Yesterday I wrote about starting to record audio for educational instruction, giving my ten top tips.  If you haven’t read that, you need to read it first before reading this!  Overnight, I have realised I missed two really important tips – so you get a bonus (albeit short) blog entry today.

Power it up!

Audio recording can take a lot of processing – so make sure you are running on mains power if possible – this ensures that your computer has the juice it needs. Additionally, some computers have power profile settings, with imaginative names such as “Performance”, “Normal”, “Power Saver” and the like.  Always use the highest performance settings, as this will allow your processor to use all the power it needs – and this means better audio quality.

Turn them off!

Before you record, turn off the distractions that can make noise.  That means your phone, your email, your Twitter notifications, your Yammer notifications, your Facebook notifications – you get the idea – if it dings, beeps or vibrates, make it so it can’t!  I once had a coffee machine decide to run its pump in the middle of a recording – it was very noisy!

So there you have it – two bonus but incredibly important additional tips!