Voice over vs. location audio

A final thought: if this is only needed for smaller lower budget project; why not skip the whole trying to do it like the big boys? When I had to go the in-house voice over route I looked at Podcastern. Treating a whole room in a way it not only sounds professional but also looks professional so clients can walk in without thinking they've entered a band rehearsal room will cost a lot of money even if you DIY it .
So I just built a "room" for the microphone out of commercial wooden framed sound panels and got a USB podcasting mic from Rode and put it inside.
I much more miss the quality of a professional voice over talent than I miss sound quality coming from the set up . Every voice over artist I work with uses special equalizer and compressor settings for each type of style she or he offers and whenever budget allows, I outsource VO...
 
Cars make really good VO booths.

If you have a recent car in good shape, and even better a garage in which you can park that car, get into one of the front seats, maybe tape your script to the steering wheel or stick your laptop/tablet on the dash in front of the passenger seat, and have at it.

Ya, it takes a little bit of rigging to mount the mic. But you get a good dry/dead room that IME sounds pretty decent.



(apologies if this idea has already been posted in this thread)
 
I'm with Jim and that roman guy ;~)

I would do it the NPR way and either record in a nice full closet or under a few blankets. You can't affordably treat your room unless you dedicate it to sound work. Most of the portable options are expensive bulky and only work OK. A large number of the VO's you hear on freelance radio work are done either under blankets or in a closet. Partly because you can do that in a hotel pretty much anywhere and because it works really well. A car is about the same if you can get it to a quiet place. None of these work terribly well if you need your client to do the VO.
 
For larger client projects I'd still envision hiring VO. I'd like to do some projects that I'm outlining myself and that's were it would be good to have the flexibility to do my own VO, as needed.

Planning to work on treating the space to get it "good enough." Or using the walk-in closet, which is likely pretty decent as is.

I'm also planning to get the MixPre6. The Zooms look like more "bang for the buck," but for the times I'm shooting as a one man band the MixPre6 looks easier to manage.

I had budgeted up to $700 for a VO mic but I don't feel any closer to picking a microphone, so will use what I have for now.

From the online samples I've liked the sound of a few Audio Technica mics, but it would probably tell me a lot more if I could try a few mics. For now I'm making that a lower priority.
 
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