Is my Mic Doing the Job? Rode Broadcaster - sample inside. Should I get a different one?

S

SInstitute

New member
Hi guys,

I currently use a Rode Broadcaster condenser microphone. I saw reviews on it (especially the Booth Junkie review), and it was really good. I use it for voiceover type stuff (linked below) for my Youtube. I don't show my face, so having large microphones or pop filters aren't a problem. I knew a lot of radio stations use this microphone and as I wanted a professional radio type setup, whilst being inexpensive, I went with the Rode. My voice and delivery probably isn't great but that I can't change I suppose.

I've attached the sample below. I'm guessing there's plosives so I've just ordered a Rode WS2 windshield to help with that. I know it's processed (I assume radio stations do that to give that radio sound?). I really want a full and wholesome sound - as far as it is possible with my voice (I know it's a limiting factor of course). If anyone could suggest how to improve my setup? I use the reaper plugins when I record to add bass and compression when I record.

I did get them to send me a Sennheiser Mk416 to try, which sounded better, slightly more brighter and natural but it wasn't worth the price for me.

So, I'm not sure if it's my setup or what that isn't giving me the 'full' voice other people tend to get with this microphone. Is there another microphone you would suggest, or can I adjust my setup to do better with my current mic?



Thanks
 
Other than a few plosives, the voice sounds fine. You might like to move slightly further away from the mike to create a little bit of space.
 
I’ve been listening carefully. What have you done to the poor mic, there appears to be massive compression, maybe a gate and it’s turned you into a robot. Words and syllables fire off like bullets from a gun. your voice, under it sounds quite suitable, but you’ve processed it so heavily that it could be one of those computer voices. What you’ve done, has removed the sibilants that may have been there, but with a nice mic in a nice sounding room, you just don’t want to go this crazy on processing. Wit( this kind of content, it needs to sound much more natural. You say you are guessing there are plosives, but either there were or there weren’t. You state you can’t change your voice or delivery, but you certainly can. I’ve just found out a good friend of mine did the VO for a popular UK advert. I’ve heard it thousands of times but never knew it was her, because her delivery and her voice changed to suit the job. Your voice naturally changes pitch, which we hear as inflection, but your example has all these little slides edited out by the treatment. if you choose a microphone, you need to hear it sort of naked. 416 mics suit a very small number of users. In a well treated room (essential for a shotgun) with 100% aiming accuracy they can be nice, but the best mics for most people are cardioids where you can move in and out or left and right without tonal change, which yours is pretty well known for.

the kind of plugin you used might work for those folk who bellow, starting with a shouted “yo, what’s up” and seem to be hyper 100% of the time, but that is not you, or your kind of content. If you want a ‘radio’ sound you need to also pick a station. The sound always matches the station. Teen radio is totally different from news radio. Here, the BBC have a number of stations, each with a different demographic. Each sound totally different. With ex-media lecturer hat on, the critical thing is matching your listeners expectation. How old is your typical listener? English as first language? Educational level? A really good one for you to consider. Are they intelligent and well educated but just rubbish at maths, or are they generally poor educationally. Your delivery must match them. Worse, they could be a wide mix, so the. You need to switch to the least effective style and sound.

is there a similar, successful project that you could emulate? One tip with your script. You fell into the new teacher trap. You didn’t explain why you picked those values. We’re they picked to make the maths easier, or more obvious, but you will have lost people, because they wont know why 5.196 was chosen? to a maths poor student, the features and benefits haven’t been isolated. you need to explain the outcome wanted before leaping in or they can’t follow. I know exactly what you are saying in the video, but I fear the very people it’s aimed at wont be able to follow, because the order is a bit reversed. Ask yourself why people would need to work out these problems, then maybe introduce the theorem, then give the examples. Your delivery is ultra formal, and ask yourself if it’s suitable for the intended victim. my best advice would be to soften your approach, give more attention to solving real problems, then introduce the theory needed to solve the problem. Once you’ve got the script sorted so it matches the viewer’s needs, you can record it with real gaps between words, and pauses for thought. The processing haas made you into a robot, and many viewers might think it is a robo.

none of this is a criticism of your voice, it really is fine, but of what you’ve done to it. What do yo7 sound like really?
 
gecko zzed said:
Other than a few plosives, the voice sounds fine. You might like to move slightly further away from the mike to create a little bit of space.
Click to expand...

