My cousin has called me and asked my advice about simple recording equipment. She wants to try her hand at VO work. I used to be a reinforcement and recording engineer, but that was a long time ago and my opinion is probably a bit dated now.
She was told (not by me) to get herself a small diaphragm condenser mic (with pop filter/wind screen) and Garage Band or ProTools software for her Mac. Don’t remember exactly which mic she was told to get, but I told her to look at a used AKG 460, but I let her know that most (all?) small diaphragm condenser mic must be powered, and that would complicate her setup a bit as she would need a mic preamplifier.
I then suggested that she look at one of the dynamic mics like the Sennheiser MD421 or perhaps even a Shure SM85 for an even simpler setup - a mic pre would not really be required for these.
Finally, I told her that ProTools was somewhat expensive, but I have never used Garage Band.
I suspected that there may be some freeware that could accommodate three or four tracks (1 vocal and L+R Music) which is really all she needs when starting.
I am not a sound engineer, though I know a little bit about it from all the audio/video/film editing I have done. I don’t have much time now but I hope to maybe post a bit more later. For now I just want to say that ProTools would be overkill for what she wants to do.
There are some free audio recording and editing software options available (Audacity is one. It’s pretty good in some ways, in others, not so hot, IMO). But whether it’s Garage Band, Audacity, or ProTools, she needs to know what she is doing in order to give it the “sound” required of a good voice-work demo tape.
Had a little more time to think about it now… I’ll try to help, but I’m probably not the ideal guy to offer suggestions here.
I suppose I mean both of those things, and a few more as well. I think there are two different phases to consider here (production-wise): the mic-ing and recording is the first, and then the “sweetening”, packaging, and delivery is the other. I wonder if it might be possible for her (and you) to only worry about the first phase, and then find someone else to volunteer to do the second.
So you guys would take care of: obtaining the proper microphone + accessories (spit-screen, stand, cords, etc.); setting up a quiet, “dead” space to do the recording; and getting the software to record her properly.
Then perhaps you could find someone in her area or on the interwebs to take her selected recordings and sweeten and finish them. I’m thinking that really wouldn’t be much work for someone as long as they didn’t need to edit or organize the clips.
She’d just upload the select raw sound files, then someone could download them and finish them, then send them back to her. This is just an idea–don’t know how easy it would be to find someone to help her in this way.
OK. This helps a bit. Thanks for your input. It’s the first part that I’m more concerned about anyway. I did occasionally do VO but I didn’t specialize in it when I worked in the business. She’s going to have to train and market herself by herself as she lives in a different state.
Maybe there are some studio-sponsored training classes she could take? Don’t know about those. I do know that she has a wonderful singing voice - great pipes - but I can’t translate that to VO work.
She does live close to Tampa, FL. Any help to get her started would be appreciated.
As far as the actual recording goes, I think that the choice of microphone is pretty important. If she is going to impress the jaded pros she sends demo “tapes” to, she needs every advantage she can get. That means starting with a very good mic.
I think the best voice mics would be condenser mics but I’m too long out of the game to make any suggestions about specific mics. A condenser would need to be powered somehow–I think she could just get a hold of a decent mixer to do that. It’d be too expensive to buy the right mic ($1,500 - $3,000 perhaps?), so she’d need to borrow or rent.
Then there is the question of the recording. She could record digitally into her computer–I think there are all kinds of decent recording-only software that she could download free of charge. But she probably doesn’t have a very “high-level” sound card in her computer, so the signal is going to be degraded somewhat going through that (you’d never hear it, but the loss is there and will effect what the “sweetener” has to deal with).
Perhaps she could record to stand-alone recorder of some sort. Renting again, I would guess. As for the set-up, I would think you’d be able to help her devise a good, dead, space to record in (homemade baffling and whatnot).
I know my advice is very much tilted towards high-quality, professional-quality, recording–I just personally believe that if you are trying to get a listen as an outsider you need to do EVERYTHING you can to get the best possible sound.
Unless, of course, she has just the best voice and performance ever heard–in which case you could record her on a Walkman cassette player and it wouldn’t matter because the talent would be so obvious.
She should probably look into voice acting podcasts and the like first. I listen to Amy Elk’s VO podcast as she’s interviewed actors I like; it’s on iTunes under “On Vox - Featuring Amy Elk.” She talks about her work and interviews voice actors; one of the episodes features a promo by the voice talent and other pros behind the Character Pros VO workshop. Her professional page here lists her home studio equipment.
Good stuff! Thanks! She’ll appreciate this. I see she’s using Audacity. It’s freeware. Interesting. Also, she’s using a not-very-fancy Audio Technica…USB, so it’s straight into her computer. Very interesting.
There are several options out there for her. Pro Tools is a top of the line choice. One good thing that Pro Tools brings is compatibility with most major studios out there. It will make it much easier to send stuff electronically to a studio using Pro Tools if she also uses Pro Tools.
On that note, take a look at the MBox family of products from Avid. The MBox Mini would be perfect for what she wants to do. It has one mic input that provides a preamp as well as 48V phantom power to power a condenser microphone. It does work with other software besides Pro Tools, but Avid does offer a package with Pro Tools and the MBox Mini.
As to that other software, a good option would be Steinberg’s Cubase. The MBox Mini will also work with this software or even the free software Audacity. I’m not sure if it will work with Garage Band, but if Garage Band can use ASIO drivers it should
One note on Pro Tools: If she is using the latest version of Mac OS, there was a compatibility issue with the latest version of Pro Tools, but that has apparently recently been solved with an update to Pro Tools.
As for the microphone, the AKG you suggested is a good one. MXL also has some good relatively inexpensive options.
In terms of the software, it really doesn’t matter what she uses as long as it’ll save into a variety of formats. Some people like mp3s, others like wavs, or if she does videos, aiffs. I’ve never used anything other than mp3 for the simple reason that it’s voice work, and radio isn’t perfect. Audacity is fine, as is Garage Band. Again, this is voice work, not music, so the simpler, the better. If she gets serious down the road, she can look at professional-quality software then.
I’m reading right now a book called Voice-Over Voice Actor: What It’s Like Behind the Mic by Yuri Lowenthal and Tara Platt – it’s a great resource for anyone looking into voice acting, and they have a chapter on setting up your own studio. The setup your cousin uses sounds exactly like what they recommend, so she’s on the right path.
A small diaphragm mic is much more likely to “p” pop. If you do choose a small condenser mic, be sure to use a pop screen and listen to the sound. I always have people recite “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” and angle the mic down or to the side if I hear popping.
The advent of Audacity and Garage Band are one of the reasons I got a day job after almost 14 years running my own studio. I have been an engineer and producer for more than 30 years.
Pay attention to the sounds you record. Compare them to professionally recorded demos. It’s not so much the gear, it’s how you use it.
