wheelema
Boner-obo
I've been twiddling my thumbs of late and decided to unilaterally push this random thought out of my head and into whomevers...
There has been much discussion and acrimony over exactly what gear needs to be purchased/assembled to create the most acceptable music studio at the most reasonable cost. Due to the number of variables (i.e., number of channels, style of music) and dearly held opinions I don’t think that particular debate will be put to bed anytime soon. But it occurred to me that perhaps the equation could be solved for a voice-over studio.
To being with a voice-over studio is, arguably, a requirement for a voice-over talent. Trying to work in the voice-over market without your own studio is like trying to run a marathon with your leg in a cast… you are at a severe disadvantage before the starting gun ever goes off. Your studio only needs on, or at the most two, channels. The requisite tonal qualities are not as dependent on boutique gear, nor do you, by and large, need to impress your clients with boutique names. It is enough that your voice, as produced by your gear, meets the clients’ needs.
With these realities in mind, let me launch into what I feel, right or wrong, good or bad, comes close to the bull’s-eye at the lowest possible cost.
Because voice-over talent is frequently directed remotely (i.e., the producer is in New York and you are… somewhere else) you need a device that will allow you to take direction, produce product, and do it transparently and well. I will be forthright and state that finding this gear was a bitch. Most likely I just was looking in the wrong places, and I looked in them for a long time. I wasn’t even sure what to call this near mythical piece of gear. But for our purposes here we will call it a ‘phone patch’. Mind you, that is not what everyone in the voice-over market calls it. The phone patch that I settled on is the CircuitWerkes MicTel telephone interface. Though it is not one of my requirements this particular device can be battery powered and, since it will work with both POTS and cellular telephones, it is highly portable. Budget about $300.
Next lets get into microphones… ouch! I haven’t even made a recommendation yet! Stop throwing things! Actually the argument over voice-over microphones is much less contentious than microphones used for music. It is pretty much agreed that the Electro-Voice RE-20, Shure SM7B, and the Sennheiser shotgun microphones are the most widely used. I am going to cast my vote behind the SM7B since it is the least expensive of the trio and, personally, it makes me sound damned impressive!
$315 through FullCompass via Amazon. Price match at Guitar Center for local delivery.
You are going to need to drive the SM7B and, believe me, you need a decent preamp to do it. Personally I use the M-Audio 1010LT. Now the cognoscenti among you will, about now I expect, start to object by pointing out, quite correctly, that the 1010LT is a PCI based A/D/A interface. But in addition to it’s A/D/A functionality, it has eight ins, eight outs, and S/PDIF. You may also point out that I specified a decent preamp. But since two of those eight ins are balanced XLR with a, yes, decent preamp behind them (albeit without phantom power… which you don’t need for the SM7B dynamic) the 1010LT kills three birds with one stone at a real bargain price.
$200. You can also price match THIS at GC for local delivery.
You are going to need to hear what you are producing. The field is wide open here and there are some dearly held opinions in this area. I considered Wharfdale, but I settled on the M-Audio BX5A. YMMV.
$300 for a pair. GC again.
Before we get to the computer I wanted to touch base on the software. I recommend, highly, Sony SoundForge 8 and Sony CD Architect. SoundForge only provides recording for two channels but let’s keep in mind that in voice-over two channels is most likely all we will ever need. Furthermore it is frankly amazing the shear number of audio formats that SoundForge supports. Since Sony CD Architect comes bundled with SoundForge (along with a decent DVD tutorial) if you buy the academic package, go to your local JC, get your student ID, and drop the class after your software arrives.
$200
Now we come to the computer. Dum da da dum.
I roll my own. I highly recommend that you, also, suck it up and roll your own.
I start with the case. In this instance I am going to recommend the Antec P180 which scores high marks for running cool and quiet with style. It supports six HDD internally, and four devices and a floppy externally. If you want a rack mountable case check out the iStar D-400L Storm, and for a portable a-la-LAN-party style, look at the Aspire X-QPack. The P180 does NOT come with a power supply, so you need to find one that you like. I wouldn’t drop below 420 watts and a modular power supply is, if you can find it, a great way to reduce cable clutter.
$115 sans power supply
Next I pop for the processor. In this instance I am going with an AMD Athlon socket 754 3200+ (Newcastle) processor. The 3200+ is the fastest of the now obsolete socket 754 processors. Okay, the socket 754 isn’t exactly obsolete, but with the socket 939 now the top dog you know it is only a matter of time. I never go leading edge. Too expensive.
The motherboard is the MSI RS482M-IL. MSI somehow manages to squeeze an ATI Radeon VGA port, SATA RAID, LAN, Firewire (1394), and USB 2.0 onto a MicroATX board which will fit into any of the cases suggested above. Bundled with the processor and 1GB of RAM the package will set you back about…
$337
The rest of the stuff is pretty much catch as catch can. You are going to need a monitor (remember the VGA card is on the motherboard). Personally I favor a LCD, but CRT monitors are amazingly cheap nowadays. You need a keyboard and mouse, a DVD-RW or a CD-RW/DVD, one or more hard disk drives (I spec’d out a WD 250GB for $95), and a copy of WindowsXP (I prefer Professional at $131). All of this stuff should come in at or under…
$600
When all is said and done you end up with a fast PC, lots of memory, lots of storage, A/D/A conversion, 8 ins (two XLR with preamp), 8 outs, necessary software, S/PDIF, phone patch, speakers, yada yada yada for ABOUT…
$2,500.
… or you can buy a Neumann microphone.
Luck!
