Best Microphone for Voice Over?

so there really isn't just one best microphone for voiceover let me explain [Music] this is probably one of the most commonly asked questions for beginners in voiceover and there's a lot to unpack with this question what type of microphone usb xlr condenser dynamic shotgun what type of voice do you have do you have a sibilance issue and most importantly what space are you recording in how is it acoustically treated what's the dimensions of the space how soundproof is the space how much sound is leaking into the space so as you can see there is a lot that can go into choosing what microphone is best for you and your specific situation so let's break down the points what type of microphone xlr usb let's start with usb usb microphones have come a long way and fast and they will continue to get better and better but everything i'm about to say still holds true at the time of this video but first what are some pros to using usb microphones why would people decide to use a usb microphone over an xlr microphone well one they're easier to use it doesn't require what's known as an interface an xlr microphone requires an interface that then needs to be plugged into the computer whereas a usb microphone just plugs directly into the computer so you get to skip a step so another reason people might want to use a usb microphone over an xlr microphone is it's much easier to take on vacation when you take your xlr microphone you have to take an interface as well as your laptop but if you're just taking a usb microphone you get to leave the interface out of the equation altogether so why would you not want to use a usb microphone because the usb microphone does not require an interface they need to cram a ton of technology into that usb microphone which in turn causes a lot of issues down the line the more technology that's crammed into something means that there's more that could go wrong over time which makes usb microphones not as reliable as xlr microphones and as voice actors we need reliability out of our microphones when cramming all of this technology into a usb microphone most of the time it's a lot of cheap material in order for an interface to power a microphone there's something inside of it called a preamp that's something they cram into the usb microphone so that you don't need to buy an interface for that mic to work the problem here is most of the time they're putting in a really cheap preamp inside that usb microphone which is really really noisy and the last thing we need is voice actors in our audio is more noise another problem you can encounter is if you plug your usb microphone into your laptop and you're charging your laptop at the same time this can actually cause interference in the audio most of them can only record at 44.1 kilohertz and 16 bit to add to that most usb microphones don't have a gain knob on the microphone so you can adjust the gain of what you're recording now there definitely are usb microphones out there that don't have these limitations but at the price point that you would pay for those you might as well just go ahead and get an interface and an xlr microphone okay now on to xlr microphones pros they sound much more accurate than usb microphones there's less noise in the recording they're more reliable and the price point for these microphones these days is amazing the only con for this microphone is actually a pro in my opinion they require what's known as an interface but the reason i think this is a pro is because it gives you way more flexibility with your audio and it allows you to record higher quality audio and as i said before another pro to xlr microphones is the fact that they're super affordable these days as well as the interface okay now a little bonus tip for you cables a cheap cable can cause buzz or hum and other unpleasant artifacts in your audio depending on your situation i always recommend megami gold cables they're quad shielded which means you'll likely never get interference with these cables and they're extremely durable they're expensive but i've had my megami gold cable for over 10 years now and i've never had an issue with it okay now on to condenser dynamic or shotgun what is a condenser microphone or dynamic or [Music] [Applause] shotgun okay so all you need to know is a condenser microphone is the most commonly used microphone and voiceover work these microphones are very sensitive which is great for capturing highly dynamic work for sounds such as super intimate quiet sounds and up to really loud sounds and everything in between okay so what about dynamic microphones well i'm not going to go into a ton of information here because i actually already did a video about a dynamic microphone probably one of the most popular dynamic microphones in the business the shure sm7b you can find that video in the description below basically all you need to know is a dynamic microphone isn't the greatest choice for voice over work a few examples of other dynamic microphones would be an electro voice re20 a sure sm58 or 57 and an audix i5 okay so now on to polar patterns every microphone has a specific polar pattern so what is that [Applause] so how much is the microphone picking up around you let's take a tlm-103 for example it's a cardioid pattern which means it picks up a lot around the actor