That's interesting Dave - do you think that when you use the 'noisy' mics, you ever notice? I'm just wondering that these noise figures really don't make any real practical sense in terms of saying X is worse than Y. I've been recording today with two of the 'noisy' mics and I cannot hear this noise I can measure? Again, your comment on the hums and spikey sounds also seem to cloud the results we get. Clearly one of my mics is faulty - the noise being a very strange sound, not jus hiss. I think I'll repeater the tests at some point but at the moment, I'm falling a bit behind. I'm also wondering if the sensitive mics, would benefit from the lower gain setting. Maybe the hiss generated in the preamp could be more problematic than the extra hiss from the mic? Do the two things work together, in reverse. I get more hiss from the 414 because it's relative output is greater, so if, say it is 4 times more sensitive, but the extra hiss twice as loud, then turning the gain down to a quarter removes twice as much hiss? Just scratching my head on how these things work.
I suppose I could take a tone generator at a measure ddistance and then see how far down the noise floor is??
I think the TLM 103 is down to 6 decibels. I do not know about the U87. How are you going to get that low with a duvet over your head?
The NPR (National Public Radio) studio standard is the Neumann U87ai with bass rolloff switch enabled for voice broadcasting.
I do have a full acoustic treated space (isolation/reflexion adn difusion wise) at home for all my VO works (audiobooks, E-learning courses, comercial promos, Audioguides, etc).
Thank you for all the input and replies that this thread has had so far, all very helpfull.
After some extended research i kind of narrowed my choices to 3 mics;
Stam Audio SA-87 ( a vintage Neumann U87 replica)
Neumann TLM 103
Lewitt LCT 540 S
Any remarks or feedback regarding these 3 would be most appreciated
Again thanks a lot for all the help
The few V.O. projects I have had in last couple of years the producer and the artist all chose either my U87 (old version) or My Bock/Soundelux U195. I have friends who travel in international VO circles and their set up is a Manley Reference and a Redd 47 preamp. According to them, this is the gold standard these days.
So we may be talking approx £6000 for that. Then your sound boothe and the rest of your equipment. I suppose you will not be getting much change out of £15,000 at least.
A lot of dosh! But still not much regards starting a business nowadays? Especially if you intend to do it properly.
Yes. It certainly goes beyond the OP's post regarding budget. My point being there does seem to be a particular type of kit that the pro V.O. people tend to gravitate to. Another thing that I have learned about the 'bigger' VO projects is there are almost always auditions for them. The number of folks INVITED to audition decreases, the larger the project. Having quality and accurate editing seems to be the ticket besides having that "thing" in the voice and an assured way of reading and performing the text.