Ask Dave - Home Recording Question Archive

3: category = Vocals
Name = Dave Johnson

question = I need a basic set up to record professional voice-overs and
narration, but can\'t afford the $1,000-$4,000 mics the studios use. Can you
recommend any mics that would be good for that purpose, but are closer to a
$500 price range.

Very good question.  Voice over work is somewhat of a different animal, but you're in a pretty good position for it.  To be honest the $1,000-$4,000 mics are not always the first choice in voice over/broadcasting work.  Many of the old standard voice over mics are dynamics.  The shure SM7 (not sm57---sm7) is a good choice and is $379 new.  Another common broadcaster mic is the Electro Voice RE-20.  I'm not sure if you can still find it new, but you can find them on ebay well within your price range.

 

My voice over experience is extremely limited, but I know a common scenario I hear from a lot of people who work in voice over is that an impressive LOOKING mic can be more important than it's sound because your clients are "wowed" and they'll trust your abilities to a greater extent.  If you think you want to go that route, the Marshall v67G is a great choice.  It's only $100, it's a great sounding condenser (and works great for music as well) and most importantly it's beautiful, with a green and gold finish--looks like the $4000 mics you mentioned.  Take the $400 or so that you save on your mic and spend it on a good mic preamp, which is often more important to sound than the mic itself.  Here's a picture

4: I\'m in the procees of building my home studio, as of now I only have a
computer with the prgram Reasons (Propellerhead) and my midi input keyboard.
My question is, as of now im not recording vocals or live instruments but
would like to build up with the basic equipment that i can use now such as
mixers,dat recorders,additional software ect.. basically looking to record
music and mix it down.

Reason is a very powerful program and you can really do a lot with it if you know your way around midi.  If you want to get into recording audio you'll need additional multitracking software.  Anything that supports rewire is the best bet because you can use reason without multiple sound cards and external cables (sounds are routed digitally)  You'll have to look at each software program to figure out which support rewire.  Again my choice would be to get started with the Mbox/Protools.  It's a little bit more expensive than other solutions but the hardware and software are both included and are tested together.  Protools works with rewire so reason and protools will play nicely.  Getting to know protools can be extremely important if you ever want to work at or with other studios because it's the most common.  Another protools option is to look for a Digi001 used on ebay.  It's discontinued, but relatively cheap and you can get up to 18 ins and outs (8 analog, 8 adat-digital and 2 spdif digital) while the mbox only has 2 analog and 2 spdif-digital.

 

As far as other equipment most of what you mentioned is relatively useless if you're running a computer based home studio.  Mixers are all done by software and dat recorders are kinda being phased out because computers generally record at 24 bit depth....dats are still used but in the home studio environment it's probably not the best way to spend your money.  If you want to spend some money get a few mics, and maybe an additional mic preamp (most protools soundcards have at least 2 preamps)

 

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