Sure, I've ordered WS2 to help with the plosives and that will keep me a bit away. I guess I was going for a fuller sound by trying to be very close to the mic.
 
rob aylestone said:
I’ve been listening carefully. What have you done to the poor mic, there appears to be massive compression, maybe a gate and it’s turned you into a robot. Words and syllables fire off like bullets from a gun. your voice, under it sounds quite suitable, but you’ve processed it so heavily that it could be one of those computer voices. What you’ve done, has removed the sibilants that may have been there, but with a nice mic in a nice sounding room, you just don’t want to go this crazy on processing. Wit( this kind of content, it needs to sound much more natural. You say you are guessing there are plosives, but either there were or there weren’t. You state you can’t change your voice or delivery, but you certainly can. I’ve just found out a good friend of mine did the VO for a popular UK advert. I’ve heard it thousands of times but never knew it was her, because her delivery and her voice changed to suit the job. Your voice naturally changes pitch, which we hear as inflection, but your example has all these little slides edited out by the treatment. if you choose a microphone, you need to hear it sort of naked. 416 mics suit a very small number of users. In a well treated room (essential for a shotgun) with 100% aiming accuracy they can be nice, but the best mics for most people are cardioids where you can move in and out or left and right without tonal change, which yours is pretty well known for.

the kind of plugin you used might work for those folk who bellow, starting with a shouted “yo, what’s up” and seem to be hyper 100% of the time, but that is not you, or your kind of content. If you want a ‘radio’ sound you need to also pick a station. The sound always matches the station. Teen radio is totally different from news radio. Here, the BBC have a number of stations, each with a different demographic. Each sound totally different. With ex-media lecturer hat on, the critical thing is matching your listeners expectation. How old is your typical listener? English as first language? Educational level? A really good one for you to consider. Are they intelligent and well educated but just rubbish at maths, or are they generally poor educationally. Your delivery must match them. Worse, they could be a wide mix, so the. You need to switch to the least effective style and sound.

is there a similar, successful project that you could emulate? One tip with your script. You fell into the new teacher trap. You didn’t explain why you picked those values. We’re they picked to make the maths easier, or more obvious, but you will have lost people, because they wont know why 5.196 was chosen? to a maths poor student, the features and benefits haven’t been isolated. you need to explain the outcome wanted before leaping in or they can’t follow. I know exactly what you are saying in the video, but I fear the very people it’s aimed at wont be able to follow, because the order is a bit reversed. Ask yourself why people would need to work out these problems, then maybe introduce the theorem, then give the examples. Your delivery is ultra formal, and ask yourself if it’s suitable for the intended victim. my best advice would be to soften your approach, give more attention to solving real problems, then introduce the theory needed to solve the problem. Once you’ve got the script sorted so it matches the viewer’s needs, you can record it with real gaps between words, and pauses for thought. The processing haas made you into a robot, and many viewers might think it is a robo.

none of this is a criticism of your voice, it really is fine, but of what you’ve done to it. What do yo7 sound like really?
Click to expand...

Thanks for your detailed feedback Rob.

I guess I used compression because from the video guides I watched, they said it helps to keep the sound at a consistent level. Should I limit the compression or turn it off? I was under the impression radio stations use compression? I'm not sure what you mean by 'removed sibilants'? I'm guessing that's something I don't want to remove?

So I hadn't realised I was sounding like a robot - so turning off or limiting the compression will do that?

I've taken your note about needing to sound more natural - my personality isn't reflected in the recording at all. My normal way to talking is more conversational, quite confident so I'll definitely be more like me from my next videos. I think I was going for a compact documentary style - which I will change.

In terms of my target audience, firstly I have to say the video I linked isn't typically what my channel is about. That video was aimed at people who are already proficient at maths and wonder where these such things come from. My normal videos are aimed at 11-18 year olds to introduce concepts and/or support the learning they are doing in school. So I have two different target audiences.

