Tricks for recording voice for use on telephones?

[Fripholm]

Hi,

I have to record some sentences for a voice based phone exchange system. When i preview them via my phone the 's' is more like 'f' and it is difficult to understand.

i have a RME HDSP Multiface, a good preamp and some decent mics for recording.

Are there any tricks how to optimize the limited bandwidth of the phone line to make it more audible?

thanks in advance
Thomas

ps. sorry for my poor english

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo Frip:

Your English is fine.

If you can adjust EQ that sometimes will clear up vague consonants.

Good delivery/articulation is a prime factor. If you ever watch CSI Miami, listen to A. Proctor speak -- she must have her mouth filled with marbles -- I can easily hear Horatio's delivery -- hers is terrible and that's done at a major studio, I think. Her nasal twang doesn't help her at all.

Try to arrange your syntax in the messages with less of the trouble-making sounds. A good mic pre will be a big help.

The consonant "t" has to be articulated or it falls off to driftwood.

A good vocal mic is also needed and maybe a compressor.

Good luck.

Green Hornet

 

[jonhall5446]

We run or business around computer telephony. We use electro-voice mics and and a budget ic pre. It also never hurts to hire a professional voice who is accustomed to this typw of work.

 

[Fripholm]

Thanks for your replies!

jon, what are the sample rates you can use?
I was told to downsample to only 8000 Hz which makes even the best recording sound awful.

cheers
Thomas

 

[Aren]

That is true, I used to work in a studio that did a lot of these jobs, and we always down-sampled it to 8K. The thing is, you have to use decent sample-rate conversion software. I don't remember which one we used, but it was made by Waves. The difference between a deticated converter and something like Sound Forge is unbelievable.
For tracking, the studio used an SM-57 into a Neve preamp.

Good Luck!

Oren