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Recording spoken vocals
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| SYSTEM-J |
Not a typical Production Studio request, but I'm sure someone here has the audio tech knowledge to answer a pretty simple request.
I want to record the voice-overs for my radio show at home. Currently I go to a friend who has his own little studio set-up but it's increasingly becoming a ballache and I want to do it in the comfort of my own home. I know you can buy a mic and just record through Audacity, but is there any better way of going about it on a normal laptop? What should I be looking for in a mic, and how much do I realistically need to pay? Any advice welcome, basically. |
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| Raphie |
decent mic RODE NT
soundcard with mic pre-amp
doesn't have to cost a lot.
buy a reflection shield though and experiment with proximity |
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| meriter |
| for voiceovers? USB mic |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Raphie
soundcard with mic pre-amp |
I'm going to need help with this kind of thing, because I don't know on the subject. |
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| JEO |
TASCAM DR-05
I can't really give any professional advice, but I use the DR-05 to record everything from short spoken memos to ambiances and fingertapping my apartment's windows for percussion to my tracks. Does the job very well for me. My only (really unprofessional) complaint about the DR-05 is the overall plasticky feel of the buttons and the case in general. The first sound recorded is always me letting go of the rec button, but I've gotten used to that, and since I edit my recordings 100% of the time, it doesn't really matter. |
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| DJ RANN |
That's actually not a bad suggestion but you could spend less than that and get good results.
I used to produce live radio interview for the BBC and Commercial radio and we used the Audio technica pro24 for stereo applications (i.e. two people around a mic or as a room mic), or a small Audio technica AT25 mono mic but to be honest, I know a bunch of people here doing professional voice over work only with a Blue Microphones Snowball.
It's 50quid, you just plug it in via USB and set your levels in audacity. Away you go and it's solid so no faffing around.
I'd do that if I were you jack. |
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| cryophonik |
| If you can swing it, I'd go with a Shure SM7B for a mic and couple it with any cheap, but decent one-channel interface (e.g., cheap Focusrite, PreSonus). The SM7B is an industry standard broadcast mic and is perfectly designed for voiceovers. It's a dynamic mic, so no phantom power is required and, unlike a condenser mic, it has excellent off-axis noise rejection, so you won't have to worry about it picking up every f'ing little sound in the background like you'll get from a condenser mic. If that's too steep for your needs, look at a Shure SM58 or SM57 (both are industry standard, most widely used dynamic mics on the planet). |
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| tehlord |
If it's only for voiceovers I'd honestly just go down the USB route.
If you want a 'proper' interface/mic setup then I would go for a Steinberg UR22 and Behringer XM8500 (SM58 clone). You could get both for about �100.
Don't forget to add a mic stand otherwise you'll just be picking up noise from the mic moving all over the place/holding it etc. |
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| Storyteller |
| Don't do a USB mic if you're using your soundcard manufacturer's ASIO drivers on PC (Asio4All might work but I am not sure). ASIO usually excludes use of other plug-in devices (such as a USB or firewire device) within the same application. DirectX is not very flexible either. I wanted to be able to do voice overs live over material that is currently recording as well so had to learn the hard way that a USB mic did not suffice for my situation. After that I went for a cheap condensor and preamp to plug into my soundcard as it is just simple voice-overs I'm doing with it. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by Storyteller
Don't do a USB mic if you're using your soundcard manufacturer's ASIO drivers on PC (Asio4All might work but I am not sure). ASIO usually excludes use of other plug-in devices (such as a USB or firewire device) within the same application. DirectX is not very flexible either. I wanted to be able to do voice overs live over material that is currently recording as well so had to learn the hard way that a USB mic did not suffice for my situation. After that I went for a cheap condensor and preamp to plug into my soundcard as it is just simple voice-overs I'm doing with it. |
To be clear, I don't do the voice-over while the music is recording. I arrange the mix in a DAW (as it has to be precisely an hour long and have idents, intro/outro, etc.) and the voice-over is imported as a .WAV. With that in mind, would this driver issue you're talking about still be relevant?
| quote: | Originally posted by JEO
TASCAM DR-05
I can't really give any professional advice, but I use the DR-05 to record everything from short spoken memos to ambiances and fingertapping my apartment's windows for percussion to my tracks. Does the job very well for me. My only (really unprofessional) complaint about the DR-05 is the overall plasticky feel of the buttons and the case in general. The first sound recorded is always me letting go of the rec button, but I've gotten used to that, and since I edit my recordings 100% of the time, it doesn't really matter. |
This thing looks pretty cool actually. I could see it having a lot of uses beyond just recording the radio show. Is there any chance you could post up an audio file of some spoken word you recorded on it, so I can gauge the audio quality? |
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| Storyteller |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
To be clear, I don't do the voice-over while the music is recording. I arrange the mix in a DAW (as it has to be precisely an hour long and have idents, intro/outro, etc.) and the voice-over is imported as a .WAV. With that in mind, would this driver issue you're talking about still be relevant? |
As long as you're using soundcard-specific ASIO drivers for production, then yes. ASIO only lets you use the ins-outs of that soundcard and excludes the use of the USB mic. Unless your DAW supports multiple interfaces simultaniously.
Having an audio interface on ASIO + USB mic would require you to switch to DirectX. However as far as I'm aware, with directX you can only record one input at a time. Either USB mic, analog in 1+2, analog in 3+4. For each seperate input you would need to switch audio input settings. In my sequencer that is the case but I'd suggest you to see if it differs in your DAW, because if it does all of this might not be applicable to you.
For me, getting a regular XLR mic + preamp solved all these troubles. |
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