There has been much discussion and acrimony over exactly what gear needs to be purchased/assembled to create the most acceptable music studio at the most reasonable cost. Due to the number of variables (i.e., number of channels, style of music) and dearly held opinions I don’t think that particular debate will be put to bed anytime soon. But it occurred to me that perhaps the equation could be solved for a voice-over studio.
To being with a voice-over studio is, arguably, a requirement for a voice-over talent. Trying to work in the voice-over market without your own studio is like trying to run a marathon with your leg in a cast… you are at a severe disadvantage before the starting gun ever goes off. Your studio only needs on, or at the most two, channels. The requisite tonal qualities are not as dependent on boutique gear, nor do you, by and large, need to impress your clients with boutique names. It is enough that your voice, as produced by your gear, meets the clients’ needs.
With these realities in mind, let me launch into what I feel, right or wrong, good or bad, comes close to the bull’s-eye at the lowest possible cost.
Because voice-over talent is frequently directed remotely (i.e., the producer is in New York and you are… somewhere else) you need a device that will allow you to take direction, produce product, and do it transparently and well. I will be forthright and state that finding this gear was a bitch. Most likely I just was looking in the wrong places, and I looked in them for a long time. I wasn’t even sure what to call this near mythical piece of gear. But for our purposes here we will call it a ‘phone patch’. Mind you, that is not what everyone in the voice-over market calls it. The phone patch that I settled on is the CircuitWerkes MicTel telephone interface. Though it is not one of my requirements this particular device can be battery powered and, since it will work with both POTS and cellular telephones, it is highly portable. Budget about $300.
Next lets get into microphones… ouch! I haven’t even made a recommendation yet! Stop throwing things! Actually the argument over voice-over microphones is much less contentious than microphones used for music. It is pretty much agreed that the Electro-Voice RE-20, Shure SM7B, and the Sennheiser shotgun microphones are the most widely used. I am going to cast my vote behind the SM7B since it is the least expensive of the trio and, personally, it makes me sound damned impressive!
$315 through FullCompass via Amazon. Price match at Guitar Center for local delivery.
You are going to need to drive the SM7B and, believe me, you need a decent preamp to do it. Personally I use the M-Audio 1010LT. Now the cognoscenti among you will, about now I expect, start to object by pointing out, quite correctly, that the 1010LT is a PCI based A/D/A interface. But in addition to it’s A/D/A functionality, it has eight ins, eight outs, and S/PDIF. You may also point out that I specified a decent preamp. But since two of those eight ins are balanced XLR with a, yes, decent preamp behind them (albeit without phantom power… which you don’t need for the SM7B dynamic) the 1010LT kills three birds with one stone at a real bargain price.
$200. You can also price match THIS at GC for local delivery.
You are going to need to hear what you are producing. The field is wide open here and there are some dearly held opinions in this area. I considered Wharfdale, but I settled on the M-Audio BX5A. YMMV.
$300 for a pair. GC again.
Before we get to the computer I wanted to touch base on the software. I recommend, highly, Sony SoundForge 8 and Sony CD Architect. SoundForge only provides recording for two channels but let’s keep in mind that in voice-over two channels is most likely all we will ever need. Furthermore it is frankly amazing the shear number of audio formats that SoundForge supports. Since Sony CD Architect comes bundled with SoundForge (along with a decent DVD tutorial) if you buy the academic package, go to your local JC, get your student ID, and drop the class after your software arrives.
$200
Now we come to the computer. Dum da da dum.
I roll my own. I highly recommend that you, also, suck it up and roll your own.
I start with the case. In this instance I am going to recommend the Antec P180 which scores high marks for running cool and quiet with style. It supports six HDD internally, and four devices and a floppy externally. If you want a rack mountable case check out the iStar D-400L Storm, and for a portable a-la-LAN-party style, look at the Aspire X-QPack. The P180 does NOT come with a power supply, so you need to find one that you like. I wouldn’t drop below 420 watts and a modular power supply is, if you can find it, a great way to reduce cable clutter.
$115 sans power supply
Next I pop for the processor. In this instance I am going with an AMD Athlon socket 754 3200+ (Newcastle) processor. The 3200+ is the fastest of the now obsolete socket 754 processors. Okay, the socket 754 isn’t exactly obsolete, but with the socket 939 now the top dog you know it is only a matter of time. I never go leading edge. Too expensive.
The motherboard is the MSI RS482M-IL. MSI somehow manages to squeeze an ATI Radeon VGA port, SATA RAID, LAN, Firewire (1394), and USB 2.0 onto a MicroATX board which will fit into any of the cases suggested above. Bundled with the processor and 1GB of RAM the package will set you back about…
$337
The rest of the stuff is pretty much catch as catch can. You are going to need a monitor (remember the VGA card is on the motherboard). Personally I favor a LCD, but CRT monitors are amazingly cheap nowadays. You need a keyboard and mouse, a DVD-RW or a CD-RW/DVD, one or more hard disk drives (I spec’d out a WD 250GB for $95), and a copy of WindowsXP (I prefer Professional at $131). All of this stuff should come in at or under…
$600
When all is said and done you end up with a fast PC, lots of memory, lots of storage, A/D/A conversion, 8 ins (two XLR with preamp), 8 outs, necessary software, S/PDIF, phone patch, speakers, yada yada yada for ABOUT…
$2,500.
… or you can buy a Neumann microphone.
Luck!
So recommend to your clients about doing in a studio. Some clients may be new to the whole audio recording thing and may think that they just have to contact VO artists directly and let them do it at home. Studio recording doesn't take long for most work and can be relatively affordable...especially if you consider how much better the end product is going to sound.