Thursday 30 October 2014

What do I need for a home Voiceover Booth?


Today we continue our look at building your own home studio.

We are often asked by voiceover artists how much building their home studio will cost. You could spend £3,000 or you could spend £30,000. Decide how much you have to spend and get the best kit you can for the money.

Alternatively decide what you would really like - then find out how much it will cost - and don't forget to include labour. There is no good spending £3,000 on kit if you have no idea how to assemble it. And Studio Engineers are not cheap - especially if they have a long journey to your place.



We have already covered what you would like to achieve and microphones in a previous blog.

When it comes to soundcards, headphones, mixers and monitors, get the best you can afford. The audio quality of what you record will be directly affected by the microphone mixer and soundcard. There is no point spending £3,000 on a Neumann microphone if you only use the on-board sound card that comes with your PC. These are not designed for professional audio use - they are fine to listen to music in MP3 format and videos on YouTube! The quality of your recording will be limited by the quality of the soundcard.


For years we used Marc 2 soundcards, but since upgrading to Windows 7 we now use Marian Seraph AD2 soundcards.

For monitors, any monitors that come with your PC will be fine - especially as you are likely to be wearing headphones to record your voiceovers and to edit it afterwards:


 There are lots of different mixers you can use, and we aren't experts on this but we are very happy with our Mackie Onyz 820i mixer. (pictured)

And as for headphones, there is only one broadcast-standard enclosed headphone to use and that is the Beyer DT100. There is no argument on this one!


I have worn out many pairs in my broadcasting career and we continue to use several pairs here for our voiceover business.