What microphone is best for voiceover?

Ah mic drop! Well not quite and actually never ever, ever never drop the microphone. Well unless you have another £500 (or more) or so to drop easily as well. Here at BigFish Media we take our microphones very seriously and we care for them as carefully as we do Fishy. Simply put our microphones are our BFFs, our pets, our loves and we really couldn’t do our job as a voiceover recording studio without them. So a few tips for you when you are in the booth:

1.       Do not touch the microphone – ok it might be tempting to twizzle and wiggle it so that it is closer to you and your mouth but please step away from the microphone. The only person that should touch that mic is the sound engineer. Never ever touch the microphone. Ever. The engineer has usually set it up and because they know the mic and its settings probably knows its “Just so” position so please don’t feel tempted to touch the microphone. Even if you are an experienced sound engineer – if it isn’t your mic, don’t touch it.

2.       Talk directly towards the microphone – well easier said than done especially if you have a lengthy script and you have a pop shield in the way and can’t quite get the last word in the sentence and….crane your eyes and head and keep your mouth natural stretched out towards the microphone. Depending on how you read your copy (paper/large screen device) ensure that you can see the words and sentences changing font size and spacing to ensure you can get a smooth read on any tricky to “can’t quite see areas” If you start to crane your head then you are likely to come “off mic” and the audio won’t sound great anymore, no matter how wonderful your voice is.

If you have your own studio then please take into account what microphone you should use for what piece of voiceover work. Here are BigFish Media we mostly work on advertisements, corporate videos, radio ads, IVR and much more. However the microphone we use is a work horse of microphones and is fantastic and is a generous living friend to many voices and their different pitches and timbres.

However please ensure you know your shotgun microphone from your condenser microphone and what works for what. We require voices to use a condenser microphone and really urge you to not use a shotgun or directional mic when working with us. This is because in our experience these mics are less forgiving and even if you move even slightly off mic you will lose a lot more vocal volume and you will more easily sound “off mic” than any other microphones. Our blog on a condenser or dynamic microphone is very useful if you are a voiceover artist who has their own studio please be aware about the use of microphone for what project.

How do I get to be a Voiceover Artist?

Every week we get many people calling or emailing for advice on a voiceover career, so I thought it worth posting this.

So how do you become a voiceover artist? How do you get to be as good as the people who do voice-overs for radio stations and provide the voices of so many commercials?

Well do you know who they are and what they do? Why do you want to become one? Why do you think you can do it as well or better?

Things for you to do and think about. What you need to do first?

Get involved with your local hospital radio station. It will give you technical experience, experience in front of the microphone: everything you will need to give you a thorough grounding in using your voice.

Do you have a local theatre group or amateur dramatic society? Find them and volunteer, voiceover work IS ACTING!!! Even the simplest voice over requires performance skills.

Do you have a mobile phone? Change the voice mail message on it every day, try to impress people with it. Make a note of what works for your voice-over and what doesn't.

Find someone to whom you can regularly read a story. If you're good at characters, well a good story will give you plenty of opportunity to prove it.

Do you want to go on a course and get some professional voiceover training? They'll teach you how to get the best out of your voice.

Enthusiasm is great and it will get you through the tough times, but a space shuttle pilot got to sit in his seat through a combination of training, experience, dedication, enthusiasm and hard work now you must do the same.

I suspect like most people keen to follow a career in voice-over work you would like to phone someone up tomorrow morning and be paid to voice something for them tomorrow afternoon. I've never known that happen for anyone. Now it's time for you to put in the work.

A good, clever or flexible voice is only rung one on a very long ladder. Imagine I am a producer and you need to give me a reason why I should use you in preference to someone else, what would you say? You can't say good voice, good impressions, good at accents; the other guy has got that already.

Work in the voiceover industry can be feast or famine and in the early days it will be thin on the ground, you just need to keep telling people that you are out there. Remember it is not a salaried job so if you don't work, you don't earn. There can be travel involved depending on what voiceover work you are doing.