If I was to target anyone's audio, it would be this guy in the video below. I know he is a professional voice actor so I can't compare myself to him. But he seems to have a very rich, very full, high quality sound.

 
In that video, you hear him get closer and the warmth goes up as the proximity effect kicks in, and you added even more bass - this doesn't help really - but can you hear that in-between his speech peaks we still hear him at a lower level? Yours is punching to get out - where it is not 100% loud, it is 100% gone - it's like a gate opens and closes with each word, and this with the proximity effect gives that really strange artificial sound. His 's', 't' and 'ch' sounds are clean and very present, yours are almost missing.

What I suggest you do is repeat some of the script with the compressor totally off and compare the two. It is very important you can hear this. Many people have to almost 'learn' what compression sounds like. Compression is what you use to make yourself sound louder, but it needs doing very carefully and tweaked. Where compressors get turned up too much, the tiny quieter details like the teeth and tongue sounds get lost - like yours. If you compare no compression to a little compression to way over the top compression, can you hear what it's doing. You said you hadn't realised you sounded robotic - which makes me think you were listening probably for diction mistakes and that kind of thing - not your tone, which is very strange and not a common treatment. If you want to post an example of uncompressed capture - we could suggest other things. At the moment - if you have a look in a DAW, your voice is a solid blast on the screen - there are hardly any peaks and troughs in the waveform.
 
rob aylestone said:
In that video, you hear him get closer and the warmth goes up as the proximity effect kicks in, and you added even more bass - this doesn't help really - but can you hear that in-between his speech peaks we still hear him at a lower level? Yours is punching to get out - where it is not 100% loud, it is 100% gone - it's like a gate opens and closes with each word, and this with the proximity effect gives that really strange artificial sound. His 's', 't' and 'ch' sounds are clean and very present, yours are almost missing.

What I suggest you do is repeat some of the script with the compressor totally off and compare the two. It is very important you can hear this. Many people have to almost 'learn' what compression sounds like. Compression is what you use to make yourself sound louder, but it needs doing very carefully and tweaked. Where compressors get turned up too much, the tiny quieter details like the teeth and tongue sounds get lost - like yours. If you compare no compression to a little compression to way over the top compression, can you hear what it's doing. You said you hadn't realised you sounded robotic - which makes me think you were listening probably for diction mistakes and that kind of thing - not your tone, which is very strange and not a common treatment. If you want to post an example of uncompressed capture - we could suggest other things. At the moment - if you have a look in a DAW, your voice is a solid blast on the screen - there are hardly any peaks and troughs in the waveform.
Click to expand...

Thanks Rob.

I'll try to sort the issues out, I have hundreds of videos planned to release so I'd rather sort it out now than afterwards.

I do use a noise gate because I saw a Youtube tutorial saying to use it. My room and surroundings and computer are pretty quiet and this mic is a condenser but has very good background noise rejection - my room isn't acoustically treated, I have wooden flooring. So I suppose I should turn that off, I take it that's the thing that's causing the words to fire out abruptly right?

I haven't got a DAW, I use Focusrite and reaper software plugins on OBS. If you had it up, could you send me a screenshot? Thanks.

I have it so all the plugins are adding the base, compression, noise removal of mouse clicks and keyboard noises live whilst recording so I don't have to edit the audio so I can just edit the video later.

I like the audio of the commentators in the video below. Can you tell what processing they are doing at all? It sounds very clean and they are doing it on the fly without editing it afterwards which seems appealing.

Cheers.

