate that the more expensive mic would sound better than the model below it, and that logic would probably be correct. Whether that amount of “better” justifies the upcharge between models…well, that will have to be up to you.

At the entry level, we have the Studio 1 USB.

Street price on this mic is only around $100, so you have no excuse to keep using that cheapo USB headset mic for your eLearning narration. The Studio 1 USB has a headphone jack for monitoring, but nothing else. No on-mic gain control, no sound settings. Plug it in, fire up your audio recording app of choice (mine is Apple’s GarageBand), and start recording. The headphone jack is a nice feature, as it provides low latency monitoring, i.e. you don’t get the annoying sound delay you may get when outputting your monitor audio from your computer. My gripe with the Studio 1 USB mic is the worthless stand that it’s bundled with. It’s tipsy and too small to accommodate a gooseneck pop filter (at least the pop filter I use, anyway). For my sample recordings I had to hold my pop filter by hand. Not good. And I may be an audio neophyte, but I do know one thing: a pop filter is a must. Notable plosives simply scream amateur hour. So tack on the price of a decent desktop mic stand to the Studio 1 USB.

And to any of these mics, tack on the price of a pop filter. Mine is a metal model I picked up at my local Guitar Center for around $50. This is money well spent. Trust me.

Moving along to our next mic, the USB.008 mic goes midtown, with a street price of around $170.

Sadly, the USB.008 comes with the same pointless mic stand as the Studio 1 USB, so again, factor in the price of a better stand. The USB.008 does provide you with a 3-way gain control switch to tweak your input levels, but oddly does away with the headphone jack for on-mic monitoring. A curious choice by MXL – you hate to see an upscale model lacking a feature found on its budget-priced little brother. And the USB.008 also has a cheesier case then the Studio 1 USB – it’s just a zippered soft case, unlike the plastic, compartmentalized case of the Studio 1 USB:

Curiouser and curiouser.

The Studio 1 USB and USB.008 are small compared to my Blue Snowball, with its tall stand and Ringer shockmount.

The USB.009 takes us uptown (way uptown compared to the prices of the other mics), with a street price around $400.

But this is MXL’s flagship USB mic, and it shows (sounds). First, this thing is built like a tank. I have no doubt it would survive an errant topple from the desktop with aplomb (I will not, however, confirm this via testing). The headphone monitoring jack is back (this time with its own volume control knob), with the addition of mix and gain control knobs. The mix knob controls the live mic and computer playback volume during monitoring. A nice touch. The USB.009 also comes with a nice aluminum case:

And, ta-da – a usable desktop mic stand! This is a heavy, solid piece of work that won’t be teetering over every time you bump your desk leg with your foot – and it ably accommodates a gooseneck pop filter.

MXL claims the USB.009 is the first plug-and-play USB mic to record at 24-bit/96kHz, though I don’t know if that spec is of the utmost importance for doing eLearning narration work. Nonetheless, the components in the USB.009 are a big step up from the other two mics in this review. And like my dad always said, in the long run you never regret spending extra money for quality (and I’ve learned the hard way that he was right).

I assume the USB.009 is also a better fit for instrument recording, so if you’re going to work on that acoustic new age guitar album after you finish your eLearning course, you’re good to go. And can you really put a price on versatility?

Size-wise, the USB.009 goes toe-to-toe with my Blue Snowball:

I have only two gripes about the USB.009. The first is the glowing blue light (!) that emanates from its core.

I don’t know about you, but glowing blue lights are one of those things that are kinda cool the first time you see them but very much uncool thereafter. It got annoying during a narration recording session. I wish the mic had a switch to turn off the light. I doubt Bob Dylan sings into a glowing blue mic…

My second gripe is the lack of indicator markings on the gain, mix and headphone volume knobs. It’s frustrating to have to turn a knob to its stop point to know where you are within the range.

So if I were MXL king for a day, I’d drop the blue light and add a marking to each knob. Easy fixes.

Also, my unfortunate test unit was afflicted with a short in the headphone volume knob, which would cause the sound to vacillate between stereo and left-channel-only, depending on the position of the knob. This became an annoyance during headphone monitoring. Were this a mic I had purchased, I assume MXL would replace the mic or repair the defect promptly.