With the right equipment it is possible to work from home but you will need to find the space for an office and voice-over booth. You can set yourself up for about £4,000. You will need to buy at least one computer and printer, an ISDN codec, editing software (eg Pro Tools or Adobe Audition), Microsoft Office and a decent microphone (Neumann are the best by far but very expensive).

Using ISDN technology you can be accessed live from around the world; most local radio commercial voiceovers are recorded this way. If you are working alone from home (especially without an agent) you will need the drive and determination to succeed, as well as being your own IT expert, accountant, office manager and marketing manager. Just having "a good voice" is not nearly enough.

You will then need to build up your voice-over contacts book, market yourself using the internet, the phone and email. It is possible to break in, and there are lots of people who will give you a first chance, but if you try before you are ready you could very easily blow it. Producers of voiceovers talk to one another so your first session could also be your last.

Practice reading aloud, record yourself, listen to voice-overs on TV, radio, film and ask yourself why they are good or bad. Could you have done better?

BigFish Media are happy to produce your voiceover showreel. Please contact us for details. Any demo longer than 90 seconds is too long. What are you going to put on it? That's up to you, but before you decide, get advice from the experts.

What do the buttons on a Mixing Desk do?

Anyone who has ever had any association with the world of Audio or Voiceovers will have at some point come across something similar to one of these:

No that's not the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, but our new Mixing Desk and a staple in Recording Studios around the world. 

We have just upgraded our studio desk (to the above) to allow us to more effectively and efficiently record our voiceovers.

I thought now would be a good time to speak about approaching new mixing desks for the first time and facing any anxiety that they may conjure up.

The most common phrase I hear when people are first confronted with a mixing desk is usually: 

"How do you remember what all of those Dials, Buttons, and Faders do!?"  

In actual fact there are only a few features on all desks that you need to remember, regardless of how big or small they are. Once you understand these you will be able to apply them to most of the desks you come across. 

Our desk, the Soundcraft Signature 22 has 22 Channels, as its name implies. This means that the desk has just 18 Channel Strips (given that four of the 22 are Stereo Channels). 

While you may be thinking that I am making this sound even more daunting, the number of Channel Strips is in fact completely uncorrelated to the complexity of understanding the Desk. 

In the above picture highlighted in yellow is a single Channel Strip and as you'll notice, all of the Channel Strips around it are identical (the different coloured Knobs & Faders are there simply for our own ease of use and all serve the same purpose). 

This is why understanding mixing desks is a great deal less daunting than it first appears; Once you understand one... You understand the rest! 

Starting from the bottom of the Channel Strip you have the Fader. These control level of the source (Playback or Recording depending on your routing). At the top of the Fader you will notice three buttons; these determine where the output of the Fader goes. For example we have ours setup to route to Headphones, Speakers & our DAW to record. The Mute button, Mutes the output of the Fader (which we use frequently in a more complex Minus Mix scenario that I will refrain from delving into) and above that we have a pan knob. 

The next block of Knobs are known as Aux Sends, and on our desk we have 5 per channel. These allow us to send audio from one channel to another. This is particularly useful in our setup as our sessions often involve a number of different sources of voice talent and Clients. 

For example, we have an Aux dedicated to our Booth, ISDN, ipDTL, Skype and the Telephone so that we are able to send the VO and Clients to and from each other at varying levels depending on their location, so that they can communicate as if they were in the same room. 

Above the Aux's are an EQ section which allow us to balance frequencies when necessary, and lastly there is a Gain trim, which means we are able to make fine adjustment to the recording level of our Voiceovers. 

And that's it... That's how we remember what all those Dials, Buttons and Faders do to give you the perfect voiceovers every time! 

How do I deal with ISDN latency and echo?

The end of ISDN has been predicted for years - especially with the rise and rise of ipDTL, Source Connect, Session Link Pro etc.

However ISDN is still very much alive.

