Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

At last! Duane hit's it on the head. To get a good voice over you need only a few things. The first is a decent voice from the person doing it, and an environment that sounds right!

If you go into a cupboard, it will sound like a cupboard!

If you record outside, on a windless day, miles from anything - it will be as dead as it can be.

Almost any nice sounding mic, shotguns included, will be perfectly capable of recording a voiceover. You need a good ratio of wanted to unwanted sound - so distance with a directional mic sets the overall frequency response. If you go too close, you will start to get too many plosive breath sounds, to far away, it may be too thin and the room sounds start to intrude.

An omni lav, and some foam can work well. Find a dead room, and experiment.

On another note - USB microphones can be useful, but many have no method of adjusting the gain before the A to D conversion, meaning noise can be a problem sometimes. Experiment with what you have and can cobble together.

Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

I've been using the NT2A with the custom-built recording booth (pictures above) for a couple of months now, and I'm pretty happy with how it sounds.

My voice sounds very natural, my only complaint is it's a bit heavy on the low frequencies, but that can be fixed in post.

Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

Best way to record VO without a sound booth? Record inside a car! No reverb, flat sound, great isolation. NTG-2 and NTG-3 works great for that. just aim for the chest about 4 to 6 inches away from the mouth. of cours don't do that close to a highway.

You will get studio quality voice over.

Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

Of course there will always be a cheap way of doing almost everything, it all depends on the standard you want to work at. As a rule, you get what you pay for.

Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

If you must build a box, I strongly recommend using Homasote (or Celotex as a poor imitation) rather than plywood. Plywood will be resonant (unless it is very thick and the sides are very small) and may add some undesired coloration to the sound.

Homasote is a great non-resonant product. The only catch is that you might need to reinforce the junctions where two pieces meet, using a small wooden 1"x1" or similar. Screws through Homasote usually hold just fine (and you can reinforce the heads with fender washers), but screws into Homasote are likely to pull out.

I suppose in theory it would be best if the box had no parallel sides; but then you're bringing geometry and angle cuts into the picture. It probably doesn't matter that much, although Harry Olson swore that speaker enclosures sounded much better if they were non-rectilinear.

Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

I've done that before and yes, it works surprisingly well.

Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

Every time I've tried that, it sounds like a recording done in a car. Better than outside, but hardly as good as a good studio.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

I tried recording a VO in a car with a client and it was going well till the cops pulled me over.

Re: Tips for voice over recording
 

If you wish to build something ordinary foam acoustic tiles from the home recording specialists work very well On a simple timber frame with open out hinges, they're cost effective - but even duvets can do pretty amazing things stopping hard surfaced rooms sounding boxy.