The right mic for this?

D

David Evans

Well-known member
Hi guys,

I started a thread here, a few months ago, about recording voice over, but I have a couple of different questions about this. I'm renting a mic next weekend to record a female voice over, which should sound very clean and almost whispered. It must sound intimate. I will be recording it through my MM1.

Here are my questions:

1 - There's no budget to go into a sound treated booth. And since we don't have any closets with standing space, I was thinking about recording inside my car, in the garage. There's no sound whatsoever in the garage (except, of course, when a car comes in). I guess this is not really a question, but just so that you guys know my recording conditions before going to the real question at point number 2.

2 - So, given that I'll be recording inside my car, I was wondering what mic would work better in these conditions. Now, the rental company doesn't have a lot of alternatives, and they pretty much narrowed it down to the Schoeps CMC6 + MK41 or the Senheiser MKH-416. If you only had these choices and knowing I will record it in a car, which mic should I rent? (they cost exactly the same per day). I must say I never really understood how a shotgun mic like the MKH416 is widely used for voice over narration, but it's industry standard, so I also included it in there. Of course the Schoeps was used to record the three tenors, but I'm not really recording tenors and I'm recording inside a car... Please, let me know what you guys think.

Thanks!
 
David Evans said:
There's no budget to go into a sound treated booth. And since we don't have any closets with standing space, I was thinking about recording inside my car, in the garage.
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Do you have a couple of C-stands with arms, and some furniture pads/sound blankets or even some heavy winter quilts? You can create a makeshift sound booth with these supplies, and if you don’t have C-stands you may get by with a couple of mic stands with boom arms.

And with your situation, I’d highly recommend a dynamic mic instead of a condenser. The lower sensitivity will help with the less-than-ideal conditions. Speak close, and avoid plosives by speaking across the mic instead of directly into it.
 
Hey Alex. Just found there's a great room near me that's actually used for recording vocals and musical instruments. It's used in professional recordings, so I'm assuming it's sound treated accordingly. And it's very cheap, so I'll be recording it there. In this situation, which mic should I take?

Thanks
 
It may be treated, but it may not be “dead”. Studios for music recording often are not designed to eliminate the entire room, but to shape it for a smooth response. So there will likely be a natural decay, as opposed to a vocal booth that is designed to eliminate any and all reflection/reverb. Without seeing and hearing the room, there’s no way to know. It’s still going to be a much better solution, just as long as you know that there’s a possibility of some natural reflection in there.

A dynamic may still be a better option in that case, espeically if you can get your hands on something like an RE20 or a Shure SM7B. You could try a shotgun like the 416 just to see how you like it, though.

But, is this just a room, or a full-blown recording studio? If you’re booking an hour of time in there, why not ask what they have in their mic locker and see what they recommend?
 
Thanks Alex. I will investigate if they have a booth. What differences would there be between using the schoeps and the senheiser?
 
Honestly? The human voice is a tricky beast, and there’s no one mic that works for everyone. The Schoeps and the Sennheiser have different sounds, and very different pickup patterns, just on their own. I know VO artists who swear by the 416, and I know many who use large diaphragm condensers like the Neumann U87 (on the high and) and the RØDE NT-1A (on the budget end). But it really depends on the individual voice.

Again, if this location is a full-fledged studio, why not let their engineer handle the mic and the recording as well?
 
Well, hiring a studio to do the recording was something that I wanted to avoid because of budget. If I rent the mic and the studio, it will still cost about 20% of what it would if I'd hire someone to do the whole process. In this studio they record a lot of vocals, so the room should be prepared for it. But maybe they do it using dynamic mics like you said?

EDIT:

Just called the studio and they have a room just for vocal recording that's been treated to be completely "dead". It will cost me 2,5eur/h which is fantastic. I just have to take my gear. Still undecided as to which mic to take. I've read the Schoeps is in another league but more important than that, I have to take the right tool for the job. So it all comes down to which mic is more flattering to female voice and captures those nuances we love when a voice is in the borderline of whispering and talking.
 
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David Evans said:
In this studio they record a lot of vocals, so the room should be prepared for it. But maybe they do it using dynamic mics like you said?
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No. Recording for music is a process very different from recording VO, and often the rooms are intentionally not “dead”. And they likely use condensers most of the time. They actually want to hear a little bit of the room in the recording.

David Evans said:
Just called the studio and they have a room just for vocal recording that's been treated to be completely "dead".
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Okay, so you’ll be fine with any mic you take as far as the booth in concerned. As for her voice? Without the time and resources to run through a mic locker and test different mics on her specific voice, there’s no way to know. But that doesn’t mean that one of these two mics will be terrible, and in fact may be more than adequate. There’s just no way to make an objective statement that one or the other is your absolute best choice. Either will work in that case.
 
What you should do is bring a few mics and try them out. One will be closer to what you want than the others, use it.
 
