yeah well i think as long as trolls are fed, they keep coming back.

Lelouch, post: 448789, member: 50238 wrote: This mic is very often used for voice over is pro studios .. its an " industry standard ".

where do you get that from? how many "pro studios" have you been in? you can't just say something and expect everyone to believe it. it's not a fact just because you say it is. i hate it when people do that kind of thing on the internet. it's the source of a lot of bad information that others will take as fact.

any idiot can make a eww toob video. this is a perfect example. i don't have enough time in my life left to mention all that is wrong with this video. suffice it to say i think this guys approach / views are questionable. i don't think the audio on this video is anything special to write home about. the clips you have posted sound just as good (or bad depending on how you want to view it).

if one looks on the internet long enough, they can find something that will tell them what they want to hear. i am not trying to be harsh or mean but i just have little tolerance for people with preconceived notions that don't know what they are doing and won't take good advice they asked for when it's offered. imo you're trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear with the cheap gear and unsuitable mics. please, just get a good mic pre and 2 channel interface and an appropriate mic like a U87 or SM7 or RE20 or learn to be satisfied with what you are already getting with what you have and let's be done with all this.

if you look at any of the pictures or videos of people doing real professional v/o's on movies or in broadcasting in REAL studios, (example: any Ken Burns documentary) you will see them using U87's or other quality multi pattern L/D mics, RE20's or SM7's. i would also recommend an ATM 4033 or 4050 if you want to keep the budget around $1000 or so.

heres a video of your guy using an SM7b. took me less than 30 seconds to find it. the audio on this one is so much better than on the one with the 416 (which is a mic made for long throw pick up in the field or on a sound stage) and the TLM 103 (which is a pos mic Neumann makes for the home studio market). You want better quality? it's going to cost.

Kurt Foster, post: 448791, member: 7836 wrote: where do you get that from? how many "pro studios" have you been in? you can't just say something and expect everyone to believe it. it's not a fact just because you say it is. i hate it when people do that kind of thing on the internet. it's the source of a lot of bad information that others will take as fact.

If you call information straight out of multiple studios bad information, I suppose you'd be right. There are lots of studios I'v seen that never touch the MKH 416, and many that have it all over the place.

Kurt Foster, post: 448791, member: 7836 wrote: heres a video of your guy using an SM7b.

Yes, I'v seen this video. But he has mentioned that he uses 4 mics for his VO work, SM7b isn't really one he uses.. I don't know, but he is the talent, and he gets hired with the 416.

Kurt Foster, post: 448791, member: 7836 wrote: the clips you have posted sound just as good

Good to know you don't differentiate between audio recorded through a portable Zoom H5 recorder and an iD14 interface.

Also, if you've never seen or heard VO through the MKH 416 before, you have an example now ^-^ Including the famous joe cipriano .

Well, here they are. The processed has a gate at-35, which I threw some dry signal back into (-30), and a compression at -18.

look, if you think you can make a critical judgment call from a video posted on ewww toob or even the clips posted here you are very misled. mp3 /mp4's with data compression are not a good source. the audio in this last video you've posted is awful and that is not a pro studio. it's a home studio. the give away is the low ceilings. it's a house that someone installed a window in the wall. if you knew what you were talking about and had any ears, you would hear all the comb filtering in the audio which is one of the artifacts that go with hyper cardioid mics. put one in a small room with low ceilings and you get the resulting crap you have here.

Kurt Foster, post: 448795, member: 7836 wrote: that is not a pro studio. it's a home studio. the give away is the low ceilings. it's a house that someone installed a window in the wall. if you knew what you were talking about and had any ears, you would hear all the comb filtering in the audio which is one of the artifacts that go with hyper cardioid mics. put one in a small room with low ceilings and you get the resulting crap you have here.

So this : http://www.demosthatrock.com/studio.html Isn't an " actual " studio ? Either way, if what you hear at 7:06 in the video ( The actual finished audio ), is bad.. I think I want it :(

without actually seeing the studio, i couldn't say but again it looks like the place has a low ceiling, so i would say no it's not really a "pro" room.

i have been looking on the web at pro V/O studios and i have to admit i saw the 416 in use in many of them so i will admit i was wrong when i said they weren't used. however the rooms i did see them in were well designed rooms with great acoustics. hyper cardioid mics have a tendency to exacerbate comb filtering artifacts which are a problem in small rooms with low ceilings and zero diffusion and that's why we don't use them.

so if you are going to insist on using a 416 because you've seen your heroes using them you will need to put a ton of work into getting the correct environment to use on in.

