VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[mythwoman]

Hello all, I am going to build my first home studio in a few weeks (with professional help of course). But I am not sure I have all that I need (and I probably don't).

I have looked over posts from long ago as I'm sure this subject has come up a hundred times or so. But with so many new kinds of equipment out I'm uncertain what is best to go by. As for money, well I've spent a little over $1000 thus far and have some more to spend.

This is what I have so far:

-Sound Card from DELL

-Audio Technica AT4047 Condenser Mic

-SoundForge 8.0

-PreSonus INSPIRE 1394 Firewire Audio Interface

My computer is brand new, from DELL and has 70 GBs on it right now. I would appreciate some advice and suggestions from anyone. What else do I need? Favorite or preferred brands?

Thanks,
Mary aka mythwoman

[VO-Guy]

Mary,

There are alot of routes you can go from this point. You can either.....

1). Get a preamp, compressor, eq seperately
2). Get a channel strip ( The more economical solution)
3). Get a board and use the pre's in that and use processing plugins to get the sound you want.

You will find that most outboard preamps will always sound better than the pre's in your audio interfaces. If your just doing VO work you can get by with something like a Symetrix 528E channel strip. There's a ton of channel strips on the market to choose from. Of course if your sending out VO only you really won't want alot of processing, leave that to the producers.

[Philip Banks]

Don't forget you will need to spend some time and money ensuring the room in which you record is accoustically dead.

1st Room
2nd Mic
3rd ......Mmmm, get the first two right and then worry about the rest.

[VO-Guy]

[nick reed]

If you need/want a pair of headphones, I would recommend Sennheiser HD 280 Pro. For $99, you can't get better phones for VO.

Here is a link:

http://www.headphone.com/guide/by-manufacturer/sennheiser/sennheiser-hd-280-pro.php

You can trust the reviews at HeadRoom. They are fair and honest. The HD 280 Pro headphones seal out a lot of noise and they sound decent too. I made the mistake of getting phones that sounded great but they don't seal out any noise at all. Can you say FEEDBACK.

ADVERTISMENT: I have the Sennheiser HD 555 for which I paid $180. They sound as smooth and warm as melted butter and they are extremely comfortable to wear for hours. If you like to listen to music on headphones, these are absolutely wonderful and I would be happy to sell them to you for only $110 (the $10 is for wrapping and shipping). They are in perfect condition (and I mean perfect), with original packaging. Guess what I will buy with the $100?

Nick

[kgenus]

That particular set of headphones has a bass boost, what you're hearing is *not* exactly what you're recording. AKG K240 have a much more natural response, but the output volume is pretty low....

Kevin
_________________
Genus

[nick reed]

Kevin,

You know that I respect your opinion. I am not really disagreeing with you but I think there are other things to consider.

The AKG 240 series are semi-open cans, so I would not want them but I guess that depends on how you work. Is that what you use? Have you ever had problems with bleed-through or feedback? I mean, with my current phones, I get lots of both. I can hear myself talking and if I get too close to the mic, I get feedback.

For a sealed phane that is better than the Senn HD280 Pro, I would go with the Beyerdynamic DT 250-250 or DT 250-80 (depending on the input impedence of the headphone monitor jack). But the Beyers have only 12dB attenuation as opposed to the Senn HD 250's 32dB of attenuation (note: that's a lot of attenuation, more than most hearing protectors used on the shooting range). This became abundantly clear to me one day when I was in Ultimate Electronics listening to headphones on their display. They were blasting a stereo in a nearby room. It was LOUD! The HD 280's knocked the noise way down and they were the only ones on the display that came even close to that level of attenuation. Well, heck, you could wear them to the shooting range!

For $200 or less, there aren't any phones that have a flat frequency response. The "industry standard" Sony MDR7506's certainly don't. Of course, you want to get somewhere close to reality but people quickly learn the correlation between the sound of their headphones and what is going on in reality. They adapt and compensate. Besides, your headphones will never sound like the final product coming out of the speakers of a TV, car radio or home stereo anyway.

Nick

[marko]

I use the HD280 pros and love them. I also have the MDR7506's but use the Sennheisers far more often.

Nick is correct, you can't beat them for the price.

[Hart]

I love my MDR-7506's too. Been using them for 14 years or so, but you gotta admit, they are a bit bassy.

[billelder]

Koss Pro/4AA's. Bricks with a head strap. <g>

[Spacegypsy]

Ultrasone S-Logic HFI-650

[Hart]

[allensco]

Sennheiser EH150's here.

[Deirdre]

Sony MDR CD180s.

Bwah!
I'm such a piker.
_________________
DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[kgenus]