But now I’m just picking nits. My clear favorite of the trio, blue light and all, is the USB.009. Big surprise. But is it worth the extra money? My dad says “absolutely.” And I’d have to agree. You’ll certainly get many years of high-quality narration recording out of this mic. But if your budget absolutely, positively can’t accommodate a $400 microphone, the USB.008 and Studio 1 USB should serve you ably. Once you buy a decent mic stand.

I’ll conclude this review with recording samples from each mic. These samples were recorded using Apple’s GarageBand, with the Narrator setting applied, as that’s the sound setting I use and I want these samples to reflect real world use. These are uncompressed WAV files.

I’ll also include a reference recording from my Blue Snowball mic, as well as a recording from a Plantronics USB headset mic, which many eLearning developers inexplicably find adequate. Zing!

The first sample includes a recording from each mic. But I’m not going to tell you which is which mic is which when you listen to them. Pick your favorite, then scroll to the end of the review to see which mic it is.  I used a snippet of narration from my Evernote tour for my source material.  NOTE: the links as shown below are not my ideal format – if anyone knows how to add a “Play” button for a WAV file in a WordPress post, please let me know.  I found plugins for audio players, but they don’t handle WAV – and I don’t want to give you compressed MP3 versions of the mic samples.

Samples from all mics together.

Below are individual sample recordings from each mic.

Plantronics .Audio DSP-400

Blue Snowball

MXL Studio 1 USB

MXL USB.008

MXL USB.009

And this is the order of the microphones as they appeared in the all-mics sample:

Blue Snowball

MXL USB.008

MXL Studio 1 USB

MXL USB.009

Plantronics .Audio DSP-400

Addendum: in response to DesignerDad’s comment (below), here’s a photo of my “homebrewed” sound booth. Ugly but cheap – and functional. I thought others might be interested in my setup as well. You can read about it in more detail in my October post on narration recording.

Sorry to all for my recent lack of writing. Aside from the ever-crazy “life in general,” I was scrambling to finish my submission for the Articulate Guru Awards 2009 – a project I put together in my so-called “spare time” (much to the dismay of my wife and children), independent of my employer. Sadly, there are only so many hours in the day. I need to overcome this pesky need for sleep. But I digress…

I was thrilled to see my work, a visual tour of Evernote desktop and iPhone software (which I love), honored with a Silver award!

In an industry that often seems obsessed with buzzwords du jour, abstract theory and academic gobbledygook, I often wonder if anyone else cares about what I care about: designing visually engaging eLearning that people actually want to pay attention to. This focus typically makes me feel like the odd man out among my peers.

So I was elated to be given some measure of vindication with the award. You can have a look at my entry, along with those of the other winners (to whom I offer my hearty congratulations), if you feel so inclined.

I was particularly surprised when the Articulate staff praised my narration work. Like any other normal human, I hate the sound of my own voice and often wonder how it is perceived by others. I’m a big fan of a casual narration style (save the drama for movie trailers and audiobooks, please) – hence my own guerilla narration work. If you want something done your way, do it yourself, right? The narration was done with a review unit of the Marshall MXL USB.009 microphone (a special thanks to Mike Descher of Marshall for that). I’ll post a detailed review of that microphone, and two other MXL mics, shortly, but the conclusion is obvious: the USB.009 is a great mic for eLearning narration work.

I’ll also be detailing some of the tricks I used to create my Evernote tour. Much to do, much to do! Hopefully we’ll get some new readers as well – the bigger the collaborative pool, the better.

My thanks go to Articulate for their fantastic products and their wonderful staff support.

I use Apple GarageBand to do my narration recording. No, it’s not a high-end pro audio editor (nor am I a high-end pro narrator). But for narration recording, I find GarageBand offers a great blend of functionality and ease of use. And you can’t beat the price (free with any Mac). I plan to post a detailed walkthrough of my narration recording and editing process in GarageBand in the near future.

There are areas in which GarageBand falls short, however. Converting my AIFF files to WAV (for importing into Articulate), for example. Enter Amadeus Pro by HairerSoft, which steps in to fill the void with panache. I don’t use Amadeus Pro for recording or editing – I use it for its excellent batch processing features for post-production of my GarageBand-output audio files. Let me give you an example by showing you how Amadeus Pro saved my bacon today.

