Minimum studio requirements

[Jon Morss]

For those that are competing and actually getting jobs on the online voice sites like voices.com and voice123, what is the bare minimum studio equipment that is required? Do you all have a Whisper rooms and Neumann mics and such, or are you able to get by with much less?

I'm just curious.

Thanks,

Jon

[David J.]

Jon,
I'm not full-time (yet!), but I have managed to book a handful of jobs through V123 (before the smartcast conversion) and sign with a few agents--to include voiceoverla (and get listed in voicebank!)--while working out of my house with decent--but not bank-busting--equipment. My set-up is

MacBook with intel core-2 duo processor
Rode NT-1 mic
ProTools
MBox-2

Should you buy all that stuff new it'd run about $2500 or so. I record in an oversized closet I soundproofed myself. Living on a quiet street also helps a great deal. I've done several phone patches with clients that have turned out nicely. Most of the stuff on my demo reels was recorded at my home studio (though I didn't produce any of it). FWIW!

David
http://davidjlawrence.voices.com

[RonaldTRobinson]

A good microphone is an essential, Jon, as is a "dead" recording-space. There are so many great mics available in the 350-500 dollar range.

There is a difference between a "dead" space and silence... which is harder to get in some physical spaces. The goal is to capture the voice and not the room-space.

However, "gating" hardware or software can go a long way in assisting in keeping noise-floors down to at least -60db. (-70 to -80 is better.) Out board, gating-hardware is preferred by many V/O-artists.

There are a number of manufacturers who will supply outstanding pre-amps, gates and compressors as stand-alone pieces or combos -- at tremendous pricing. (DBX is a safe choice and terrific for the money. There are others.)

The key, of course, is in having the capacity to deliver high-quality Audio to a producer.

The rest is in the performance.

Certainly, skills with the software-tools available will add to a Talent's versatility, as well. But that comes with practice and a willingness to mess around with the goodies. :)

[Grant Holmes]

Jon,

Relatively speaking, I know nothing about this compared to others that would answer. But let me take a different tack than David and a side bar to Ronald. I know a bit about computers, so I'll modify my response to you based on how I tell people "what to buy"...

Buy what you can afford.

Here's my take...
Microphone: Get the best Mic you can afford (I'd suggest getting cozy with a GOOD local music shop. They can let you test stuff there and may have a more liberal return policy than on the internet. Locally, I've found two that are cheaper and I can go in and bend their ear anytime I need to.

Computer to record on: Get your operating system of choice, but get the fastest processor, best sound card and most RAM you can afford.

Software: Everything from Audacity (free) to ProTools will work. My local music shop had a great deal on a mic, processor and editing software bundle.

Actual Studio: find/create the quietest place you can record in. It can be a simple/cheap as hanging a sleeping bag from the ceiling, wrapping around you to create a quiet space to a full-blown sound room.

[Jacob Ekstroem]

Originally Posted by Grant Holmes

Computer to record on: Get your operating system of choice, but get the fastest processor, best sound card and most RAM you can afford.

...but DON'T place a computer like that anywhere near your microphone, as fast/big computers generates heat, heat calls for cooling, cooling produce noise, noise is BAD!

So my add would be: prioritize less noise over more speed.

Get at computer, which is fast enough for VO recording, and has been designed or custom assembled from components, that don't need a lot of cooling. The new Intel Core2 Duo cpu's don't heat up easily, for instance - Intel P4's do! One GB of RAM produce a little heat - four GB's produce more etc. And you DON'T need the fastest, biggest bad-ass system on the block to record VO's, but you DO need a quiet system, if your microphone is located in the same room as your computer.

As for the general subject,
Jon, not many of us record with whisperrooms, Neumann mikes etc. but the key is to make your recordings sound like you do!

[Jon Morss]

Outstanding guys. This is great information.

Jacob -- I hear ya on the compute/mic placement. I keep mine in separate rooms and I made a make-shift Voice-Over Box as per Harlan Hogan's Home Recording book to isolate noise (2'X2' foam board box with Sound Proof material inside).

Grant -- The mic suggestion is great. I had also seen a suggestion some where to talk with a local studio and see if they will let you test mics there.
Software wise, Pro Tools seems to be the industry standard, but I have seen and heard some of the limitations. Cubase SX is a great alternative and is a bit less than PT.