But there are often two technical issues that need addressing before you do any session involving voiceovers.  They are: 1: Echo, Feedback, Slapback or Howlround 2: Latency or Delay    1. Feedback If you have a feedback loop it is almost impossible for the voiceover talent to talk while listening to it. This is because they will hear themselves repeatedly echo-ing.  This problem is caused because both ISDN studios need to monitor and send audio using the same line. So how do we stop this problem? If you use an audio mixer, you need to create two separate and independent "mixes": one for yourself and one for the other ISDN studio.  Set up your audio mixer to send a "Clean Feed" (or "Mix Minus".) In other words you need to send all your audio to the other ISDN codec but don't send the audio of the other ISDN studio back to themselves. This will eliminate the feedback loop. 2. Delay The only time that ISDN delay would be an issue is if you have an audio or video file being played from the remote ISDN studio.  The delay is normally in milliseconds and so would not be an issue for most voiceover sessions.  If it does become an issue, then ask the producer at the other studio to send the audio or video file to the studio where the voiceovers are located.

Which Voiceover Booth should I buy?

If you are looking for a new vocal booth in which to record your voiceovers, we recently saw this on social media and thought it worthy of discussion.

This is a link to a YouTube video about the new IsoVox 

     

David W takes a selfie in our vocal booth

My first reaction was "Is this an April Fools joke?" It looks ridiculous: far too small and cramped. And claustraphobic.

From the video I was wondering how you would ever be able to read a script in there? It looks as big as your head and no bigger. But from the Isovox website, it is clear you could read from a tablet and there is a light source. Whether it's a good enough light source I cant tell. I hate reading from a tablet - I still prefer paper (not least so you can mark up the script with amends.)

What I dont understand is their claim (at 0.40 on the YouTube clip) why a conventional method is good for recording but not practising.
 
   

What no voice talent?

Its only available in Sweden. For the moment.

Even if it does reach the UK, I really don't fancy sticking my head in a box to record my next voiceover. I just don't see how it would lead to a good performance.

Should I buy a Condenser Microphone or a Dynamic Microphone?

Have you ever been shopping for a new mic for your home voiceover studio and wondered about the difference between a 'dynamic' and a 'condenser' microphone?

In this short video, Gary Boss from Audio Technica explains...

... and when you've heard Gary tell you the differences between the two types of Microphone, you might want to learn exactly how each one works.

Dynamic Microphones

Condenser Microphones

So hopefully you now know which microphone to choose for your next voiceover.

Why do I need a Pop Shield to do Voiceovers?

Pop shields are an essential piece of kit in the world of voiceovers. You can buy a pop shield from about £20, but if you are worried about money, you can make you own using a wire coat hanger and a pair of tights.  






Before

                                                            After


Without a pop shield, plosives (hard consonant sounds at the beginning of words, e.g. P's in Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers) are exaggerated and are likely to ruin the recording.  The pop shield softens the harshness of the sound.   

A professional pop shield will come with a clamp to attach to the mic stand or booth.  It is important that you do not connect it directly to the microphone, as any vibrations will be transferred to the mic and that will ruin your voiceover.


                                                                                                 

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.

How to build your home voiceover studio

We often get asked by new voice talent who have come to us to make a voiceover showreel or for voice training if they should invest in a home studio.

If you are thinking about building your own home voiceover booth, you are the only one who can decide if you would like to take the plunge.

Just as you don't need a voiceover agent, you don't need a home studio - but it sure helps.

First, do the research:

Do you have enough room in your home?

Can you afford it?

How much would you like to spend?

What are the costs involved?

What do you want to achieve?

Do you want to be directed by a client (in person/on the phone/on Skype/on ISDN/ipdTL/Source Connect etc)?

How high-spec do you want the voiceover booth to be?

Should you just buy a a complete booth (Esmono or Studiobricks for
example) to set up in a bigger room or should you convert a cupboard/a cupboard under-the-stairs, a wardrobe, a small spare single room or use part of a larger room?

Would you like it to be sound-proofed or just acoustically treated (with acoustic tiles)?

Of course you will also need a computer to record onto and editing software (Garage Band, Adobe Audition, Pro Tools etc.)

The most important constituent part of your voiceover booth is...

           

...the microphone!

Ours (pictured) is a Neumann U87 - a top-of-the-range microphone and it comes with a top-of-the-range price too! If you buy a pop shield, stand and microphone holder, you won't get much change from £3K.

