Voice Recording Equipment Help

little bobby

little bobby

Well-known member
Hey guys,

I've been looking over lots of the previous threads but I haven't been able to find the information I need so I'm hoping someone here can give me a little or a lot of insight into what needs to be purchased. Here's the gist:

We're putting in a voice recording booth from Whisper Room. I already have a Rode NT1-A mic that's I've been using to record VO's for various projects. That will go into the booth. Currently, whenever we'er recording a VO, I go into the storage closet (the quietest room in the building) and I have the mic go straight into my camera. It produces passable recordings.

With the new booth, we'll hopefully be capturing VO's straight into a computer. I have a Mac Pro tower that I can use for the audio capture but I'm not sure on what needs to be put between the mic and the computer. I'm assuming we'll be using Adobe Audition as we have licensing for it. If there is other software that would be better suited for this, I'd love to hear about it.

I've never setup a sound booth like this before so I'm really struggling to figure out what is needed so that I can record the VOs, have the speaker hear what their voice sounds like (using headphones), and have control of the audio levels from outside the booth.

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks in advance for the responses and let me know if any additional information is needed.
 
Well first off you need an interface. That should give you both the way in and the way out (headphones, speakers etc) of the computer.

Audition could be OK really depends on what your doing and if you need to collaborate with others.
ProTools would be the "standard" but is not a requirement unless you need to send and receive PT sessions. Reaper is an up and coming DAW, but it doesn't and probably never will, support OMF or AAf so it's kind of a problem for post film work.
 
A good quality mic preamp is a must have.. Usually less than a grand but more than a few hundred will buy something decent. Your set-up should include some kind of talkback system to communicate w/ the artist. Usually a mixer can be set-up to feed a TB mic to the headphone circuit. A Sound Devices MM1 may an good option, affordable, has a great mic preamp (w/limiter and HPF), headphone amp and a secondary monitor input w/ level control for talkback and playback from your 'control room'.
http://www.sounddevices.com/products/mm1/ Plenty of other options though, depending on your budget and complexity level.
The booth should be acoustically appointed to eliminate early reflections which cause the 'boxy' sound.
 
Noiz2 said:
Well first off you need an interface. That should give you both the way in and the way out (headphones, speakers etc) of the computer.

Audition could be OK really depends on what your doing and if you need to collaborate with others.
ProTools would be the "standard" but is not a requirement unless you need to send and receive PT sessions. Reaper is an up and coming DAW, but it doesn't and probably never will, support OMF or AAf so it's kind of a problem for post film work.
Click to expand...

What interface would you recommend? I something like the Focusrite Scarlette 2i4 on the right track? I don't know how I would do talkback to the person speaking though...maybe the SoundDevices USB Pre2 would be a better option then?

We're apparently recording VOs for videos and having the booth available if professors or faculty need to record a presentation for online streaming. I am still wondering why they want to spend the money on the booth when I typically only record voice overs twice a year. I would be the only person dealing with the audio and not collaborating with anyone else on the post work.
 
Or are they just reading off a script? You can use pretty much any other input with a mic for the talk back, you just have to make sure you kill it before you record.

Schools and budgets... It's possible someone has some excess. Most schools budget on a "use it or lose it" basis so there is great incentive to use every cent even if you don't need it this year because if you don't they will cut your budget next year. A really stupid way to operate but VERY common.

I would probably plan, if the budget is there, to be able to run two to four mics in there. The reasoning is that while your only doing VO right now you may get say someone singing with a guitar and you don't want to hit the wall too fast.

I like the SD mic pres, but I have heard good things about the Scarlet. You could also look at a mixer with a firewire or USB connection. Alesis made some decent ones and Mackie also had one.

Again you don't need that for what you are currently doing but looking out at the future maybe? The other budget thing with schools is they get really pissy if they think they already "bought" the thing you want to buy. So it's often better to edge on the side of too much than too little.
 
Noiz2 said:
Or are they just reading off a script? You can use pretty much any other input with a mic for the talk back, you just have to make sure you kill it before you record.