Ronald -- Great info. The Voice-Over Box that I made seems to eliminate most noise for the the Radio Drama stuff I have done. I'll have to get some input from a pro to see if it would satisfy a paid reading.

David J. -- Cool suggestions. I had a TLM 103 at one point but it picked up too much noise from inside and outside of the house so I had to sell it. I have been eye balling the NT-1 or the NTK and an option over the SM57 and Behringer B-1 I have now. Great demo reels. They sound very professional.

Again thanks guys.

Jon

[Grant Holmes]

Jon,
CuBase was one of the programs in the package I saw. I couldn't remember the name in my earlier post.

Jacob, great point on noise.

[jason216]

Jon, I have been a Pro Tools user for a long time, and I'm not sure what limitations you're refering too. Almost any software program that records audio is sufficient to do VO. They all come with some processing plug-ins so you will have compression, eq's and usually reverb and echo. If you use those well, especially compression and eq, you'll get a good product.
The reason I went to Pro Tools from my first program, which was Cakewalk, now Sonar, was because the PT files can be opened up in almost any studio on the planet. It doesn't matter if you're PC or Mac based. If you do a recording and want your stuff remixed on one of those nice million dollar boards, it can be done. That's pretty cool. Also, you are learning how to use one of the industry standards in software recording. You can go anywhere and be familiar with the system. Pro Tools LE, with a few limitations in editing perks and channel counts from it's bigger brother (TDM) is pretty much the same. Audition is also used in a lot of radio stations and also would be handy to know how to use.
You can get an Mbox system for under $400 that you'll be proud to own.

Inset disclaimer here.....I have no affiliation with pro tools, I just use it...
Jason

[Jon Morss]

jason216 - I tried to use a light version of Pro Tools some time back but it was such a resource hog and took too much time to make changes and bounce a track that I just tossed it aside. Also, I spent the last 2 Saturdays in a recording studio with my daughter's band recording a song and the Engineer there was just falling over himself with Cubase SX. He said he switched from Pro Tools because it took too much time to make edits and bounce tracks as well. Another thing that sold him on Cubase was that he is able to record 50 tracks in HD which is something he could not do with Pro Tools. That's a bit much for me but it sound cool. One thing he did say about the whole "practically every studio in the world uses Pro Tools" issue, was that Pro Tools was one of the first in the business, But now they are getting passed up by other software packages like Cubase.

Since I'm still in the recording online Radio shows mode, I still use Audacity and Abelton Live on my Mac. I have used Sony ACID and SoundForge on a PC but I prefer a Mac OS X since it is UNIX based. I'll have to check out Cubase at some point. At this time, its a matter of whatever works, man

Thanks for the input,

Jon

[VoiceHaven]

Hi Jon, let me chime in really quickly.... Pro Tools gets bashed a lot because of its expense (you pay a higher price mainly because it IS Pro Tools) and its "older" looking GUI (Graphical User Interface for those who don't know) and the "hoops" it makes you jump through to accomplish certain tasks (as you wrote about above). However it still is an industry standard (as you mention because it was one of the first) and it is a very capable program. On the other hand, it is very common for its users to become a Pro Tools snob and nothing else should ever be used (BTW, I am not accusing anyone here of being a PT snob... I have not observed that cult-ish activity on this forum.... yet). ;-) So sometimes you have to weed through their enthusiasm to pick out the complete truth of the matter.

I use Cubase 4. I have had a lot of experience with its VERY big brother Nuendo (read, same company, Stienberg). Many Hollywood movie and audio studio's are using Nuendo. Cubase focus' a little more on music production whereas Nuendo has more capability for sophisticated networking between a variety of servers (plus a few more features). I loved Nuendo when I was using it on a (somewhat) regular basis. And I really like Cubase 4. Compared to Pro Tools, I think Cubase is more intuitive. It's easier to navigate and get things done.

I've been in a few sessions and seen other engineers use Pro Tools. I need to be honest, I have never "run" a session with PT. But based on my observations of those engineers, the way they got things done with PT, and based on my "hands-on" experience with Nuendo.... I knew that its little sibling, Cubase, was the way to go for me.