 
Ah, I see the hole you have jumped into. If you record in an acoustically treated room or even just a space within one, then you don’t need ANY plugins, no compression and no removal of noises. You buy a quiet keyboard if yours is noisy and a mouse that has a quiet or silent click. You have great audio to start with and the. You can improve it perhaps with a little EQ, or perhaps a tiny, as in really small amount of compression if you like it. You’ve started with a problem and tried to cure it with add ons, each introducing more and more problems. If the room is bad, get in close with a mic that controls proximity effect properly. The SM7B, the EV range etc. These will improve wanted to unwanted sound, making the room less vital. My advice is to fix your sound before you record anything! OBS will work for you, but you need to provide it with good quality audio, and keep the plugins out of the thing as much as you can. You can treat good audio, you cannot treat bad audio to make it good.
As for the snooker, that’s an easy one. You use a Cole’s commentators mic, used worldwide on everything from football to WWE. A weird handheld ribbon that you jam under your nose. It has a nose bar that you push hard into the area between nose and top lip. This gets the ribbon at exactly the right distance and oddly you can talk quietly or even shout, like in WWE or football where the crowd are screaming. I bought a second hand one years ago and figured it was faulty, and never used it. Years later, I had a job coming up so bought a new one. It sounded exactly the same! However, once you give it a touch of eq and listen to what it does, it’s perfect for speech, only speech and nothing but speech! People often call them noise cancelling, but really they’re not, they just enable the ribbon to be mega close to your mouth, so the wanted sound totally overpowers anything coming in from the rear or side.

lastly remember that YouTube is full of opinions, some by college professors, some from experienced people and others from people who watched other YouTube videos produced by people who watched others. When you watch a video from somebody giving mic advice who hasn’t realised you speak into the side of his mic, you really have to wonder. You’ve collected loads of info, and got some very strange advice. Gates, for example, in studio forums people are forever asking how to stop the change in sound when they close. Real life doesn’t have a gate, so any use of one needs very, very careful handling when it is the only sound source you hear. The constant opening and closing is so annoying (andunrealistic letting everyone know you have fiddled and processed)
 

As promised - a short video about the Coles 4104, with some examples of what they sound like. The real sound and then with a bit of EQ.

The ribbon was not recorded with a cloudlifter, so you are hearing just the mic, into a Zoom H6 recorder. The only adjustments are in volume to counter the whispering and shouting sections. No compression or other treatment.
 
rob aylestone said:

As promised - a short video about the Coles 4104, with some examples of what they sound like. The real sound and then with a bit of EQ.

The ribbon was not recorded with a cloudlifter, so you are hearing just the mic, into a Zoom H6 recorder. The only adjustments are in volume to counter the whispering and shouting sections. No compression or other treatment.
Click to expand...

This was very informative and interesting Rob.

How do you go about setting up your equaliser (for voice over say).

I'm considering buying an EV RE20 going by many reviews online.
 
I have a 320 doesn’t get much use, mainly because the things are so heavy, but they sound to my ears, quite neutral. EQ for me is either gentle or absent. I’m lucky enough to have enough mics that if I know I need a bright one or mellower one or one tha5 will cut through, I probably choose a different mic. I do sometimes add a little HF or reduce a little the bottom end, but that’s pretty much it for me. As I am a fan of more distant miking, even my SM7B never comes close to the mic, I just don’t find EQ for voice very natural. For singing, then EQ for the song is usual, just not for spoken voice. This is just me, not something anyone suggested or I read about.
 
rob aylestone said:
I have a 320 doesn’t get much use, mainly because the things are so heavy, but they sound to my ears, quite neutral. EQ for me is either gentle or absent. I’m lucky enough to have enough mics that if I know I need a bright one or mellower one or one tha5 will cut through, I probably choose a different mic. I do sometimes add a little HF or reduce a little the bottom end, but that’s pretty much it for me. As I am a fan of more distant miking, even my SM7B never comes close to the mic, I just don’t find EQ for voice very natural. For singing, then EQ for the song is usual, just not for spoken voice. This is just me, not something anyone suggested or I read about.
Click to expand...

What sort of distance would you advise to get a 'radio' like broadcasting sound?
 
That is the snag, US pop AM in the 70s, BBC in the 60s, then even, in my case, the changes the BBC did between radio 3 older people and radio 1 younger people.

you have to decide what you want to replicate. A cardioid close in sounds very different from a condenser further away. Sort of perspective, sort of warmth, but I like the one to two feet distance that means you can lean in a bit or lean back,mor turn your head away a little and nothing happens. Close in, small movement gives big change. It boils down to how much control you want, and of course the tonal shift to warmer as you go in can be reduced with EQ, but I’m happier with no or little EQ and sort it with position. Lots of YouTube folk have excellent sound with mics very visible and close in and keep them controlled. Others try to copy the ones they see but without control and those have constantly changing tone, which is bad.
 
