Quote:
Originally Posted by old_skul  Let's say you're recording commercial voiceover material, for radio commercials, long-form stuff, whatever. What sort of gear do gearslutz use for this task? |
Well, the list of 'gear' you need to recording pro-quality voice-overs at home is obviously a lot longer than just a microphone - you need a good pre-amp, room treatment, good cables, mic stand, pop shield, good cans, monitors, classy A-D-A conversion, appropriate plug-ins, quality furniture that doesn't sqeak when you draw breath, an expensive pencil (just kiddin'), time and experience to know how to get the most out of all this... etc etc - it's a very long list!
Decide where you want to end up at and start buying one quality piece at a time - it'll take longer but you won't regret a good purchase, ever!
I don't know the A-designs pre's and I don't run into C414's for V/O much anymore at other studios, but FWIW here's my vocal chain and periphery gear:
- Gefell M930 >> Pauli Superscreen >> Vovox Cable >> Metric Halo ULN-2 >> Mac (Logic8) >> La Cie Firewire Drives
- The mic sits on a K&M stand with a Realtraps Portable Vocal Booth rigged behind it and I have a set up of 4 x Realtraps MiniTraps behind my head
- Cans are Sony MDR-7506, monitoring by PMC and BlueSky, room treatment by RealTraps Minis and Mondos
- Other stuff = solid table & chair, music stand, script holder, carpet, triple glazed windows, sharp junk to throw at noisy neighbours, etc etc
See how the list can get very long, just for a basic one-mic V/O set-up!
The Gefell M930 is an insanely good mic for voice-over IMHO and extremely quiet. I've found nothing that sounds substantially 'better' until you hit stuff like the Brauner VM1 which is 5x the price. The only strike against it is the unusual and expensive bespoke 'rubber doughnut' of a shockmount which doesn't work well for 'overhanging' the mic upside down, if that's how you work. I reviewed this mic
here, including, as it happens, some comment on the not-as-good though very good value Shure KSM32.
I believe in WAVs! You can hear all this in action in
this thread, although note that for various reasons these tests were with a Brauner Phantom which despite its incredible bass response I find has too much HF lift and I prefer the more 'rounded' sound of the M930 on my voice at least.
In fact I just ordered an SM7B so I'm looking forward to hearing that mic on my voice too.
For voice-over I record clean into my DAW at 24-bit/44.1k and do all my processing ITB mainly for time and convenience - there's a wealth of good EQ/De-Ess plug-ins out there that will get the job done. Decent compressor plugs are a little harder to source - I'm sure folks will have some suggestions. The cleanest limiter plug-in I've found is Ozone, and I use Type 2 'clean' dither on that too if needed.
Switch off every appliance in your house and hope no planes fly overhead / dogs bark / kids shout / building site crashes / emergency sirens ring / farm machinery threshes while you record. Otherwise you might consider investing in or constructing a bespoke vocal booth.
Finally, radio interference can be a crippling problem for critical V/O work in some urban areas - check you're free of that!