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The Sound Recording Booth

For anyone needing to record their voice in the highest-quality way possible, step into the recording booth in Lovejoy 406. his sound isolation booth provides a quiet, private space to record an audio file for use in podcasts, radio, or voiceover for video. Additionally, the computer comes with Screenflow, creating a great place to record top-notch screencasts. Recording an instrument could be done here as well.

Using the Booth

Reserve the Room

The recording booth is found Lovejoy 406.  Before doing anything, book your time here.  Click here to make your reservation.

Get comfortable

Some users are going to want to sit.  Others will want the sound that comes from standing.  Either way, get comfortable.  Wherever you’ll be, position the mic so that it’s 2 – 6″ from your mouth.  You’ll want to be directly facing the mic, so if you anticipate looking at the computer monitor, swivel the arm so that the mic is in front of the monitor.

Login

Login to the computer using the user name ‘labuser’ and the password ‘labuser’.  Open Audacity (the blue and orange headphone icon in the app tray).  The recording drop-down option should be set to ‘Mono’ if you’re only using the microphone for recording.

Set Your Levels

On the audio interface to the left of the desk, there a few knobs to be aware of.

  1. Input 1 Gain – While speaking at full volume, turn this knob up until the ‘peak’ light turns red.  Then, back the knob down a bit.  Pay attention to this during recording – if the red ‘peak’ light turns on, lower your gain accordingly.
  2. Mix (for headphones) – Moving this to ‘input’ will let you hear only the microphone.  Moving to ‘DAW’ will allow you to hear only the computer.  In between produces both sources.  Generally speaking, put it to ‘input’ when you’re recording your voice; set it to ‘DAW’ when you’re editing your audio.  If you don’t want to think about it, leave this knob in the middle.
  3. Phones – This is the headphone volume.

Record

This is pretty self-explanatory, but hit the big red button in Audacity to start recording your audio.

Alternative Options

Using Your Own Laptop

If you prefer to use your own laptop, you can.  You may already have audio recording software, or you’re doing a screencast with specific software that’s only on your computer.  In this case, reach behind the monitor to unplug the USB cable connected to the audio interface.  Plug this into your laptop.  The audio interface will need drivers which can be found here. Please plug the audio interface back into the monitor when you’re done.

Recording Music

If you have an instrument with an XLR plug or a 1/4″ jack (guitar cable), you can plug it into the audio interface.  Just bring your instrument and cable.  In stereo recording mode, Audacity will record the two channels discretely, allowing you to mixdown the channels separately.