The good news however is there are much cheaper alternatives which will also give you a reasonable sound. We also have an Audio Technica AT4033 microphone which was a fraction of the price but did us very well indeed.

You can also get USB microphones which plug directly into your laptop or PC, but you will need to make sure you are recording in an acoustically-treated environment and you don't get any PC noise coming out on the recording.  

Ideally your PC should not be in your booth and your recording shouldn't take place in your office/production area.

There will be more to follow on future blogs when we will look at sound cards, headphones mixers and monitors to get your voiceover business buzzing.  Then in the third blog on how to build your home voiceover studio, we will look at ISDN  ipDTL, Source Connect, Skype and telephones.

Our New Monitors for our Voiceover Agency

Our Engineers had been on at me for a while to buy some Tannoy Monitors for our Voiceover Recording Studio. So eventually I gave in!

After re-jigging the desks, we bought some, removed a load of cables and finally wall-mounted them:

Result? Happy Engineers! And Great Voiceovers.

ipDTL: a better cheap replacement for ISDN

There has been a lot of buzz in the social media in the last few months about this new ipDTL being a cheap replacement for ISDN. We tried it for a month with our voiceover sessions and liked it very much. 

We have therefore now invested our £200 in the ipDTL Link Account.

It is even easier to use than the trial version! 

And the great thing about this is that it costs our voiceover artists nothing. Not a penny.  And there is now a Mute button to avoid howlround while the voice talent is voicing. 

You must use Google Chrome though and also use a wired Ethernet cable to send us audio at 128kpbs (HIGH)

We send the voice talent a specific link which looks a bit like this

https://ipdt.com/&%&%&&

The voice talent then enters their name and clicks Connect. There is no need for passwords. The voice artist can then talk to our Engineer and the voiceovers begin!

Our Voiceover Booth

We have recently installed new LED lighting in our voiceover booth. We had been finding that the old lights created heat as well as light.

So now it's much colder - in fact some times rather cold at first - in our voiceover booth. But it does warm up quickly enough!

The only heat source in the studio is now the body of the voiceovers in there.

What are the alternatives to ISDN?

We are often asked by potential voiceovers if, when setting up their home studio, if they should invest in ISDN.

Although, it is "old" technology it is still pretty much the standard way of working for production companies using remote voice talent. We have heard rumours for years that providers including BT are talking about withdrawing ISDN but we have never heard anything definite.

However, with the increasing speeds of the internet, new technology allows high quality audio to be sent and received on the web. 

You’re already paying for your broadband connection, so why continue to pay for an ISDN line too?

So what are the alternatives to ISDN?

Probably the best known is Source Connect. This has taken off in America but has yet to break through in the UK. There really aren't many voiceover artists using Source Connect in the UK. There can be problems with setting up and configuring this software and issues with drop out in the signal - but then the same can be said for ISDN.  

If you have Source Connect, it will only connect with another person using Source Connect. If you want to connect Source Connect to an ISDN line, you will need to use a Bridging Company to tie the two together. Bridging company fees are around $150 per hour.  

As far as I  can see, the big advantage of Source Connect is that you can "voice to picture" or do dubbing in a remote location - the voiceover artist doesnt need to be in the same physical location as the recording studio.

Have you thought just about using Skype? With a good internet connection both sides, the voice talent can be directed via Skype and then the quality audio from the remote studio can be sent via any file-sharing service. (Dropbox, You Send it, We Transfer etc.) The quality of what the client hears will be dependent upon the quality of the Skype call  - sometimes this is great - sometimes it can be quite bad still.

Just direct over the phone. This would work in the same way as Skype (above) but obviously the quality of the audio that the client hears during the session will only be phone quality.  



The version of ISDN that we use is Audio TX. Audio TX is an ISDN codec which is just software. There is no big black box costing £7K. However it is advisable to have a stand-alone PC which only runs this software. If both parties have this software  you could consider using the VOIP function, which is just the same idea of one incoming and one outgoing line but using the internet rather than the ISDN lines.

Another choices for voiceovers include Sound Streak, Luci Live App and Connection Open.

Confused? Me too...