need opinion on voiceover

joe garcia · July 26, 2007

Hey kids !!

So, I'm looking to do a 15 to 20 minute human interest spot of a musician in my area, my budget is totally non excistant, hence I do have a half-way decent wired lav (GLM-100E) for my subject. I saw this mic

(Marshall Electronics MXL.006 Condenser USB Microphone 120.00usd)

and wondered if it would be a good for recording voiceover straight to Encore.

Any help appreciated,,, thnx in advance

joe

__________________

Joe X-porter

Christopher Kennedy Alpiar · July 26, 2007

Hey kids !!

So, I'm looking to do a 15 to 20 minute human interest spot of a musician in my area, my budget is totally non excistant, hence I do have a half-way decent wired lav (GLM-100E) for my subject. I saw this mic

(Marshall Electronics MXL.006 Condenser USB Microphone 120.00usd)

and wondered if it would be a good for recording voiceover straight to Encore.

Any help appreciated,,, thnx in advance

joe

__________________

Joe X-porter

Hey Joe, I don't know this mic specifically, but I can say that in my experience there is no mic that is good enough to just plug in via USB. My advice to you is to stick with a good lav and invest in a decent single channel pre-amp at some point. If you are going to do lots of single person lav type recordings I strongly recommend the Sennheiser powered capsule K-6 series. It is a battery powered base with various screw-on capsules (including a GREAT sounding lav and an amazing shotgun) this means that you have many options for pro-quality mic situations and minimal investment. I own many mics but the best for video deal I have is a pair of those Sennheiser K6 bases, with 2 MKE2-60 lavaliers and 2 ME66 shotgun capsules. And with those pieces I have almost all my live video sound covered. They arent like large diaphragm condensors but the sound will blow you away ;)

http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_e...rs_recording_k6

http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_e...K6_overview.jpg

As for a pre-amps, I dont know the best for compact portable pre-amps as i do most everything in studio, but my favorite pre is my focusrite ISA430 Producer Pack, which is a single channel pre with all kinds of stuff on it including GREAT EQ, Compressor, gate, limiter, de-esser and A/D conversion. For all the versatility it gives you it is an amazing piece of gear. It is kinda pricy at 3k but sooo worth it:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ISA430mkII/

If you just want pre's without all the options then there are a few great manufacturers to choose from, presonus, manley, avalon, TC Electronics are some of the better ones. You can even buy single strips of Neve consoles if you got some bucks to let fly.

If you are serious about your sound, you will eventually have an arsenal of mics and preamps. Shortcuts and cheap tricks will give you like in product. Rather then spend 200 bucks on a crazy USB mic, why dont you take a trip to your local guitar center or sam ashe and look for used mic pres

Hope this info is helpful :)

joe garcia · July 27, 2007

Thank you,,, yes this helps greatly because I can assume from your post that you are miles ahead of the curve in audio knowledge. That said I appreciate your generous comments.

I guess for now I will have to do my best with what I have and save the mad money for good gear. my initial thinking was just a way to save DV tape by importing seperate audio, but the work-around is going to have to involve rolling tape and including the stuff I'd like to voice-over right at the shoot and unlinke/delete the unused vidio. Not the best technique but from what you've suggested this will have to do till I get my audio up to par..

Hal Smith · July 27, 2007

One secret is using a ribbon mike for voiceovers. There is something about ribbons that absolutely loves good male voices. The prime ribbons are the old RCA Broadcast 77DX and 44BX mikes but unfortunately they're very pricey collectors items. But you might run up on one of the Shure ribbons pretty cheap on eBay or the like. They're pretty good too.

Christopher Kennedy Alpiar · July 29, 2007

One secret is using a ribbon mike for voiceovers. There is something about ribbons that absolutely loves good male voices. The prime ribbons are the old RCA Broadcast 77DX and 44BX mikes but unfortunately they're very pricey collectors items. But you might run up on one of the Shure ribbons pretty cheap on eBay or the like. They're pretty good too.

