Check your microphone before it’s too late
The worst time to discover a muted or distorted mic is after a twenty-minute take. As soon as the microphone is on, the level meter and mic check listen with you: they flag silence (wrong mic or muted), a level that's too quiet, a healthy level, and clipping, when your voice is so loud the sound breaks up. Clipping can't be repaired afterwards, while a slightly quiet recording can be boosted later.
Speech sounds best when its loudest moments land in the upper middle of the meter, comfortably short of the red end.
Recorded losslessly, saved the way you need
Many online recorders compress your voice while recording and then convert it again when you save, losing a little quality each time. ClipLime captures the raw audio from your microphone instead, so the WAV you download is exactly what the mic heard, and an MP3 is encoded only once, from that original.
- MP3, small and plays everywhere. 192 kbps is plenty for voice; 128 kbps saves space; 320 kbps is the maximum.
- WAV, lossless and the best starting point for editing, mixing or transcription. About 5 to 6 MB per minute.
Clean-up on or off?
Clean up my voice switches on your browser's noise reduction, echo cancellation and automatic level. It's on by default and helps a lot with laptop microphones, fans and echoey rooms.
Turn it off when you have a decent USB or XLR microphone, or when recording music: the processing can make instruments sound thin and pump the level up and down. You'll hear the untouched signal, which you can polish later in the audio editor.
Tips for a clear voice recording
- Keep the microphone a hand's width or two from your mouth, slightly off to the side to soften pops on P and B sounds.
- Soft furnishings tame echo: record near curtains, a sofa or a full bookshelf rather than in a bare room.
- Stay a consistent distance from the mic so your level doesn't swing.
- Planning a podcast or voice-over? Check the finished file with the loudness meter, and turn it into captions or a transcript with auto subtitles.