|
Post by trina on Jan 18, 2017 7:19:55 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by Rebekah Amber Clark on Jan 18, 2017 10:43:19 GMT -8
Hi, Trina! The sky's pretty much the limit -- do you have any sort of budget in mind what you want to/can spend? =) I'm not the biggest tech geek here (lucky if I talk into the right side of my mic, LOL!) but that may help the people who know the tech stuff better than I do to point you in the right direction. =D
|
|
duffyweber
Member
Posts: 220
I Am A(n): Professional Voice Actor, Semi-Professional Voice Actor, Audio Engineer
Pronouns: Any OK
|
Post by duffyweber on Jan 18, 2017 13:37:46 GMT -8
The Baby Blue Bottle has a lot of punch across the midrange, but it's definitely not a bad mic. More on that in a sec, but first, I'd say your interface needs to be upgraded. Focusrite Scarlett is good stuff. The 2i2 through the big rack mounts all used the same preamp chip. The Solo is a little lackluster by comparison (though still a good interface. I'd up my game with a 2i2. A 2i4 if you need output to extra stuff from time to time.) Presonus makes some decent stuff too. For mics, you might consider something that has a different sonic profile. What sort of parts do you do? If adverts, choose one with a good, flat, well-rounded response through the 100-900Hz ranges. If you're doing characters, you might try a few depending on the sort you do. If you do high, squeaky characters, too much punch on the high-end will make them sound rattly, like cellophane. Also, without hearing your recordings first, I'll still go ahead and advise that your recording area is of absolutely the utmost importance. No reverb off your walls, no room echo, that sort of thing. You don't need to spend a penny on equipment until you address that, if you haven't already. Let us know what sort of stuff you do, and what your range is, and we can suggest a few good pro-grade mics for you. For some all-purpose ones, I'm a fan of several Shure (SM27 maybe?) and Oktava models (the MK-105 is nice), and unless you're okay with communicating directly with the Russian factory, the latter will fall under "somewhat expensive." Though if you REALLY want something unusual, hard to get, and expensive, you could always get something like a Pearl ELM-C. In all seriousness, though, you might try an AT-4040. They're common mics, inexpensive, have a decently flat response, and a bass roll-off switch. It'll give especially high or low voices some nice texture/warmth if you leave it off, and clean up upper midrange voices to crisp precision if you switch it on. EDIT: Neumann also makes several very good, if very expensive mics. It's why I like Oktava. Some of their (Oktava's) models were originally made, I understand, as Soviet competition for Neumann decades ago, and they did a great job of it, even if they weren't as pretty.
|
|
|
Post by trina on Jan 18, 2017 18:38:43 GMT -8
Thanks a bunch for responding back, mostly I do cartoony high and low voices. Of course, I do serious mature not cartoony voices as well, but the cartoonish is just to show my range. (This demo reel is when I used a blue icicle instead of focusrite solo scarlet, but I still used the Baby Blue Bottle) www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDHWVMSKYM0 I think AT-4040 or Neumann or Oktvia, I can't choose. Help!! Maybe hearing my voices you can judge better. Also, for the 2i2, will it get rid of peaking for good? Because I hate lowering my solo, and it's barely audible just to get rid of peaking and I don't want 2i2 to be like that as well.
|
|
|
Post by Lady Stardust ★ on Jan 18, 2017 22:09:20 GMT -8
I use the exact same microphone and preamp as you! I just use a Kaotica Eyeball as part of that filter. I record professional jobs and auditions from that setup all the time---upgraded from an AT2020U which was still good but I kept being told to get off of USB At this point, improving the acoustics of your space, if possible, will make a bigger difference than simply buying a more expensive microphone. Expensive mics can still sound like crap in a bad environment, whereas even lower-end mics can sound great in a soundproof space. I can't listen to your recordings properly since I'm on mobile right now so you may already have that? Part of what makes certain voice recordings have that super professional sound in the end is compression and mastering. But I'm not really knowledgeable in that area so I can't give too much advice there (plus a lot of clients want raw recordings, anyway)
|
|
|
Post by StringStorm on Jan 20, 2017 4:05:14 GMT -8
Hey Trina. Fancy seeing you around here.
Adding to the software side of things:
What you need is some high end noise reduction method. In order to achieve absolute dead silence (or atleast close to it since absolute silence is physically impossible to achieve), is to use a noise gate. A noise gate basically filters out anything within a certain volume level. So let's say you've set your noise gate to -40db, it'll just ignore any sound within that volume and pick up just whatever it is that is -39db+. The best thing about noise gates is that after you set it up, you never ever need to touch it again. And it can boost your recording quality, often fooling clients that you have a really well built studio since its so dead quiet even if you don't have one. The only drawback from this is setting it a bit to high where it actually starts rejecting some parts of your voices.
Remember: Physical noise can never be truly eliminated, even if you sit in the most quietest room in the world, noise will still be present. The noise gate fixes that.
You CAN do noise reduction processes since that's much faster and easier but doing so might destroy the quality of your recording. Personally, I use noise reduction rather than noise gate but I do so down to the nitty gritty finger details, making sure I don't lose any quality at all. I don't know why I torture myself with it but its worked for me far better than a noise gate.