I was finishing a course for a customer in Articulate Presenter. Since this course was being delivered in a classroom in a presentation-style format, I wanted the course to auto-advance from screen to screen. When I edit my audio files I typically leave no “dead air” at the beginning or end – I like things concise. The resulting problem with this particular course was the advancement from screen to screen was too fast – there wasn’t any pause in the audio to let the information sink in with the learner.

The customer requested a 3-second pause between each screen. Unfortunately, Articulate Presenter does not allow you to set a delay when auto-advancing slides. The only solution I could come up with was to add 3 seconds of silence to the end of each of my audio files. All 100+ of them. Now that sounded like an awfully tedious task. And I loathe tedious tasks. There had to be an easier way.

And there was. With Amadeus Pro (for the Mac). I simply created a new Batch Processor:

Then I added a new action. The first action I needed was Set Selection – meaning, I needed to identify where in the audio track I wanted to insert some silence.

I wanted to insert my silence exactly at the end of the track. So I selected 0.00 seconds and clicked the Select from end radio button.

Now I needed to add a second action to insert some silence:

3 seconds, to be exact:

And my Batch Processor is now complete. Amadeus Pro will select the end of my track and insert 3 seconds of silence at that point. I’m going to save this Batch Processor and name it Insert 3 Seconds Silence at End:

My Batch Processor now appears as an icon on my desktop (or anywhere else I want to save it):

I open the Batch Processor by double-clicking the icon, then I select all my audio files and drag and drop them on the window well (highlighted below in blue):

And voila, Amadeus Pro now happily goes about its business adding 3 seconds of silence to the end of each one of my 100+ audio files. While I kick back and play a little Rolando on my iPhone. Ain’t technology grand?

I have another Batch Processor I use to normalize my audio files, convert them to mono, and then convert them from AIFF (GarageBand’s native export format) to WAV format (for importing into Articulate). All with a couple of quick mouse clicks.

You can spend a pretty penny for an audio app that does batch processing. Or you can spend a mere $40 on Amadeus Pro.

$40 (Amadeus Pro) plus free (GarageBand) = a pretty good little audio recording, editing, and processing setup for guerilla eLearning narrators for mere peanuts. Sounds like a steal to me.

Note: yes, Audacity (free) has some rudimentary batch processing functionality too, but I’ve found it far more limited than what I get in Amadeus Pro, which dwarfs Audacity in the number of automated actions it can perform. And frankly I’m no big fan of the primitive, open source interface of Audacity. Despite the tempting price tag.

I’ve talked plenty on this blog (and on other blogs and online forums) about doing your own narration work for your eLearning projects. And I will continue to do so. Sure, most of us don’t have the golden “Voice of God” (heaven knows I don’t) and weren’t really born to do voiceover work, and yes, using a professional voiceover specialist for your project will almost certainly result in a higher quality product (though I’ve argued that hiring the wrong voiceover person will give your project a cheesy “over-produced” vibe), but if you’re doing guerilla work in the trenches without a ton of money to throw around, doing your own narration work may be a necessity.

So let’s assume you’re like me and you’re doing your own narration. Does that mean strapping on a cheap headset microphone and popping and heavy breathing your way through your course? I certainly hope not (though I’ve been subjected to courses where the narrator did exactly that). You do need to invest some money in decent equipment. Decent, of course, being highly subjective – most real voiceover pros would laugh at my pitiable little setup (and my voiceover work, for that matter). That said, there have been great strides made in recent years with products geared to podcasters (and, consequently, DIY eLearning course narrators). Selection is way up, prices are down – people are cutting entire albums in their own homes, on a tight budget, with a level of quality The Beatles would have killed for.

A big issue that remains for us guerilla narrators is sound isolation. We don’t have foam-enveloped sound booths in which to record. So we have to improvise. I did it with under $50 worth of foam core and acoustical foam tiles. The problem is the whole thing is very rickety, it’s a pain to set up, and frankly, it looks third-rate (which has the unfortunate effect of making me feel third-rate about the work). And my sound is probably too “dead” with this setup anyway.