You seem, by the descriptions, to be piling tools on top of the recordings to "fix" what shouldn't be there to begin with.
Forget EQ, gates and all that for now.
Room Acoustics. Distance. Angle to Mic. Delivery. That's 99% of your sound.

Limit reflections and deaden what you can, both highs and lows, but especially lows, in the recording area. Test, listen. Improve as needed.
When the room is better, you have a bit more freedom to work the mic and not be eating the windscreen.
Go to the mic technique, as Rob and others have helped with.

Record your VO separately, then cut it in. Stop fighting with keyboard sounds and such, and concentrate on your delivery. It will improve.

A light compression going in helps keep things even, but only a light touch. You don't want to compress to the point that background noise gets boosted up into the voice. You just need to level your delivery, both with the compressor and with your way of speaking.

For perspective, I recorded a client's VO one time, using an insanely expensive Neumann (USM 69) in an acoustically poor environment, and it is one of the worst audio recordings I have ever made. I was convinced, against my better judgement, that the lovely mic could overcome the bad room. In that scenario, I shouldn't even have tried...
I also recorded another client's VO in a cramped not-that-quiet office with a PC running in the background, using a cheap Audio-Technica 875 small shotgun, and it is clear as a bell.
I got the room to work.
Room/Distance/Angle/Delivery....know your space, and listen to what it does.

Good Luck,
C.
 
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SInstitute said:
Hi guys,

I currently use a Rode Broadcaster condenser microphone. I saw reviews on it (especially the Booth Junkie review), and it was really good. I use it for voiceover type stuff (linked below) for my Youtube. I don't show my face, so having large microphones or pop filters aren't a problem. I knew a lot of radio stations use this microphone and as I wanted a professional radio type setup, whilst being inexpensive, I went with the Rode. My voice and delivery probably isn't great but that I can't change I suppose.

I've attached the sample below. I'm guessing there's plosives so I've just ordered a Rode WS2 windshield to help with that. I know it's processed (I assume radio stations do that to give that radio sound?). I really want a full and wholesome sound - as far as it is possible with my voice (I know it's a limiting factor of course). If anyone could suggest how to improve my setup? I use the reaper plugins when I record to add bass and compression when I record.

I did get them to send me a Sennheiser Mk416 to try, which sounded better, slightly more brighter and natural but it wasn't worth the price for me.

So, I'm not sure if it's my setup or what that isn't giving me the 'full' voice other people tend to get with this microphone. Is there another microphone you would suggest, or can I adjust my setup to do better with my current mic?



Thanks
Click to expand...


Move away from the Microphone - It sounds like you are right on it - the Plosives and Esss will calm down.
 
Papanate said:
Move away from the Microphone - It sounds like you are right on it - the Plosives and Esss will calm down.
Click to expand...
you can pick up a plug in Helicon Finalizer 96k for about 400 quid these days, I saw one go for 350 on an e bay auction. I dont know how much the plugin version is but it is still a really great machine and industry standard. It sorts everything out, great compressor and expander and smooths the eq
 
Smithers XKR said:
you can pick up a plug in Helicon Finalizer 96k for about 400 quid these days, I saw one go for 350 on an e bay auction. I dont know how much the plugin version is but it is still a really great machine and industry standard. It sorts everything out, great compressor and expander and smooths the eq
Click to expand...
Or he could move a little bit away from the mic for free.
 
Papanate said:
Or he could move a little bit away from the mic for free.
Click to expand...
:ROFLMAO:
Have to agree with this. It's a bit bassy and there are plosives.
Move back a touch, or tilt the mic slightly off axis.

Other than that, all sounds well.

I wouldn't bother with commentary microphones, interesting as they are.
They're designed to be used very close to the mouth in noisy environments.
From what I've seen the BBC don't even use them for snooker any more.
I can't say for sure about Eurosport but, either way, just move back or twist the mic a bit. (y)
 
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