Recording good quality sound clips

Regardless of your intent for the audio files, quality audio capture is a necessary step when recording from your mobile phone or computer.

Keep the Microphone Steady

Place the microphone in a stable position so that it faces the source of the sound. It needs to be close enough to pick up the sound with sufficient volume - but far enough away to avoid distortion.

Cut Down on Background Noise

Your brain filters out unwanted noise when you listen. Microphones pick up all of the noise that is present. Often, this includes noises from fans, air conditioning, refrigerators, or computers as well as chattering in an office or classroom, the sound of a bell or clock chiming etc.

If possible, turn off or deactivate these noise sources.

Experimentation is important to help cut down ambient sound.

Practice with test clips before you make a final recording. Make sure you are happy with the sound before you incorporate it into a project. Test its quality out on other people - get their opinions.

Muffle echoes

You can put pillows against nearby walls to decrease wall reverberation noise. Ideally you should build a mini sound studio! Make a three-sided structure with pillows, cover it with a blanket, and pop your head inside to start recording,

Cut out voice 'hiss'

When you record speech letters such as 'p' and 's' are often distorted. You need to shield the microphone head from the sharp air movements that these sounds cause. This can be done by speaking through a wind-screen (could be simply made by speaking through a stretched jumper or pair of tights. Experiment and find out what works best!).

Work from a script

Do not improvise too much. You need to think about what is going to be said. It can be paused and played back! Mistakes will out!

Record in small chunks

Flash does not let you play back part of a sound clip to synchronise pictures to... you have to play the whole clip. If it is very long you will waste a lot of time when you come to add the images to your Flash Document.

Also, recording a long script will require lots of 'takes' to get it perfect. Short sound clips are easier to perfect, it is therefore more efficient to work with mini sound clips. The only problem you may come across is that the timbre of your voice can change from one clip to another. You need to record all of the clips in one sitting to reduce the chance of this happening.