Voiceover Talent and Narrator Home Recording Studio Equipment Overview
Professional microphones range in price from around $200 to $2000. The same goes for interfaces. When necessary I go to a studio that has awesome equipment, and I drool over it and talk shop with the engineer before and after the session. For my home studio I wanted a microphone that suited my voice and worked with my budget. The most expensive equipment can’t help me get the jobs if I can’t consistently deliver good reads. So I decided to get only the most basic equipment and spend more on the coaching and demo. This basic set up let’s me fine tune my delivery and editing skills.
First you will need an XLR condensor microphone. You can not make a profession out of this using a USB microphone. I read page after page of forums and blogs trying to find out what microphones are best for women’s voices, but didn’t find much information. Most comments were about which mics were good for drums and a howling singer. I did find a couple of youtube videos that featured women singing into the Blue Spark microphone. The women had similar voices to mine, and they sounded great on the mic. I read that ‘because of the characteristics of the microphone, it wasn’t well-suited for a man’s voice but worked well for instruments and women’s voices’. I found that the microphone was quite easy to get second hand. Because of its initial affordability, it seemed a logical choice as a first microphone for many musicians building their first basement studio, but since it really doesn’t suit a man’s voice, as soon as they had some money it was the first thing they wanted to upgrade. I picked mine up for a great price on Kijjiji(Canada’s Craiglist - only better).
April 2020 - I do not recommend the Blue Spark microphone for voiceover work! It would be more at home with a band. At the recommendation of my demo producer I upgraded to a Neumann TLM 103 and the TLM 103 is shockingly better. The Blue Spark picks up all kinds of noise from all directions and mouth noise, whereas the Neumann TLM 103 just focuses on picking up the voice. Obviously the Neumann TLM 103 is much more expensive and is not the mic you’ll get when you’re just starting out. I scoured the web and talked to some great engineers and compiled the following recommendations for you. I have not personally used them, so I recommend visiting a local store and trying them out in person.
The Lewitt Large Diaphragm Condenser is featured in this youtube video.
Some people recommend this a great first mic:
https://voiceoveressentials.com/product/vo-1a-voiceover-microphone
You need to hear what’s being recorded so you need a quality pair of headphones. I already had some Sony MDR-V600 headphones that I used for my onsite video production. They do the job quite well from an audio perspective, but I notice that they aren’t that comfortable for hours of recording. They squeeze my ears into the arms of my reading glasses and give me a little bit of a headache, so I’ll be investing in some that are more comfortable.
To get the audio signal from a professional XLR mic into the computer requires an interface. Since I’m just recording one track of voice I use the Focusrite Scarlett Solo.It will cost from $1000 - $2000 to upgrade my interface and take my recording to the next level. Someday I’ll be ready to make this investment but in the meantime the Solo is sufficient for audiobook narrations and industrial voiceovers and auditions.
April 2020 Update: When I was using the Blue Spark I had to turn the level up so high that I was hearing a little hiss. Now that I have the Neumann TLM 103 the Focusrite Solo interface is just fine.
I use Logic Pro X as a recording platform on an iMac. I tried other software on PC but felt lost in them. It might be because I’ve been editing video on Apple software for years and it just seemed more intuitive to me. Logic Pro X isn’t the most popular editing system so check out others. Focusrite comes with Ableton live, many composers and engineers use Pro Tools or Adobe Audition. The challenge I had was wading through all the musician focused tutorials on Youtube. Whatever you use I recommend hiring a tutor for a few hours to help you get started. You’ll save days of research trust me. Check out this blog post to hear how I learned this the hard way. I have a video screen in the booth that mirrors the iMac’s screen so I can control the recording. I keep my computer out of my booth just to make sure I don’t get any fan noise.