Schools and budgets... It's possible someone has some excess. Most schools budget on a "use it or lose it" basis so there is great incentive to use every cent even if you don't need it this year because if you don't they will cut your budget next year. A really stupid way to operate but VERY common.

...

Again you don't need that for what you are currently doing but looking out at the future maybe? The other budget thing with schools is they get really pissy if they think they already "bought" the thing you want to buy. So it's often better to edge on the side of too much than too little.
Click to expand...

Yep, just reading a script. Pretty basic.

Our fiscal years runs alongside the academic year. So instead of the traditional Jan-to-Dec fiscal year, we're something like Aug'13-Jul'14. And yeah, we basically do have to use it or lose it. I'd rather invest in other camera equipment seeing as we don't record too many VOs, but since the director of my department wants the booth, I might as well spec it out to actually work. And yeah, if I don't get exactly what is needed to get the recording working, I won't be able to get anything else after this purchase until the next fiscal year is over. Such as pain in the butt....
 
Get yourself a second hand digidesign M-box 2 (or pro) with pro tools if you can and it will give you some audio software and a dual channel USB interface, the Rode mic will be fine but make sure you get a decent windshield and a pop-er stopper.

I use an M-box 2 with a laptop and final cut pro to do location voice over recordings to picture using the voice over app in FCP, does adobe have a similar app? I use a rode NT2000 with mine or a dynamic mic for location work.

An m-box 2 will also give you headphone and loudspeaker monitoring options, there are new equivalents (m-box 3) but you can pick up second hand m-box 2 or pro for very little $$$ and if it comes with pro tools you will also get a powerful audio recorder that you could also update with DV toolkit and use it to do audio post work!

OK not the best mic amps in the world but with a $200 mic they are perfectly acceptable, it will also provide phantom power and basic high pass filtering.
 
Last edited:
GaryNattrass said:
you can pick up second hand m-box 2 or pro for very little $$$ and if it comes with pro tools you will also get a powerful audio recorder that you could also update with DV toolkit and use it to do audio post work!
Click to expand...

Be aware that DV Toolkit, Complete Production Toolkit and the like will only work with Pro Tools version 10 and earlier, as AVID has now forced you to purchase Pro Tools HD to get that same functionality with version 11 forward.
 
David W. Jones said:
Be aware that DV Toolkit, Complete Production Toolkit and the like will only work with Pro Tools version 10 and earlier, as AVID has now forced you to purchase Pro Tools HD to get that same functionality with version 11 forward.
Click to expand...

Thanks and sorry I didn't mention that as I am still happily on PT version 8.
 
David W. Jones said:
Be aware that DV Toolkit, Complete Production Toolkit and the like will only work with Pro Tools version 10 and earlier, as AVID has now forced you to purchase Pro Tools HD to get that same functionality with version 11 forward.
Click to expand...

Which features are you talking about? DV ToolKit added time code/feet+frames, OMF import, MP3 export, and at one point included VocAlign. Most of those things became standard after Avid dropped "LE" from their non-HD versions, and PT 11 is no different. The only thing I think isn't included is VocAlign. I'm running PT10 with no toolkit and I am able to import and export OMF/AAF, export MP3 mixes, display TC ruler, etc.

There are a few things the Complete Production Toolkit unlocked that are not available with PT11, but that's more about track count and surround mixing.
 
As a heavy PT user I'm not sure I would recommend it for an occasional user. The learning curve is kind of steep if you are not familiar with DAW's in general and there has always been complications with OS version VS ProTools version. Apple and Avid are enemies and you have to be really carful about updating your OS if you have PT on it because Avid gets no advance copies of new OS's and so can't even start to work on compatibility issues till they can pick up a copy at a store.

Maybe with Apple basically blowing off the pro market this will ease but it has been a real problem for the last ten years or so.
 
I haven't used PT since about 2005...so I'm guessing its changed a bit. I am comfortable with Audition and I think I figured out how our recording setup is going to work. Apparently we had a Behringer X1204USB Mixer sitting in a closet that they ordered for me about year and a half ago but never told me about. Fun times.

Mics will go into Behringer through XLR. Behringer connects to computer through USB. Headphones for voice talent plug into PHONES. Studio monitors (KRK Rokit 6) connect to Control Room Out through TRS -> XLR cables. Use Adobe Audition to record whatever.