so if the actor moves a little bit left or a little bit right it actually still picks the actor up as they move but now let's take a sennheiser 416 for example okay it's a super cardioid pattern which means it's hyper focused so if the actor moves a little bit left or right off of the microphone the voice is actually going to start sounding a little bit muffled the 416's pattern is designed to reject sounds coming from the side or the back of the microphone okay now on to your specific voice and microphone's eq curve so every microphone has its own eq curve which can make certain microphones sound bright or harsh and other microphones sound dark or warm so what mic is right for your voice well one thing that can actually help you make your mind up here is do you have a sibilance issue if you don't know what sibilance is it's just the harsh sounding s that comes from where you place your tongue behind your teeth so take the word sibilance so if i place my tongue behind my teeth in a certain way i can make it sound like sibilance which gives kind of a whistling s and that would be sibilance the good news is you can actually go to a coach and have this trained out if it's bad enough headphones can actually fool you into thinking you have sibilance when you may not just like with microphones headphones have an eq curve which can potentially make people who don't have sibilance sound like they do depending on the model or brand of the headphone but let's just say that you really do have a sibilance issue in that case you would want to make sure to stay away from a brighter or harsh sounding microphone like a 416. in this case you would probably want to go with a darker or more warm sounding microphone such as a rode ntg4 okay now on to the most important part your space your space can definitely make or break your audio but it can also dictate which specific microphone is best for you and your situation so are you in a closet are you in a pvc booth are you just in a room or are you in a professional booth so remember when we talked about polar patterns so to help explain this i had a student send me audio they had two microphones a tlm-103 and a sennheiser 416 when listening to the audio i immediately knew that the first take was the tlm-103 because i could hear the room when i heard the second take i knew that was the sennheiser 416 because it was a lot tighter and more focused and i couldn't hear the room as much this has to do with the polar pattern if you remember the tlm-103 has a wider polar pattern meaning i would hear more of the room and more of the actor's voice bouncing off of the surfaces in that room but when hearing the audio from the 416 i couldn't hear the room nearly as much i couldn't hear the voice bouncing off of the surfaces and if you remember it's because it's a super cardioid polar pattern meaning it's rejecting sounds coming from the side and the back of that microphone so if your space isn't treated very well or there's a lot of noise or at least some noise leaking into your space or the space is smaller i would recommend going with a shotgun microphone so i hope this helps clear up the question what's the best microphone for voiceover and helps you understand that there's not just one best microphone it all depends on a ton of different topics points and questions that you need to ask yourself to figure out what is the best mic for you which begs the question how can you try out a ton of different microphones to see which one works best with your voice well if you're local in atlanta and you want to come down to atlanta voiceover studio we have the mic shootout we take you back to our main studio in our main booth and we let you try out 10 high-end microphones to see which one sounds best for your voice now these microphones are definitely super expensive so we have a bunch of alt microphones that sound a lot like those mics that are a lot more affordable so that way you can find out which mic sounds best for your voice and it's a treated booth and it sounds very good so it's the closest you'll get to what your space will hopefully sound like in the end all you have to do is email admin atlantavoiceoverstudio.com to set this up the other thing is to make sure to go to our kit.co page which i've linked in the description below we have a ton of microphones interfaces mic cables mic arms pop filters and a ton of different other stuff that we recommend for voiceover so i hope this video has helped you kind of figure out what things you need to be thinking about to find out what microphone best suits your needs if you did like the video please subscribe leave us a like and look forward to more videos to come out soon see ya you

Channel: Atlanta Voiceover Studio

Views: 21,099

Keywords: voiceover, microphones, best microphone for voice over, usb, xlr, condenser, dynamic, shotgun, polar pattern, voice actor, voice acting, volife, voice over, voice-over, TLM 103, Sennheiser 416, 416, neumann U87, Blue Yeti, Interface, Scarlett, Focusrite, 2i2, home studio, atlanta voiceover studio, AVS, votech, VOTECH, voice over tech, James Younger, Audio Doctor, audiodoctor, audio, audio tech, audiotech, microphone, what's the best microphone for voice over?, best microphone, shotgun microphone

Id: c5QbSe-dDso

Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2021