Voice recording for Voiceover question.

[JurisL85]

Hello.

I am trying to record Voiceover at home, but I can't get this full, rich sound out of my recording. I have watched one nice YouTube video about this:
Recording Great Vocals In Two Steps - TheRecordingRevolution.com

And I can't understand, how does Graham (guy in video) get this nice, rich, full sound?

I too have RODE NT1-A and my wife was doing voice overs for books and manuals before in a pro-studio with it, but now we want to record this at home. I have all the equipment as I have recorded guitars and Bass before. Never did any vocal or voice recording though. Now, when I listen to the voice in this YouTube video, it has so much presence, fullness, and it feels like I am listening to the guy directly, not to a recording of a guy talking into the mic.

We have tried few recordings at home and we just can't get this full, rich sound even though she was using NT1 in pro-studio before.

Here is what I have:
Board/USB Interface: Behringer xenyx x1222usb
Mic: RODE NT1-A
DAW: Reaper

Here are few images of the settings i have, which are just plain settings with a little bit of
compression and gain on with Phantom Power on.






Can you please advise on how to get this full and rich sound? We are very puzzled as
she was recording before and had the same presence as in this YouTube video.

Here is my quick recording: View attachment rec_1.mp3 (no EQ, just a little bit of compressions from the interface)

 

[Steenamaroo]

Hi,
Ok first thing. Presence and richness/fullness suggest two different things to me.
Keeping it simple, presence = highs and richness/fullness = lows.

If you're after more presence, ie. brighter, crisper, sharper sound you're probably gonna have to eq that in.
The reason I say that is because you have all this absorbing and dampening material that'll reduce high end reflections, but I presume the room doesn't sound nice without all that stuff.

If you want richness and fullness, it's largely down to the character of the voice. It's much more common to have a voice with no weight than a voice with no highs, I think.
Distance from the mic plays a part in the recorded sound. Are you aware of proximity effect? The closer you are to a cardioid mic, the bassier the response is.
Maybe try moving closer? Again, eq can be used if necessary.

Compression may not be what you're looking for, but it's usually a part of the 'voiceover sound'.
The voice you hear in audio books and on radio is probably compressed reasonably heavily.

Even the voices in my head are compressed a little bit.
Hope that's useful.