VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

Here's my latest blog post about how to get great sounding voice overs in your home studio without paying a fortune. It also covers doing subtle processing and QC for corporate and E Learning clients that don't have post production capabilities.

http://lanceblairvo.com/2016/10/19/10-tips-for-great-voice-over-recordings/

Yesterday I had the pleasant surprise that the head of Auralex wrote and and thanked me for the post! Smile

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and now, http://lanceblairvo.com the blog is there now too!

iannyc · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 9:11 am Post subject:

Great!!! Some of it was above my head like the low-pass filter literally and metaphorically but really helpful stuff!

DenaliDave · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 9:54 am Post subject:

That's some solid advice!

When you have a bunch of different pieces of gear all with volume knobs, it can be easy to be all out of whack. Learning about "unity gain" and how to adjust your levels properly is very important -- I'm glad to see you brought that topic up!

And of course, as always, the ROOM Laugh

People can blow tens of thousands on gear and sound bad if their room has echos and you can hear cars and trains outside.

A good sounding recording space is like the concrete foundation of your house. It's the bedrock upon all other things are built. If you don't start with that, nothing else you do will work out well.

Great tips!

EDIT: There's a lot of debate on whether to EQ before or after compression. I'm in the same camp as you. If I decide to do EQ and compression, I EQ first.

There's really no "rule" -- and it just takes trial/error/practice to find what seems to work best.

If you're lowering/cutting with the EQ that would go better before compression. If you're boosting/adding to a frequency range, that EQ might go better after compression.

But as I said ... it's one of those "potato/potatoe" type things. Everyone has their own workflow and way of doing things that works for them. As long as it sounds good, it's gravy!
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todd ellis · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 9:59 am Post subject:

cool stuff!

t.
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iannyc · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:05 am Post subject:

Hey Lance, I work with a shure sm7b (no volume controls, low output, no phantom power), a ua solo 610 preamp, and an apogee duet interface.

I had both the gain and the volume up on the preamp to about 70% and the apogee up the rest (like usually... 25 out of 72?)

I then read that the first knob, the gain, on the solo 610 should be relatively low (like 1.5) in order to not create too much distortion.

Is that generally true, you want every volume setting up until the final input (the interface) to be almost as high as possible for the best sound?

Thanks!!!!! And awesome article, you RAWK!!

Bruce · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:37 am Post subject:

I moved a copy of this thread to Research and Development since Lance's tips are most worthy of sharing there.

Bruce
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

Thanks all - and thanks for moving it Bruce! Smile

I haven't run a 610 preamp. But dynamic mics need a lot of gain. The maximum gain on a 610 is, 61 dB. An SM7b is going to need at least 50 dB gain. So you want the gain high first and then set the levels low. Gotta drive the mic first, and then keep all the levels cool along the chain.
_________________
Skype: globalvoiceover
and now, http://lanceblairvo.com the blog is there now too!

iannyc · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 3:22 pm Post subject:

Great! Any reason not to put the gain at a 10?

Thanks!!