Environmental conditions

Parameters to describe the environmental conditions are room acoustics, the sources of noise^3.5 and the presence of cross talk of other speakers.^3.6Usually only persistent noise or cross talk are described in a recording protocol.

• Room acoustics
  As a minimum the description of the room acoustics should give information about the place of recording, in particular whether the recording was in the field, under studio or studio-like conditions or other special room types (echo canceled studio, studio, quiet office, office with printer/telephone, office with 1/2/5/10 employees, quiet living room (furniture, open/closed windows), living room with TV/PC running, living room with kids playing, standing car, running car, running car in the City, running car on a freeway (velocities, windows up/down, radio on/off, wipers on/off), phone booth on street, phone booth in shopping mall etc.)
• Sources of noise/background noise
  State the sources of noise or background noise that can be found in the recorded signals: noise produced by the host computer/sound card, spinning disks, ventilation, noise caused by cellular phones, by fluorescent lights, 50/60 Hz hum, typical office/home/street noise, machines etc.

  The protocol also should contain a differentiation as to whether the background noise is real or artificially produced by play-back.

• Cross talk
  If other voices are part of the background noise, this has to be noted by a yes/no schema.