Self Service Booth Disclaimer

The Voice Trax West self record booth is provided as a place to record without an audio engineer or for 1-on-1 coaching sessions. The following is the scope of services and booth expectations.

A short amount of instruction can be provided for a first time user to point out the basic aspects and controls of the booth and its equipment, however a basic understanding of recording and use of software is recommended. Additional training can be provided by Voice Trax West staff for additional cost and must be scheduled in advance. 

Computer, Software, pre-amp, microphone, and routing presets are provided and kept up to date and working to the best of our ability. If additional help is needed, we are happy to do so based on staff availability. Come find someone and we will help out as soon as we are able to do so.

Pre-sets

Various mixer presets have been created to provide modified functionality based on what the room is being used for. The most common of these would be the default preset, which provides a baseline gain setting on the microphone pre-amp with a light amount of audio compression and make-up gain with a target recording level of -8 dB to -12 dB. This is our attempt to provide a setting that will work for most people, however adjusting the level of gain will still be required in many cases and the actual recording level will depend on your voice print, the gain level set, and mic technique.

If this is a bit foreign to you, don’t worry. Some of these details are here for those who are more technical or for those who have clients with specific requests for recording and compression levels. We do not generally provide help setting recording levels, but if this is something that you require we can provide this for an additional charge. If available, we are happy to quickly confirm that settings and levels appear to be ok for no additional charge.

Noise

Unwanted noise is a constant battle in most audio recording. The booth and equipment provided do a reasonable job of reducing unwanted noise, but it will be up to you to be vigilant and aware of any noise from external sources, or from the equipment itself. Some amount of unwanted sound is acceptable for the type of recording you will likely be doing, but knowing where the bar is might be unfamiliar to you. If you are unsure if your recordings are sounding good, please consult with us for help.

For our purposes here, noise will fall into two categories: external and equipment.

External noises include things like doors shutting, music bleeding through the walls from Chin Chin restaurant next door (sometimes the music in one of their restrooms is turned up a little too loud), deliveries or people walking outside, or other noises from within Voice Trax West.  Some of this is to be expected, such as occasional deliveries and the taking out of trash to and from Chin Chin, which will require you to pause while it is happening. However, some items that are constant can be stopped, and noise that is under our control can be mitigated to the best of our ability. Come find someone if something seems to be unusually noisy so we can look into that for you.

Equipment noise will be less common, but is possible if something is not set correctly. This type of noise will tend to be constant and most likely would be in the form of a hum or static in the headphones. If you are hearing noise that seems to be louder than it should be, or if something is suddenly different then it was previously, consult with us to ensure everything is set correctly.

Editing

Editing and post production are not provided. It is assumed that editing and any required post production will be done by you or a third party. The recording levels and noise thresholds are designed with an experienced editor/audio engineer in mind. The recordings from this booth are not intended to be a finished product and will most often require additional editing or post processing by an audio professional. The amount of editing or post processing will vary dramatically based on exactly what is being recorded. Please consult with us if you have any questions.

Engineering Assistance

Engineering assistance is available for $40 per half hour with a half hour being the minimum time period. The room and presets should be setup with basic presets for recording, however we do realize that sometimes specific scenarios arise where additional assistance may be needed and we are here to help. Below is a list of some of the scenarios that we can help with. 

• Setting mic gain and mixer gain structure settings including custom compression and eq. 
• Creating a Twisted Wave effects stack. Some reasons could be reducing sibolence or equilizing and normalize settings for a specific job
• File management, such as assistance with file naming and organization or importing and exporting files
• Pro Tools or Twisted Wave training
• Correcting mistakes in the audio. Items like complex file exports, bulk renaming, noise reduction, light editing,preparing a pro tools session to insert pickups, or inserting already recording pickups. 

The above items are just some examples of tasks we can help with. There are many variations, so check with us with a specific situation to see what we can do to help.