Test your mic levels in the browser before you record. See your peak, headroom, and background noise against audiobook narration targets — nothing is uploaded.
Position yourself and your microphone as they will be during recording. Speak at your loudest intended volume. The green bar should fill most of the gauge without turning red. Adjust your OS, mixer, or other levels as needed.
A microphone check is a quick test of your recording levels before you start narrating. It confirms your voice is loud enough to use, quiet enough at the noise floor to sound professional, and never so loud that it clips. Grant microphone permission, speak a few lines at your normal narration volume, and watch the gauge.
Your loudest moment should peak just below 0 dB. Staying under −3 dB leaves room for the occasional louder line so nothing clips and distorts. Clipping cannot be fixed in post — it has to be caught here.
If your peaks never get above −20 dB you are recording too quietly. A weak signal forces you to boost the gain later, which raises your noise floor along with your voice. Move closer or raise your input gain.
Between phrases the meter shows your room’s background noise. Keeping it below −60 dB gives you clean, publish-ready audio and clean room tone. Fans, traffic, and computer hum are the usual culprits.
Everything runs in your browser. Your microphone audio is analysed locally for the level meter and is never recorded, saved, or uploaded.
The gauge shows your microphone’s level in decibels relative to full scale (dBFS), the scale every digital recorder uses. 0 dB is the absolute ceiling — the loudest a digital signal can be before it clips. Everything you record sits below it, as a negative number, so −6 dB is louder than −30 dB.
As you speak, the meter tracks two things: your peak — the loudest instant of your delivery — and your noise floor, the quiet hum and hiss of your room between phrases. Good audiobook audio needs both in the right place: a peak with a little headroom under 0 dB, and a noise floor low enough that the silences sound truly silent.
That gap between your voice and the noise floor is your signal-to-noise ratio. The wider it is, the cleaner your room tone sounds and the less you have to fight noise in editing. Set your levels here once, in the same position you’ll record in, and your whole session benefits.
Check in your real recording position. Levels change with distance, so sit exactly as you will to narrate — same chair, same mic angle, same distance. A check taken leaning into the mic won’t match how you actually read.
Set gain at the source, not in software. Adjust your audio interface or mixer gain knob first. Boosting a quiet recording later in editing lifts your noise floor right along with your voice.
Hunt down the noise floor. If the minimum reading sits above −60 dB, pause and listen: a computer fan, an air vent, a fridge, or traffic is usually the cause. Turn it off, move away from it, or record at a quieter time of day.
Leave a margin of safety. Aim your peaks for roughly −6 to −3 dB rather than right up at the ceiling. Performances get louder than rehearsals, and that headroom keeps a dramatic line from clipping.
Aim for your loudest peaks to land between roughly −20 dB and −3 dB, with your background noise floor staying below −60 dB. That gives you a strong, clean signal with enough headroom that nothing clips.
0 dB is the digital ceiling. If your signal reaches it, the waveform is cut off — clipping — which sounds like harsh distortion and cannot be repaired in editing. Keeping peaks under −3 dB leaves headroom for louder lines.
The noise floor is the constant low-level sound of your room — fans, hum, hiss, distant traffic — that the mic picks up between phrases. A high noise floor makes silences sound noisy and is hard to remove cleanly, so a quiet room (under −60 dB) is the foundation of professional-sounding audio.
No. The microphone check runs entirely in your browser. It reads your live input only to drive the level meter — nothing is recorded, stored, or sent anywhere.
Your browser needs permission to use the mic. If you blocked it or dismissed the prompt, click the camera/mic icon in your browser’s address bar, allow access for this site, and reload. The tool also requires a secure (HTTPS) connection.
Not to get started. A decent USB or XLR condenser mic in a quiet, soft-furnished room will pass these checks comfortably. What matters most is a low noise floor and consistent positioning — both of which this tool helps you dial in.
Punch Track is purpose-built for audiobook narrators. Punch-and-roll recording in your browser — free during beta.
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