You should only dabble with compression if you think you need to. True, clients will often ask for raw but it never hurts to learn how to if you want to update your demo reel and you want it to wow people with a sudden bump in quality if compared to a previous demo. Its basically what its called. It compresses the recording so that quieter parts get louder and louder parts get quieter. But if done right, you can make the quiet parts clear while still remaining soft, and the loud parts punchy, more powerful without it being overbearing. Lets say you have a recording where you really gave a really powerful line but you want it to emphasize on the oomphy parts while not sounding obvious about it. You compress the entire thing. Too little, and it might not give that oomph you're looking for. Too much, and it can utterly destroy that oomph. You need to find the right balance. Same with the noise gate, once you've set up the right amount for your voice in your effects rack, you're pretty much set.
Finally, mastering. Most of the time, I use it to balance out the treble and bass in my voice. But it can also be used to fix your recording. Let's say you're done recording and what you recorded was excellent. But you notice that there are some plosives and almost peaking sibilant here and there and recording again wouldn't sound as good as before (or you're just lazy like me). You could isolate plosives, kill the bass or lower it enough to the point where the puff is inaudible, and move on with fixing the rest. The same goes for the sibilants. This one, you're going to have to do manually or you would probably need to do something about your physical setup.
|
|
duffyweber
Member
Posts: 220
I Am A(n): Professional Voice Actor, Semi-Professional Voice Actor, Audio Engineer
Pronouns: Any OK
|
Post by duffyweber on Jan 28, 2017 7:27:47 GMT -8
I think AT-4040 or Neumann or Oktvia, I can't choose. Help!! Maybe hearing my voices you can judge better. Also, for the 2i2, will it get rid of peaking for good? Because I hate lowering my solo, and it's barely audible just to get rid of peaking and I don't want 2i2 to be like that as well. I'm running an Oktava MK-105 and it's REAL decent. I do the same thing you do, character voices as well as serious ones. I've gone from SUUUUPER high pitch to bass characters and it handles them perfectly. Though the 4040 might be a good option for you, too. With the rolloff on, it works like a slightly higher quality AT2020, and you can turn off the bass rolloff to give throatier characters some oomph, and super-high pitch ones some nice texture - a high witch's cackle gets REALLY crunchy and nice with some good bass. For the peaking, the 2i2 handles it fine. I leave mine's dial at about 60%-70% of the way up. (Although I run 2 mics, and leave a 15dB attenuation pad on one of them. That way I don't have to stop between whispering and screaming. If you're shouting, dial the thing down to about 30-45% on the dial.) As I said before, and Kira also mentioned, your recording space is REALLY important, but I'm not hearing any wall bounce in your demo, which is great, and a good sign you've got a decent handle on that. Still, the space you record in ALWAYS affects the sound and is PARAMOUNT to good audio. Bear that in mind when listening to raw recordings. Quieter areas mean less noise to scrub when doing noise reduction, and the less likely you'll distort your own voice when scrubbing room noise. What you need to do now is play around with your post-processing. (Note: a LOT of audio engineers - again, as Kira said - want raw audio, and the crisp, clean, professional sound is their doing.) StringStorm mentioned noise reduction - it's important that the sample you use is PURE ROOM NOISE without coughs, breaths, etc. because it will remove those ranges from your voice, as well. I wrote an article on this in this very help section: voiceacting.boards.net/thread/88/great-audition-noise-floor-removalAlso mentioned was compression. Playing with it might be beneficial from time to time. Try this just for fun (though it's kind of a kludge): Split your tracks into dual tracks. Use a dynamic range compressor on one of them. Mute one. Listen to them individually. See the difference? The compressed track sounds rich and full. Ah! but the compressed track is missing some of the crispness, isn't it? Merge them back together and normalize. Neat, eh? ; ) Another thing you can do is play a bit with your EQ. The human voice range, in extremes goes from about the 35hz (basso profundo) range to 880 hz (coloratura) range, so those are the areas that affect your voice directly, but the higher/lower ranges affect things like vocal harmonics, overall sound, and room noise. I LOVE a mic that has a punch in the 1Khz (1000hz) to 10Khz range (such as the oktava) because it makes your voice sound so crisp, clean, and (with proper EQ) gives a cool, precise edge to it. (Again, try an experiment. Take your recording and give it a little 5dB to 7dB bump from 1Khz on upward, and see how much it affects the overall sound. It gets ice cold - and a little too thin - if you crank that to 10dB. You can do the opposite by giving it a little bump from 200hz on down. It gets warm, like an old LP player, or old radio speakers, and it feels like listening to old Christmas records = ) You don't want to play with that stuff right off the bat when you're sending something off for a pro gig just yet. Get a feel for it, get an ear for it, and compare it to professional sounding recordings and THEN try it out. Gently. Easily. Juuuust a touch here and there. Remember, the audio engineer has to EQ you to sound like everyone else. You're just trying to give him/her a good base to work with. LOWERING your EQ and noise reduction can possibly cut out sound permanently, depending on your DAW and your compression algorithm/file type you're saving to, so for EQ I recommend bumping it in places rather than dipping it, if you can help it at all.
|
|
duffyweber
Member
Posts: 220
I Am A(n): Professional Voice Actor, Semi-Professional Voice Actor, Audio Engineer
Pronouns: Any OK
|
Post by duffyweber on Jan 28, 2017 7:56:05 GMT -8
Expensive mics can still sound like crap in a bad environment, whereas even lower-end mics can sound great in a soundproof space. Also, had to say; THIS! This, exactly. ^_^
|
|