A First Newbie Voice-over with EV RE20 + Cloudlifter CL-1

Bubba Spear

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Newbie Voice-over with EV RE20 + Cloudlifter CL-1



My first ever attempt at a voice-over. Was asked if I'd like to write/voice/record ideas for a very low budget startup; meaning zero money but great fun. Actually it's fantastic fun :-) Done in this one and only single take a few weeks ago.

The only thing I did was to set the compression at the default settings in the DAW. No EQ or anything else touched or added. The recording space was a large heavily furnished drawing room. An aviation theme had been required, but has since been dropped. I do realize that it's completely unusable as a means of selling anything. Way too menacing and scary!... but good for understanding how to work the gear.

Question: what other processing should I consider? I am not a VO person, so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks folks

Bubba Speare
 
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Your voice is great for this, and it was funny.

Maybe [noise] gate it so we can't hear the background noise when you're not talking or consider a better/quieter preamp.

PS. The cloudlifter will change the mic's impedance, which essentially acts to EQ it in a way...(usually brighter/open, but you have proximity effect from speaking close into the mic that's masking that). So just realize you did use two EQs (impedance from the in-line pre and proximity effect).
 
It's not bad, certainly. It's very clear and mostly very clean.

There are a few lip smacks which might be distracting. It also feels fairly bassy overall. Some more high-end might help.
To that effect, I'd recommend backing off the mic a little bit. That will help tame the low frequencies (and should help with the smacks)
 
.It also feels fairly bassy overall. Some more high-end might help.

Agree - there is one particular frequency that is jumping out at me a bit. Somewhere between 180 and 300Hz maybe. Perhaps a mild focused cut if you bud it. It may add some clarity.

I love RE20s. I tracked 8 tracks of female vocals with one yesterday. It was great. I'll post the mix in here at some point after we finish tracking.
 
Nola, VomitHatSteve and ibleedburgundy: thanks to all for the suggestions. Am taking notes + mucho tech reading. Plenty of good info already posted on this site, so becoming familiar with the search function.

Thanks again

Bubba Speare
 
Actually, RE-20s, RE-15s, RE-320s and RE-27s have something called Variable-D, which means they have little or no proximity effect.

Oh yeah, I have an re-11 with that. I didn't realize the re-20 had it.
In that case, the OP has a naturally deep voice.
 
You've just reminded me that there's a bass roll-off switch on the RE20. I kept on looking at it and wondered what the hell it was, so did a bit of reading. It actually sounds quite exciting.... " I shall now be deploying my bass roll-off switch" Yes! Less painful than squeezing my small spherical objects for that higher pitched voice.

Bubba Speare
 
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