VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Adric83]

Greetings Folks!

I've read a few mic shootouts and threads recently, discussing the pros and cons of Mic X and Mic Y, etc.

The question occurred to me:

Would you rather buy the 'perfect' (or better suited) mic outright even though it might be pricier, and have to do less to it in your DAW of choice, OR would you rather save the money and get a similar mic that you can EQ or HPF or work your magic on to make sound like the more expensive one?

Basically I want to know what people's opinions are about preferring a mic that 'just works' or whether they're happy to put in the extra work tweaking settings to bring the magic out of a so-called 'lesser' mic?

Hearing from people who might be like myself and not quite as adept at the tweaking side of things would be interesting to hear too; some of you are downright audio tweaking geniuses... envious...

[Frank F]

Go with the3 right mic/pre combination with NO processing and you will love your sound and so will your clients. Do NO processing and win, process the audio and lose.

Your choice.

Frank F
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Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

[Rob Ellis]

I would say go for the mics whose sound you like when unprocessed. Then you can still process them if you want, (or have George Whittam design some custom plug-ins for you) but can still send them unprocessed if necessary since you like their core sound to begin with.


In other words, kind of what Frank said.

[Bish]

Always start with the best source material you can.... with a sound that has not been futzed with.

I know how to futz... I'm dangerous. But I also know that my ears and monitoring equipment (however good I think they might be) are not as good as the guy that's doing the final cut/mix/production. This guy also knows the context, layers, and requirements of the final production.

The only time you should break this rule (maybe) is if you are doing the full production and mastering on an audiobook (or similar), where you are the futz-meister and control the entire chain, producing the polished, finished, and mastered audio.
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Bish a.k.a. Bish
Smoke me a kipper... I'll be back for breakfast.
I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls... I will not feed the trolls.

[Adric83]

Wise words and sage advice from you all. Thank you Frank, Rob and Bish.

I was of the same opinion, but I'd seen discussions where people would laud a certain mic, claiming that "with just a few EQ adjustments or plugins, it can sound almost exactly like XYZ mic!"

I had thought maybe I was lazy or not skilled enough to do it and figured "why don't I just buy the one that IS XYZ??!"

I guess it goes back to what I've read on here and heard from coaches many times over: DO NOT go nuts with filters, effects or even EQ on your mics, since if you can't reproduce it in an audition or casting where you don't HAVE your mics or plugins or access to the desk, you're screwed...

[georgethetech]

This is a great question, Adric.
It's a reality I face 3-5 times a day as I work with my clients and they come to me with whatever gear they happen to have and expect to hang up an hour later with a magical sound.

Perhaps I am part of the problem, as much as part of the solution for these folks. I would love the luxury of spending them time with each one of them demoing an array of the known VO mic faves, but we know that's not going to happen for the vast majority of the newbies.

I take their audio, give them acoustics and placement notes, make an EQ curve, and for auditions, add 2:1 comp (or more if they are really all over the map), -50db thresh. 1.8:1 exp (adjust as needed), and a makeup gain with a limiter.
I never use multi-bands, exciters, big bottoms, or any of that junk.

Slight thread jack:
For those of you who say mic-pre-acoustics-technique, that's it. Is that how you send out your auditions, too, or are you putting a little sizzle on the steak?
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[Rob Ellis]

More and more I use a some George Whittam tailor-made-to-my-voice sizzle.

Esp with the 416, and often with the U87ai.

[Bruce]

From my corner of the VO universe the most common quality differences with cheap(er) mics I've run into is not enough bass (low end) and too much high end or sibilance. I've found those are some of the worst things to try and fix in post. Added bass usually sounds muddy and artificial to me, and trying to nullify crispy highs can end up in a muddy sounding top end.

As has probably been said above, engineers who receive your dry audio will really appreciate good quality sound and will think you more professional for it. Word gets around.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Rob Ellis]

BTW I Only add the aforementioned sizzle to auditions, or occasionally when I get a lower-tier client who needs completely finished audio

(although I'm not a big fan of doing that)

[Bill Campbell]

The bigger the client, less processing. Smaller client, more. I've found that local TV, eLearning, web video producers, etc... have very little skill in audio sweetening. I'll juice it up for them.

If it's going to people who know what they're doing, send it clean.
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[Dayo]