VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[starkeee]

Hey all - I'm a newbie here, though I used to follow these discussions a while back, and have done some V/O work in the past.

Anyhow, I decided to invest in an inexpensive home studio, and thanks to recommendations from here and elsewhere, feel I got a decent set-up.

The only thing I'm not sure about is -- now that my microphone is plugged in, and I start recording in Cool Edit Pro, it records in mono, on either the right speaker only, or left speaker only, depending on which jack I'm plugged into - I expected it to record in stereo for some reason.

I emailed M-Audio tech support and got this response:

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Please remember that an SM58 is not a sgtereo mic, just a standard mono mic. Furthermore, each mic or line input on an audio interface is mono.

If you have your input source plugged into ONE input channel on your interface, you will only hear signal on ONE channel. This would be the left or right side of a stereo pair.

You can hear your signal in the center by creating a MONO track in your recording application to record into and selecting the appropriate input in your software.

With some M-Audio devices (such as our Delta and FireWire series), you can also pan the individual inputs to the center in the M-Audio control panel. This would allow you to MONITOR PLAYBACK SIGNAL in both speakers while recording, but some of our other devices lack this functionality.
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Which makes sense, but I guess my question is -- what is preferable for V/O work? Should I record it in mono, or record it in stereo and pan left or right?

Thanks!

[VO-Guy]

Starkee,

In Cool Edit when you hit record a record box pops up. Just check the mono button and it will record on a single wav form. If you do get clients that want there VO on both channels you can always convert it to stereo in the program. Hope this helps a little.

[Frank F]

Or, you can buy a mono to dual mono plug, which converts the mono mic signal into two discreet mono signals, plug one-each of the two jacks into each of the Mobile Pre's inputs (L and R) - and vwalla - instant "dual-mono", not stereo, as the case may be.

(D.B., is this brief enough?)

Toodles

Frank F
_________________
Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

[Deirdre]

I love it when Frank says "vwalla".
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DBCooperVO.com

[starkeee]

Cool everyone - thanks for the tips.