I would try as many mics as I could get my hands on. Sometimes the mic you least expect, works the in the situation at hand. That said, I've usually got good results using a U-67 for intimate sounding female voice and narrations.. but that particular mic may be hard to find.
 
What mics do you have currently? If you're got the tiniest of budgets, you could perhaps skip renting.
You'll likely want to use a pop filter.

And in a pinch, you can put something together yourself to record in. Here is what I did when I got a "surprise ADR" request thrown at me by the director while on a shoot overseas for a low budget feature film last year:

 
Thanks guys. I do have very low budget, but here are the costs of renting:

1 - Schoeps CMC6 + MK41 - 22,5eur (roughly 25 USD)
2 - Sound booth - 2,5eur per hour (roughly 3 USD per hour).

This is a cost I can take. Paying for a studio to record the whole stuff would cost about 130eur, and that is out of the question. The MKH 416 costs 1 usd less than the Schoeps but the Schoeps seems more adequate for the space, I think... I could be wrong, of course...

Taking a bunch of mics with me would be ideal, but at 25usd each... would quickly break the budget.
 
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David Evans said:
Thanks guys. I do have very low budget, but here are the costs of renting:

1 - Schoeps CMC6 + MK41 - 22,5eur (roughly 25 USD)
2 - Sound booth - 2,5eur per hour (roughly 3 USD per hour).

This is a cost I can take. Paying for a studio to record the whole stuff would cost about 130eur, and that is out of the question. The MKH 416 costs 1 usd less than the Schoeps but the Schoeps seems more adequate for the space, I think...
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The Schoeps is going to be more sensitive and have less self noise than the MHK 416 (plus, to me, it sounds much better). People use the 416 for voice over because it's very easy to do the "voice of a god" thing -- the 416 has massive proximity effect. And also because a lot of people have 416s in their kits already. And it works for a large range of voices.

The mk41 capsule from Schoeps is a hypercardioid, so it's important to keep the speaker in the pretty tight pattern of the mic, and also to control proximity effect. You'll probably want to avoid the natural tendency to get really close; you'll have to experiment with placement to get the right compromises made. Use a pop filter. And push the mic off center so that she's not speaking directly into it, but rather is speaking past it, which also helps with plosives. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to raise it, at least above her nose height. I'd actually start in more or less booming position -- 50-60cm away, aimed down toward the mouth at about a 45 degree angle. Adjust from there. And do take the time to make adjustments, if you can nail it in the booth you have far less to do in post. Just sayin'.
 
Great stuff Bruce, thanks. I actually was able to make an arrangement with the rental company and I'm going tomorrow to the booth and try both mics. Of course I won't have the actress with me tomorrow, but it will make me aware of potencial issues. Booming position sounds about right to me with a hyper. If I get it too close, all sort of plosives and blows will be there and make post a nightmare...
 
Just went to that sound booth and... omg... is does make a huge difference to record VO in a room like that. You can't hear absolutely nothing of the room. I took the mkh416 and the schoeps mk41. Both sound great, but the mk41 is really something else... it sounds hollywood VO. I didn't even had to do any post. Of course I had to try it with my voice. Next time it'll be for real with the actress... hope it will sound as good.
 
Bruce Watson said:
The Schoeps sound is pretty amazing. I did warn ya. ;-)
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There’s that, but this should be highlighted for any passers-by:

David Evans said:
Just went to that sound booth and... omg... is does make a huge difference to record VO in a room like that. You can't hear absolutely nothing of the room.
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As often as we say that around here, folks don’t pay close enough attention to it to make it a higher priority. Proper treatment for VO recording is just as important as proper treatment for accurate mix monitoring in post.

There are very workable, makeshift solutions that can be cobbled together in the field - I’ve used them many times - but if you have a whisper room available (and for such a dirt-cheap hourly rate!), there’s really no substitute.
 
Guys, VO recording went great. I just have the same problem over and over again. Damn hiss. I'm not sure if it's expected to get a clean audio feed, but in order to get the voice into the -20 to -10 dbs interval, my MM1 will introduce lots of hiss... I'm using the Sound Devices MM1 at 50db gain and my wave form still has to be increased in post... Is this normal behaviour from such a great preamp as the MM1?

Thanks
 
"Is this normal behavior from such a great preamp as the MM1? "
- Not normally. I've used an MM1 with a 416 and MKH50 for a boom op and never noticed a noise issue, unless it was acoustical. Is the hiss coming through the MM1's HP output? Could be an unterminated monitor return, if that's turned up. If it's happening after the fact, your playback system may not be set up correctly. What file format are you saving the recording as.. a 48k/24 bit PCM file is usually the standard for video projects... and what are you saving it too? A DSLR or low budget recorder will usually be noisy regardless of what's upstream. A monitor system will exhibit some kind of hiss when the levels are pushed to the extreme.
 
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