Anyway.. If you don't want to help, I understand. I feel like a huge burden to pcrecord, I'm glad he stayed at all. I try to get good sound, but everything sounds inadequate to me. The quality you call " bad ", I'm having trouble reaching ! Either way, I recorded this with only a gate and normalization ( I should have compressed I suppose but I forgot ). Feedback .. ? Hopefully not heart stabbing, quit the business, find a bridge and jump off feed back preferably ?

Also, Kurt Foster, could you show me some " quality audio " of VO if you have any .. ? I'd like to hear it, because while your pretty harsh to me !, I'm sure you know what you're talking about. So, hearing something top notch might help me understand better what to do .

try recording your files without any processing. hit levels around -18 to -16 and don't normalize. see how that sounds to you. we usually frown on normalizing in these here parts. i'll look around to see if i can find some good examples of V/O work to post here. almost anything you hear on PBS is usually pretty good. the V/O's on the Ken Burns stuff is stellar.

this has a lot of V/O work as well as location audio. it has music in the background but you can still hear a good example of what V/O's in a real professional studio sounds like.

Kurt Foster, post: 448800, member: 7836 wrote: try recording your files without any processing. hit levels around -18 to -16 and don't normalize. see how that sounds to you. we usually frown on normalizing in these here parts. i'll look around to see if i can find some good examples of V/O work to post here. almost anything you hear on PBS is usually pretty good. the V/O's on the Ken Burns stuff is stellar.

Thanks a lot >-< I'll just use a gate to keep out room tone and such. Just checked out PBS and I'll listen to their stuff. I'll record again tomorrow and listen closely to my audio. Thanks again ^/^

no don't gate. there's no reason for it. all you are doing is degrading the audio. if you are gating to "keep out the room noise" then you need to treat the room. the trick is to capture it right in the first place, not to record crap and then try to "fix" it.

Kurt Foster, post: 448802, member: 7836 wrote: no don't gate. there's no reason for it. all you are doing is degrading the audio.

Alright , completely raw audio track it is. I appreciate your help, a lot :notworthy:

perhaps your issues with quality reside in the room itself and not the equipment you are using?

here's another good video on V/O's. look at the studios. check the mics.listen to the audio. all of it. it's all V/O work.

i am sure you can do fine with the 416 and the Audient.

Kurt Foster, post: 448805, member: 7836 wrote: perhaps your issues with quality reside in the room itself and not the equipment you are using?

here's another good video on V/O's. look at the studios. check the mics.listen to the audio. all of it. it's all V/O work.

i am sure you can do fine with the 416 and the Audient.

Thanks , ill check it all out when I'm home . Acoustically , the space is fine , but it's very far from sound proof. Ill be back once I'v listen to everything

Using a hypercardioid in an untreated room might be better than a LDC, but we already discussed that at some point the room will need to be worked on.
Kurt is a pro and got great insight on recording with the right Tools. In the comparaison video vs the TLM the 416 sounds clearer but narrow sounding. (to my ears)

Keeping in mind most VO contractors will ask you to go at their facility when they hire you. Being able to produce convincing demos should be the first goal here.

I look foward to hear the untouched audio recording. Most RO members know how a raw track is suppose to sound. It may not sound appealing to you, Letouch, but it's a good thing to analyse the RAW track first and see if something is wrong in the recording process. Once we get over this step, we'll be ready to talk about mixing.

I also get the fealing we are deriving of the OP question.
Creating a new thread called ' Recording and mixing VO for beginners' may be a good idea ;)

pcrecord, post: 448809, member: 46460 wrote: I also get the fealing we are deriving of the OP question.
Creating a new thread called ' Recording and mixing VO for beginners' may be a good idea ;)

Good call, Marco. I've not been following each post but I've been thinking of splitting it off or simply renaming this for weeks already. But, where to split it or maybe I simply rename it to what you just recommended.

Recording and mixing VO for beginners > That's a good title. Any other suggestions?

I think it can be splitted after Letouch actually bought new gear which would almost eliminate the static noise problem he had to begin with.
When it gets to how the new gear sounds, it could be on a new thread. (I think)

Lelouch, post: 448808, member: 50238 wrote: Acoustically , the space is fine , but it's very far from sound proof.

So then your room has been acoustically measured and treated? Not referring to isolation... but I thought you mentioned earlier that your room was untreated ...?
I'm confoozled.