When I get serious about this narrating thing (read: when I get some extra cash), I plan to look for something better, both for my microphone and for my home-based sound booth. A new microphone will come first (my review of 3 Marshall MXL mics will be posted soon).

For a portable sound booth for the discriminating narrator, perhaps the Sound Engineering Reflexion Filter best fits the bill. Five layers of sound-aborbing materials, wrapped in an I-mean-business-looking punched (for sound diffusion) aluminum shell.

(Note to Sound Engineering: shrinking that enormous logo would provide an instant uptick in classiness.)

Not only should the Reflexion Filter help keep the sound bouncing off your walls from wrecking your recording – even more importantly it should also do a good job blocking out the hum of your computer fans (as you’re likely recording directly to a PC).

I say should because I haven’t tested one – nor am I any type of audio recording expert. But I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

(Actually I lie – I don’t even have the Holiday Inn Express thing going for me…*sigh*)

The bad news? The Reflexion Filter sells for about $300 (street price). Cheap for real audio professionals. Not cheap for eLearning guerilla narrators.

That said, I may be saving my pennies for the Reflexion Filter. Frankly, I’m tired of inadvertently knocking my teetering foam tiles over.

I wouldn’t mind trying out a Sound Engineering USB2200a USB microphone either (it’s probably time to retire the Snowball). Another $400 for that – not including shock mount or stand. Ouch. But perhaps money well-spent if you’re going to be doing a lot of your own narrating. Hey, you’ll still end up saving money in the long run over hiring the work out…

Wired Magazine offers some reviews on USB microphones suitable for podcasting (or eLearning narration):

Alesis USB Mic Podcasting Kit (manufacturer’s link here)

Audio-Technica AT2020 USB (manufacturer’s link here)

Marshall Electronics MXL Studio 1 (manufacturer’s link here)

Blue Snowball (manufacturer’s link here)

My Blue Snowball received the lowest rating of the four – due somewhat to its “bulbous” nature? Hmmm. Oh, and its “harsh, midrange-heavy voice track.” Hmmm again.

My Snowball has done me just fine, though I wouldn’t mind trying out the competition. The Snowball was one of only two such USB mics on the market at the time I bought it. Ah, how things have changed. Seems like everyone’s jumping on this whole newfangled “democratization of media” thing nowadays.

Have a look at these latest USB microphone offerings, as well as the new Shure mics I mentioned last week. And if you use any of these (or something else), I’d love to hear about it in the comments section.

And please, stop doing your eLearning narration recording using that free headset mic your son got with his copy of Unreal Tournament 2007…

We’re back, after a refreshing holiday break. I hope you and yours had a joyous holiday season, and I wish a happy (and healthy) 2009 to you all!

Now, back to business.

There is probably no bigger name in professional-quality microphones than Shure, and it’s nice to see Shure finally step into the 21st century with the release of two USB microphones and an XLR-to-USB adapter.

The PG27USB mic (retail $199) is a flat response mic geared to a “wide variety of instrument and vocal sound sources,” while the PG42USB (retail $249) is designed to “reproduce the subtle nuances of lead vocals.”

Will that extra $50 you’d pay to step up to the PG42USB make any noticeable difference for eLearning narration recording? Inquiring minds want to know.

If you have an XLR microphone that you harbor an undying love for, ditch the breakout box/mixer and plug it directly into your computer with the X2u XLR-to-USB Signal Adapter (retail $129), which is about $70 more than the Blue Icicle I mentioned in November.

I’d love to know how these mics compare to my Blue Snowball, and if I were one of those fancy schmancy big name bloggers with huge readership, Shure would probably send me a couple of review units to test out. A guy can dream…

Get all the details from Shure’s press release, as reported by Engadget.

Sidenote: Sean Parnell of CEntrance generously offered up their MicPort Pro (an XLR-to-USB mic preamp) for my review. Sadly, I don’t have an XLR mic with which to review it. But you may want to check out their product as an alternative to the Icicle or X2u.

I recently talked about the Blue Snowball USB desktop microphone I use for my eLearning narration work. Despite the explosion of consumer desktop PC audio recording and podcasting in recent years, the selection of good USB microphones is still inexplicably limited. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just plug an XLR mic into some kind of magic dongle to give it USB connectivity without needing a breakout box or mixer cluttering up your desktop? Yes it would. And Blue agrees. Hence their new Icicle inline USB converter and preamp for XLR mics. Hooray!

