Home Studio Thoughts!

When I first started with a home studio setup back in the late seventies, it was an expensive and complicated proposition, involving reel-to-reel tape decks—preferably 4 or 8 track—DAT (Digital audio tape decks), high quality cassette decks (sound llike an oxymoron?), turntables and music libraries on LP vinyl, and later on, CD recording decks, plus a mixing board with phantom power, monitor speakers, power amp, outboard gear like preamps, reverb units, compressors, EQ rigs, and more.
Back then, a decent microphone for voiceover work started at around 400 pre-inflation dollars…favorites being two dynamic microphones the Sennheiser 421 and the Electrovoice RE-20. (The Shure SM57 and SM58 were popular too, and less expensive, though they were primarily used as hand-held mics for singers.) Those microphones are still around today, and can be very useful in a home studio, but there are a lot more choices than ever before. The microphones of today are much more affordable than in years past too, with decent VO mics starting at around one-hundred dollars. The quality of some of these hundred-dollar microphones is surprisingly good. Good enough for government work, and corporate work, and advertising work too!

I have purchased several Marshall MXL condenser microphones in the last few years. These microphones are Chinese-made, and you’ll hear some folks say the quality is not good, or is not consistent. In my experience the quality is amazing for the money. (Okay, that’s my opinion, and I’m not an expert recording technician, but I am a guy that uses these microphones and far more expensive ones every day in my work. I’d rather have use the Sennheiser 416 at 1200 bucks, or a Neumann U-87 at several thousand, but those mics can be unrealistic for new voiceover actors on two levels: they are prohibitively expensive to start, and they are so sensitive that they can pick up the ants chewing on picnic leftovers across the street. Think soundproof booth if you get a Neumann.
A new, and affordable, development in voiceover microphones for voiceover folks looking to work—or at least audition—from their home studios, is the USB mic. These are microphones that plug directly into the USB port on your computer. Again, the quality is amazing, and you can choose from USB versions of the usual suspects and more: Marshall MXL, Blue, Audio Technica, Rode, Samson. I’ve frowned on some of those makes in the past, but I’ve heard the sound they produce for people I’ve coached and produced and I’m a convert!

The principal drawback with a USB microphone is that you may not be able to use a long enough USB cable to distance yourself from the computer. Computers make noise.
The great thing about a USB microphone is that you can combine it with the free audio software Audacity, and you’re ready to do voiceover business.

SO ASIDE FROM ALL THE REMINISCING, WHAT’S THE BOTTOM LINE?
Today, a home studio capable of producing broadcast-quality audio can range in cost from less than 200 to 1500 dollars and (of course) up.   

So what do you need, and what should you spend?
It depends on your budget and on what you expect—or hope—to accomplish with your home studio.
The best equipment and software is a moving target with new technology coming along all the time, which means you should research things on the internet and at your favorite music store to see what’s new right now. The good news is that prices seem to come down and performance goes up. Now that’s a blessing of our electronic world!What’s in a Home Studio?

Every home studio, regardless of budget, needs certain basics:
A quiet space, with a minimum of ambient and outside noise leaking in on your recording. A cellar is good for this…a room inside a cellar is better…an interior closet is okay too (I know a national-level announcer who does promos for a major network from his closet)…any quiet corner will do…I’ve recorded auditions and jobs in dining rooms, living rooms, and motel rooms while traveling.

You want to create a dead space (cue the Halloween music and skeleton sound effects), without the “boxy” reverberant sound one gets from hard walls and flat, parallel surfaces (think, “singing in my tiled shower” and you get the idea of what we mean by “boxy.” If you’re recording in a closet, leaving some clothes hanging in it can make it sound quite dead, absorbing rather than reflecting the sound waves. Breaking up parallel surfaces with draperies, or even throwing a blanket over your head while recording can work in a pinch (you might need a flashlight though, but don’t be embarrassed, you won’t be the first VO actor to do that). Remember, all this deadening stuff is to prevent the “boxy sound,” it’s not going to do much to sound-proof your home studio. That requires what we call isolation…keeping outside noises to a minimum. For true isolation, you’ll need an interior closet, a cellar with heavy concrete walls that isolate you from outside sound, or a sound proof booth. Don’t worry too much though, for most auditioning purposes, you’ll do fine with just a reasonably quiet area.

You’ll want a computer-based recording system. In the recent past this would involve a digital interface that you plug a microphone into, and a USB or Firewire connection to your computer. For people who want to learn to do advanced production I still recommend a good interface, like the Pro Tools MBox, one of the M-Audio interfaces, or the less expensive ART USB Preamps. These are good pieces of equipment to own if you have aspirations to full production or more high-end condenser microphones that use XLR connectors and phantom power. If you want to do music as well as voicovers, that’s probably the route for you. But the learning curve is steeper, and there’s more to go wrong. If you want to play around with audio, it’ll be fun. If you just want to record that audition and send it as an mp3, or you’re just starting out and feel a bit overwhelmed…move on to my next recommendation. Which is…

For most voiceover types starting out, the home studio simply involves a USB microphone that plugs directly into your computer. That’s the system I recommend for you to start with…a USB microphone and the free audio recording program Audacity. (Google it, it’s free) You can start playing around with Audacity before you invest in a microphone, learning to record and edit with just the microphone built-in on your computer.) Then you can add a decent USB mic, like the Marshal MXL 990 USB microphone, Samson CO1U, Samson G-Track, the Blue Snowball, the Audio Technica 2020, the Rode Podcaster microphone, or one of dozens of other choices from quality makers…You can do amazing things with a set-up like that!

I’d be a wary of USB microphones designed for Instant Messaging, like the Logitech USB microphones that run as little as thirty dollars, they might be good enough for the occasional auditioning—I know voice actors who use them for that—but the quality is lower and they are designed to be very close to your computer…which means noise in the background. There are also some microphones that plug directly into the USB port with no cable or a very short cable (like the Blue Snowflake); again that seems too close to the noise source for doing actual jobs.

The fact is, with the popularity of podcasting and home recording, there are constantly new recording options coming up on the market. It shouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg to get started. You can check out various websites, including VOsites.com, to find out what’s new and what’s good.
A Pro-Tools Mbox with a decent XLR large-condenser microphone by Marshall MXL or one of its peers, a microphone stand, mic cable, and a pop-filter to prevent plosive “p” sounds will probably set you back 5 or 6 hundred dollars all told. With that, you can learn to do just about anything.

But with Audacity, and a decent USB microphone with a mic stand and pop filter, you’re going to be able to audition via the web, and even do basic voiceover jobs, and it will probably all run you less than a couple hundred dollars.

I have used Audacity as a back up to Pro-Tools (which occasionally does weird things at just the wrong time, like any good software program), and the results were excellent.
You can google the lastest home studio info, check out websites (like mine), or visit your local music store. Just be sure to specify that you want to record voiceovers. It’s a little different from the kind of equipment and software you might need for a band.
The beauty part is…there’s more to choose from for less money with better quality than ever before. And since so much VO work is being done over the internet these days, a home studio is a great asset.