DonnyThompson, post: 448813, member: 46114 wrote: So then your room has been acoustically measured and treated? Not referring to isolation... but I thought you mentioned earlier that your room was untreated ...?
I'm confoozled.

I think Letouch doesn't distinguish soundproofing from room treatment yet ;)

Sound proofing ; reduce noises coming in or out of the room. (mostly done inside the walls, ceiling, and floor)
Room treatment ; tuning the frequencies and reflections of the room to achieve pleasing recordings. (mostly done at the surface of the walls, ceiling, and floor)

Well, he referred to the acoustics as "being fine" while saying that it's "far from soundproof" so I think he does know the distinction between the two. I was just curious about his statement regarding g the acoustics, I was under the impression that his space has not been acoustically treated. I could be mistaken tho.

DonnyThompson, post: 448816, member: 46114 wrote: Well, he referred to the acoustics as "being fine" while saying that it's "far from soundproof" so I think he does know the distinction between the two. I was just curious about his statement regarding g the acoustics, I was under the impression that his space has not been acoustically treated. I could be mistaken tho.

pcrecord, post: 448814, member: 46460 wrote: I think Letouch doesn't distinguish soundproofing from room treatment yet ;)

Sound proofing ; reduce noises coming in or out of the room. (mostly done inside the walls, ceiling, and floor)
Room treatment ; tuning the frequencies and reflections of the room to achieve pleasing recordings. (mostly done at the surface of the walls, ceiling, and floor)

I have bedding and clothing to get a " dead " sound from the room , so that my voice isnt echoing or anything . But sound goes in and out of the room , far from soundproof . Still though , quiter then most of the house

Here's the plain, unprocessed, audio. I've been listening to it and the professional VO audio

[MEDIA=audio]https://recording.o…

BTW, I'm HOLDING the microphone. I got a stand, but it's not compatible with the mic.. so I'm going to go and see if I can get an adapter for it.

Sounds good to me. I heard a few faint noises that seemed to be noise in the room.
The mic and interface are way better than what you had to begin with.
I'm not sure it needs any processing to be appealing to customers (of course it depends on the context and other sound/music it will mixed with).
It lies more in the performance at this point to be good or not.

Congratulation Letouch !

Here is a " professionally mastered " version of my audio. It was done by this site called LANDR, they give you 2 free pro masterings a month. The catch is that it's done at 192 kbps. Anyway, I wanted to hear from you guys if this is good mastering or not.

[MEDIA=audio]https://recording.o…

[MEDIA=audio]https://recording.o…

[MEDIA=audio]https://recording.o…

The Original Audio Was Lightly Processed And Sounded Bad To Begin With BTW

pcrecord, post: 448825, member: 46460 wrote: Sounds good to me. I heard a few faint noises that seemed to be noise in the room.
The mic and interface are way better than what you had to begin with.
I'm not sure it needs any processing to be appealing to customers (of course it depends on the context and other sound/music it will mixed with).
It lies more in the performance at this point to be good or not.

Congratulation Letouch !

Thanks, I'll start putting effort into my performances and make a demo. However, while I'm hitting the right levels and everything.. It's very quite outside of Reaper. Once it's been processed to an MP3 or WAV, it becomes quite, which is normal with the way I'm listening to my audio ( Reaper is unaffected by the laptops audio levels. But once saved, what I hear is going to be at a different level . ) But, when it was processed by the LANDR site, it sounded nice and loud across all the platforms I listened to it on ( Normalization ? ). Was just wondering if that processed one sounded good to you guys, and how you guys think it was done so perhaps I can recreate some of the processing.

Also, just wanted to point out something I realized. This is something I'v been using without a second thought and has always been there, so I never thought it would be ruining my sound.. Apparently it's the Noise Gate I use that makes my speech sound like garble . I realized that I never adjusted the attack and release on them.. The weird thing is that the audio always sounds just fine whenever I have my headphones on ( Which is the Audio-Technica ATH-M20x ). But once I listen from my earphones ( Or even the mentioned headphones ) plugged directly into the laptop rather then through the interface, I hear an entirely different sound, including my voice sounding strange from the gate. I feel dumb only figuring this out now, but I'm guessing that any time I process my audio I should listen to it directly from the laptop rather then through the interface.

Lelouch, post: 448834, member: 50238 wrote: Here is a " professionally mastered " version of my audio. It was done by this site called LANDR

Here is a discussion we had regarding LANDR ;

https://recording.o…

https://www.izotope…

Lelouch, post: 448835, member: 50238 wrote: It's very quite outside of Reaper.