Yes ribbons are amazing sounding! They are unfortunately very delicate requiring extra care so if you get some cool great sounding ribbons make sure you do some reading on proper care! The only other negative is that mic position is absolutely important as since it picks up sound waves only on the flat face of the ribbon (either side) that any position where the waves arent hitting dead on you lose tremendous amount of signal, and even if you scream into it with the mic turned sideways, you will get no signal at all hehe. So REALLY cool mics but tempermental to some small degree. Very worth it tho if you have the patience to get to know your mics well tho!

joe garcia · July 31, 2007

I will not dismiss the addition of ribon mics down the line, but for know I will have to concentrate on a more basic setup

as far as preamps, briefly tell me why I need one, what will it do to the sound??

Edited July 31, 2007 by joe garcia

joe garcia · July 31, 2007

Also ,, in comparing prices on mics please share your experiences with the ME66 in terms of recording distance from subjects ans environment coditions when U get a chance,,, thnx

FYI SAMY'S.COM has the 66 and the 67 for best prices on the web and the K6 power unit also sells for less at this vender,,, just thought I'd share that

Christopher Kennedy Alpiar · July 31, 2007

A pre-amp does amazing things! And different manufacturers have different sounds. Avalon sounds VERY different then Presonus. A mic pre is the initial conditioning that takes the weaker audio as picked up by the mic and normalizes the levels to line level. During the process that sound is subject to compression of a sort and as the sound runs through whatever the technology of the preamp is (tubes, etc) it changes the sound in subtle yet tasty ways. There is no professional studio in the world that records vocals without them, nor a professional mobile recording unit. Here is a great article on basics of mic pres:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/microphone_preamps.htm

Maybe you can borrow or rent one someplace and experiment with the amazing sound difference of running your mics throu pre-amps and not. You will be astounded :)

Christopher Kennedy Alpiar · July 31, 2007

As far as the ME66 (I am not familiar with the 67), but You can use this for nice distance recording on a grip pole. If you are going to use it outside tho or in any hi traffic area, make sure you get the windscreen, as it is a hyper sensitive mic and will pickup all kinds of ambient air noise. If you are doing interviews you are still better off with the lavaliers in my opinion but you will get 1001 good uses of the ME66 or any of that series. Hope that helps some!

Christopher Kennedy Alpiar · July 31, 2007

I should also pipe in about my focusrite ISA 430 - Along with the preamp, it also has tons of other nice toys on it like compression and gate etc but REALLY hip point is it has GREAT A>D conversion so you can use it as the only analog portion of your recordings and do yourself much justice. Meaning your setup would be mic >> cable >> ISA430 (A-D) >> computer/digital audio recorder/DV tape/etc and the sound quality is just amazing. Normally you would add in the extra gear in your chain to include an industry A-D converter like Apogee Rosetta A-D converter (which sounds amazing but is extra $ for extra gear) That setup would be like: mic >> cable >> mic pre >> cable >> processing (compressor/limiter/eq/gate/etc) >> cable >> A-D converter >> digital cable >> digital tape or computer file

An important thing to keep in mind in recording audio is 1. make sure as small of a signal path as possible is used (especially in the analog portion of the chain. So use as few cables as possible, short of cables as possible etc) 2. make sure your cables are highest quality (Mogami is the absolute best analog audio cable manufacturer) 3. make sure that your analog domain and your digital domain are seperate and do not recross (ie never go digital then reconvert to analog to process in a nice tube compressor or some such). People who record to Pro Tools and then dump to analog tape to say they are going to sweeten or fatten the mix are full of it lol. It should have been recorded in analog in the first place if thats the sound they wanted and all it does is possible make up for poor recording (possibly) Its like filming on 35mm and then capturing it all on Avid then bouncing your film to analog beta tape and then capturing it again afterwards hello??? lol But this is now a new topic of A-D converting and all kinda things around that so I will just shut the yapp now and go back to work ;)

Edited July 31, 2007 by Christopher Kennedy Alpiar