The Icicle is scheduled to debut next month for around $60. Now maybe I can check out some pro-level headset mics as I haven’t been thrilled with the USB headset mics I’ve tried thus far (which seem geared mainly for casual gaming and Skype/VOIP and not studio-quality audio recording).

Also of interest: a brief how-to video on Blue’s website demonstrating the use of the Blue Snowball for podcasting (thus, eLearning narration recording). They’re using GarageBand, which is what I use for my narration work (I hope to post a brief tutorial on my GarageBand workflow in the near future). Worth a watch.

In an April post, I made my case for narration in eLearning. As a learner, I love it (when done right). So as a developer, I like to create narrated courses. Many of us, for budgetary reasons, have to do our own in-house narration work. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – I made the point in that earlier post that professional voiceover work can sound synthetic if you don’t get the right voice for your project. And I won’t even start griping about those robotic text-to-speech tools that are being foisted upon the eLearning development community (note my rant on that topic in the earlier post as well).

In addition to the cost savings, doing your own narration recording makes it quick and easy for you to go in and make changes – which, based on my experience, your customer will ask for. No matter how many times they’ve supposedly “reviewed” and “approved” the script. (Note to self: I need to better explain the definition of the words “review” and “approve” to my customers.)

While I won’t claim to have been born with a professional voiceover voice (far from it), I have managed to create narrations that sound good despite the lack of golden vocal chords and the budget for an expensive recording setup. I thought I’d share with you my setup as it may be helpful if you’re just getting started yourself. Or perhaps you’re not happy with the results you’re getting from your current equipment.

Personally, I have never been able to get decent results from a headset microphone. I even purchased the headset recommended by the folks at Articulate (a Plantronics model), and while the results sound OK, they don’t sound good. I would love the convenience and script-reading ease of a headset mic, but until someone creates a really good one, I’ll stick with my desktop mic: the Blue Snowball.

Now, professional narrators would probably never consider using a USB microphone. But I don’t want to deal with a breakout box/mixer for an XLR mic. I like the convenience (and small desktop footprint) of a simple USB mic I can plug directly into my computer. There are now a handful of good desktop USB mics that are well-suited to narration work. I chose the Snowball. It sounds good. And it looks good. I added the ringer shock mount (which is probably overkill for my needs) and a pop filter (which I consider a must-have accessory). I picked up my metal-screened pop filter at Guitar Center for around $40. The Snowball can also be found at Guitar Center, or various online outlets.

To squeeze the best possible sound out of my budget setup, I created my own little desktop sound booth with four 16″ acoustic tiles from Markertek glued to 16″ square pieces of foam core I bought (and had cut to size) at a local art supply store. You can see my setup in the photo below. Note in the photo I don’t have the pop filter attached, which I always do when recording. When I need to record, I place a towel under my mic and stand three acoustic tiles around it. Laying the fourth tile on top keeps the whole thing from toppling over (note the big open gap in the back top edge is not normal – this was a quick rush setup for the photo).

My rig won’t win any awards for looks, but it gets the job done on a budget. The only real downside is the difficulty in reading my narration script. I record at an angle, looking off to the right to read my narration script. Sure, I’m a bit cross-eyed by the end of my recording, but the angle helps reduce the plosives and the foam tiles give me pretty good sound isolation.

Once I’m done with my recording and editing, I simply stack my tiles under my desk and slide the mic back out of the way until the next project. Cake. And who doesn’t love cake?

For software, I use Apple’s free (with any Mac) GarageBand, which has been a great tool for narration recording. I will detail my process and the narration-friendly features of GarageBand in a future post.

My iMac is whisper quiet, which helps. You don’t realize just how noisy the world is until you’re focused on trying to achieve complete silence. My old desktop PC sounded like a vacuum cleaner compared to my iMac.

So this is my setup, and it works well for me. The whole thing (minus the iMac of course) was around $200. More than the $75 I spent on that Plantronics headset mic, but the results are far better.

If you have a different setup that works well for you, I’d love to hear about it.

Happy narrating!