We record at -18db to get a clean sound and capture the dynamics of the source.
Also, having many tracks at -6db will overload the masterbuss quickly when mixing a band.

We then proceed to mixing the song (make sure all the elements are sounding good together)
And then it goes to mastering (which checks the levels and frequencies and other aspect)
 

Lelouch, post: 448836, member: 50238 wrote: I'm guessing that any time I process my audio I should listen to it directly from the laptop rather then through the interface.

I'm not sure what happen there. Are you talking about a project exported from reaper or playing within reaper ??

You should record at 24/44 minimum and export at 16/44 (in wave format)to play on your laptop without the interface.
Then you can make mp3 versions for the web..

Lelouch, post: 448834, member: 50238 wrote: Here is a " professionally mastered " version of my audio. It was done by this site called LANDR, they give you 2 free pro masterings a month. The catch is that it's done at 192 kbps.

There's absolutely nothing that "the bot" does that you can't do yourself on your own DAW.
Get to know your platform and its features, and you'll get the same results as LANDR, (if not better), and you won't have any bandwidth limitations ( 192k) on your final MP3 file.

If you are going to do this as an occupation, then commit to learning your system and platform. Educate yourself about Gain Structure, EQ, Gain Reduction and other processing.
Learn about mics and mic placement. These things will all be a part of your job.

Oh... and learn about gates and expanders (how they work, how to use them, when to use them and when NOT to use them).

These days, many, many VO's are done from home studios; Ad agencies and other people who would hire you actually prefer that you have the ability to deliver hi-fidelity from your home studio, it gives them an affordable option as opposed to paying for big studio rates. If you can deliver quality from your home studio, it will make you more attractive...but the VO artists who are successful from their home studios have a serious handle on the recording/mixing process for this application, and they also have good gear ( preamps, mics) good monitors, and treated rooms ( and by treated rooms, I don't mean clothes hanging in a closet ;) )...
These people are your competitors... and if you haven't considered that yet, you should start.

Quality comes from knowledge, experience, and equipment. These things are necessary. The talent ? ... well, you either have it or you don't. VO's aren't any different than singing in that regard. You either have it, or you don't.
FWIW, I think you have a good voice for certain types of VO's; there are some things I could critique, but all in all I think you can be good at this if you find your niche and up your game in regards to your knowledge and recording environment.

IMO
-d.

pcrecord, post: 448839, member: 46460 wrote: Here is a discussion we had regarding LANDR ;
https://recording.o…

https://www.izotope…

We record at -18db to get a clean sound and capture the dynamics of the source.
Also, having many tracks at -6db will overload the masterbuss quickly when mixing a band.

We then proceed to mixing the song (make sure all the elements are sounding good together)
And then it goes to mastering (which checks the levels and frequencies and other aspect)

I'm not sure what happen there. Are you talking about a project exported from reaper or playing within reaper ??

You should record at 24/44 minimum and export at 16/44 (in wave format)to play on your laptop without the interface.
Then you can make mp3 versions for the web..

Guess LANDR isn't good huh ! And I'm not sure what happens, but when I hear it through the interface, it could sound great ( Even after it's saved as an MP3 file and all is done. ). But once I go to hear it through the audio jack in the laptop itself, it sounds different, and that's when I noticed my gate cutting off words at the beginning and the end, making a bad recording.

DonnyThompson, post: 448842, member: 46114 wrote: There's absolutely nothing that "the bot" does that you can't do yourself on your own DAW.
Get to know your platform and its features, and you'll get the same results as LANDR, (if not better), and you won't have any bandwidth limitations ( 192k) on your final MP3 file.

If you are going to do this as an occupation, then commit to learning your system and platform. Educate yourself about Gain Structure, EQ, Gain Reduction and other processing.
Learn about mics and mic placement. These things will all be a part of your job.

Oh... and learn about gates and expanders (how they work, how to use them, when to use them and when NOT to use them).

These days, many, many VO's are done from home studios; Ad agencies and other people who would hire you actually prefer that you have the ability to deliver hi-fidelity from your home studio, it gives them an affordable option as opposed to paying for big studio rates. If you can deliver quality from your home studio, it will make you more attractive...but the VO artists who are successful from their home studios have a serious handle on the recording/mixing process for this application, and they also have good gear ( preamps, mics) good monitors, and treated rooms ( and by treated rooms, I don't mean clothes hanging in a closet ;) )...
These people are your competitors... and if you haven't considered that yet, you should start.

