Hear what your viewers hear.
A 10-second test of your room and your mic: room noise, voice level, clipping, hum, echo and how far your voice sits above the room. Then the fixes that matter most, biggest first.
Test a setup
Set up exactly as you’ll record: same spot, same mic, same distance. Then three steps: stay quiet for 3 seconds, read one line, clap once.
- 1 Quiet
- 2 Read
- 3 Clap
“People forgive a soft picture faster than bad sound.”
Find your quietest spot
Walk around with your phone. In each spot, stay quiet for 3 seconds, then clap once. The quietest, driest spot rises to the top.
No mic yet?
- Record a voice memo on a second phone propped close to your mouth, just out of frame. Clap at the start to line it up.
- Use the phone’s bottom mic (usually near the charging port), pointed at your mouth about a hand’s width away.
- Get into a closet full of clothes, or hang thick blankets around you.
- Turn off what hums: air conditioning, fans, the computer. Put your phone in airplane mode.
Every time you record
Before
- Record five seconds and play it back. Check the phone is using your mic, not its own.
- Hunt the noise with headphones on.
- Turn off any music, TV or radio in the background.
During
- Headphones on: meters show how loud, headphones show what.
- Speech peaks around −18 to −12 dBFS, never touching 0.
- Two seconds of quiet before and after every take.
After
- 30 to 60 seconds of room tone for every setup.
- Say what it is at the start, then back it up in two places.
How it works
For three seconds it listens to the room on its own: that’s your noise floor, and what it’s made of (a low rumble, a steady hum, hiss). Then you read one line, and it measures your speech level, your peaks, any clipping, and how far your voice sits above the room. The clap shows how long the room rings.
It turns off your browser’s own noise cleanup and volume leveling while it listens, so you hear what a recording app hears. The sound never leaves the page.
What the numbers mean
Levels are in dBFS: decibels below the loudest a recording can go, which is 0. Normal speech should peak around −18 to −12. Below −24 is too quiet; anything touching 0 is clipping. The room on its own should be far below your voice: 30 dB or more and it disappears.
Common questions
What level should my voice be?
On most phones and simple recorders, normal speech should peak roughly between −18 and −12 dBFS, with laughs and shouts staying well below 0. Never touch 0: that’s clipping, and it can’t truly be fixed afterward.
What does “voice above the room” mean?
How much louder your voice is than the room’s own noise, in decibels. Above 30 dB, the room disappears under your voice. Below 20, viewers will hear the fan, the traffic or the hum. Getting the mic closer raises it more than anything else.
Why clap?
A clap shows how long your room rings. A closet full of clothes stops almost at once; a bare bathroom rings for a second or more. Noise reduction can’t remove echo, so it’s worth fixing before you record.
Does it record me?
Only while a test runs, and only on this page. The sound is measured in your browser and never uploaded or saved. Close the page and it’s gone. Only the numbers are kept, in My Studio on your device.
Will my numbers match my recording app?
Close, not exact. Meters differ between apps and devices, and some phones still clean up the sound a little. Use it to compare setups and rooms; that’s where it shines.
Chapters 32 to 36 of Worth Watching cover sound: how it works, microphones, recording clean sound and recording your voice, including the gentle voice chain for the edit.
Read the free sample →