---
name: record-clean-audio
category: media
description: Get clean voice audio from the gear they already own. Room, mic distance, levels, and a cleanup pass in Audacity. Use when they say "my audio sounds bad", "how do I record my voice", or before any recording session.
---

# record-clean-audio

Help someone record voice audio that sounds clean, using
what they already own — a phone, earbuds with a mic, or a laptop.
No purchase is required for a usable result. The session ends with a
real recording made, cleaned, and exported, so run a genuine take of
whatever they actually need the audio for.

## The room beats the mic

Most bad recordings are bad rooms, not bad mics. Before touching
settings:

- Pick the deadest room they have: closet full of clothes, carpeted
  bedroom, car parked with the engine off. Avoid kitchens, bathrooms,
  and any room that echoes when they clap once. Do the clap test
  together.
- Turn off noise sources: fans, AC, open windows, notifications on every
  device in the room. Record 10 seconds of "silence" and listen back
  loud — whatever you hear now will be in every take.
- Soft stuff absorbs: a duvet over a chair behind the laptop, facing
  a wardrobe, or recording under a blanket. Judge the setup by the test audio.

## Mic and levels

- Distance: a hand-span from mouth to mic (15–20 cm). Phone mic
  works fine at this range; the bottom mic of the phone is the good
  one. Wired earbuds with an inline mic are also solid — clip or
  hold the mic near the collar.
- Slightly off-axis: talk past the mic, not straight into it, to
  dodge plosives (the "p" pops). No pop filter needed at an angle.
- Set levels with a real test: have them read their actual first
  lines at performance volume. Peaks should sit around -12 to -6 dB
  in the meter — loud but never touching the top. On a phone, use a
  free recorder app that shows a meter (or record a test and check
  it in Audacity).
- Record a room-tone clip: 10 seconds of silence in position. The
  cleanup pass needs it.

## Cleanup in Audacity

Audacity is free on every platform. Import the recording, then in
this order:

1. Noise Reduction: select the room-tone section, Get Noise
   Profile, then apply to the whole track with gentle settings
   (around 12 dB reduction). Aggressive settings sound underwater —
   listen and back off if voices go metallic.
2. Cut the mistakes: false starts, long gaps, mouth noises. Keep
   natural pauses.
3. Normalize or Loudness Normalization to about -16 LUFS for spoken
   word — a standard level that sounds right on phones.
4. Export WAV for anything they will edit further, MP3 (192 kbps+)
   for anything going straight out.

## Done

- A real take of their actual content, recorded in the treated spot
- Before/after comparison played back — they hear what the room and
  the cleanup each did
- Exported file saved somewhere they can find it, plus the Audacity
  project if more editing is coming

This skill feeds podcast-episode, video-resume, and
screen-recording-tutorial — the audio bar is the same everywhere.