Quality comes from knowledge, experience, and equipment. These things are necessary. The talent ? ... well, you either have it or you don't. VO's aren't any different than singing in that regard. You either have it, or you don't.
FWIW, I think you have a good voice for certain types of VO's; there are some things I could critique, but all in all I think you can be good at this if you find your niche and up your game in regards to your knowledge and recording environment.

IMO
-d.

I'm always recording and trying to master it, what I'm not too sure of is the loudness. When LANDR mastered it, if it did nothing else, they made the audio louder. I'm guessing that's the loudness the audio should be processed to once everything else is done ? Is it simply normalization ?

I'v done a ton of looking up on mics and frequency responses of them. And mic placement, funny story. I'v been holding the mic since it wouldnt screw into my stand. I just realized that I dont need an adapter, the mic holder just had a small adapter inside for shotgun mic stands, and i just took it out. Now I dont have to hold it in my hand , and I'll see the best spot to place it.

I took out EVERYTHING from the closet, including those metal things that you put your clothes on, so I'd have 4 flat walls. I layered the walls with clothing pinned in, then ontop of that i got a thick heavy blanket covering the walls.

My voice.. I'm always told that I have " The Right Voice ", people say that all the time tbh. But that voice just never seems to get captured in my recordings.

Lelouch, post: 448844, member: 50238 wrote: Guess LANDR isn't good huh !

I wouldn't trust it for music; but you're missing my main point, which was that you can do exactly what LANDR is doing on your own, in your own DAW. Why pay the $8 ( or whatever) per song when just a little time and research into your platform will allow you to not only do the same thing (make things louder), but will also get you to a point of understanding more about recording, and in turn, what your potential clients might end up asking for...

Example: If a client sent you a :30 second script, would you know how to edit it so that the length is precisely that? ( most :30 sec scripts are actually :29.5, and most :60 sec scripts are usually expected to be :59.5)
And, if you were asked that the file be delivered as an MP3 with a resolution of 320kbps, being 'dry" and in Mono, with an RMS/LUFS of -15db, and with peaks no hotter than -2db, would you know how to do that? (I'm not saying that you don't, I'm using this as a very real possibility in case you don't).

My point - parenthetical as it may seem is this:
That your DAW should absolutely be able to do the same things that 'the bot' does, and if you put some time into learning about audio and processing, your version will likely end up sounding even better, as well as resulting in you learning things that be of great benefit to you in the future.

FWIW

DonnyThompson, post: 448846, member: 46114 wrote: with an RMS/LUFS of -15db

I don't know what that is yet , but the rest I'd be able to do. Thanks for the advice , I was just wondering if LANDR would be a good choice . But for now, I'm going to learn how to process audio . Reaper has everything, but its also not overly complicated like other DAWs that have a million things for editing and mixing music , so thats helpful. Thanks again for the advice.

How's this ? Something I did just right now since I finally got to be able to mount the mic to the stand ! No more holding it in my hands :). Anyway, is this good sound and processing ? Professional N is just also normalized. I was recommended not to normalize, so I just made 2 versions to compare as well.

That's excellent !!

Did you use compression on these two samples?

Boswell, post: 448919, member: 29034 wrote: Did you use compression on these two samples?

I did, but very minimal. Only at -20 db and 3:1 ratio

pcrecord, post: 448917, member: 46460 wrote: That's excellent !!

Thanks a lot !

pcrecord, post: 448917, member: 46460 wrote: That's excellent !!

Thanks a lot !

Here are a few others just for some more feedback if anyone is willing to offer. Any opinions are appreciated.

Good job !

pcrecord, post: 448936, member: 46460 wrote: Good job !

Thanks. I guess that's all I'll get from here. Thanks for all the help over these many months. I'll come back for any questions and such, otherwise, I suppose this is as far as I'll go with ya guys . Thanks again everyone !

Lelouch, post: 448988, member: 50238 wrote: I guess that's all I'll get from here.

Honestly, I think you still have much to learn and RO members could help you further.
BUT, not on this thread. I doubt anyone would want to read 14 pages to be sure they don't repeat the same information over and over..

Please create a new thread (it's free) and ask specific questions about any aspect of recording or mixing or mastering. (EQ, Comp Multiband-comp etc..)
Better post 12 short and precise questions ;)