Everything Kosher?

I was thinking of grabbing a cheap handheld mic with an on/off switch to use as a talkback mic with whoever gets stuck in the whisper room booth.
 
little bobby said:
I haven't used PT since about 2005...so I'm guessing its changed a bit. I am comfortable with Audition and I think I figured out how our recording setup is going to work. Apparently we had a Behringer X1204USB Mixer sitting in a closet that they ordered for me about year and a half ago but never told me about. Fun times.

Mics will go into Behringer through XLR. Behringer connects to computer through USB. Headphones for voice talent plug into PHONES. Studio monitors (KRK Rokit 6) connect to Control Room Out through TRS -> XLR cables. Use Adobe Audition to record whatever.

Everything Kosher?

I was thinking of grabbing a cheap handheld mic with an on/off switch to use as a talkback mic with whoever gets stuck in the whisper room booth.
Click to expand...

That will work in a pinch. I'm not a big fan of Behringer... cheap gear. If you upgrade to a better, external pre-amp for the VO mic you'll be in a better position.

Also, you might look at a monitor manager for dealing with your monitors, headphones, and talkback. It allows you to rout different signals to headphones and monitors, and it also includes a built-in TB mic. That would allow you to use one of the Aux mixes for direct monitoring in the booth, which you can switch to the main stereo bus (with USB return active) for playback.
 
Should work. As Alex implied Behringer has some really weak QA so while the gear it self seems to be decent it's not at all unheard of to open a box and find it DOA. They kind of made their bread and butter off of cloning pricier gear and changing just enough to keep from being (successfully) sued. When they work they are often a good value, and most of the problems I have seen were out of the box. If it works it seems to stay that way, well as much as anything else does.
 
Alex H. said:
That will work in a pinch. I'm not a big fan of Behringer... cheap gear. If you upgrade to a better, external pre-amp for the VO mic you'll be in a better position.

Also, you might look at a monitor manager for dealing with your monitors, headphones, and talkback. It allows you to rout different signals to headphones and monitors, and it also includes a built-in TB mic. That would allow you to use one of the Aux mixes for direct monitoring in the booth, which you can switch to the main stereo bus (with USB return active) for playback.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the heads up Alex. If I get the opportunity, I'll get a better pre-amp. I have the Behringer hooked up right now and everything seems to be working fine. I'm probably not going to dive into all of the FX Processing it does, so even if that doesn't work, it really won't effect me. I think I will add the monitor manager to my budget and see if they approve it. Worse they can say is "no".
 
Though I haven't used it since it was Cool Edit Pro, Audition should have a compressor/limiter and EQ internally or via plug-ins, which is usually all you would need for VOs unless the initial recording is forked up.
 
little bobby said:
I'm probably not going to dive into all of the FX Processing it does, so even if that doesn't work, it really won't effect me.
Click to expand...

There is rarely any good reason to muck around with built-in effects processors on a mixer like that when recording. Get the mic in clean and dry, and do anything you need to do in post.
 
Behringer make a low cost monitor manager too, OK not the best but it will get you up and running! http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/MON800.aspx

You may not need such a device if you add a separate headphone amp for the V/O booth.

They do a low cost headphone amp with a second mic input that may be useful in the V/O booth: http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/MA400.aspx

If you buy a mic with a switch you could just feed it through to the mic input on that headphone amp as a simple talkback circuit, I personally would use one of these types: http://www.studiospares.com/mics-ot...4-L5DpaW6Vg5Zb21D1M6_VtwH4bDDuwrc84NIrH7w_wcB

I know you are feeding the headphones from the output on the desk but you will find that you need a separate feed for talkback, if you get a headphone amp for the V/O booth you can then feed the sound of the mic from an aux output on the mixing desk to the line input and use the second mic input for your talkback to the V/O person.

Like others have said you should not need the FX on the mixer and just record the voice clean and do any EQ and compression in post.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Gary. This is very valuable information. I'll be sure to let you guys know what we end up going with and I'll try to take photos of the room setup once its up and running.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top