Microphone Recommendation Please

Hi, I am an experienced radio presenter and voice-over artist. I am currently the station image voice for a London FM station. I'm exploring the possibility of being able to record broadcast quality voice-overs and station imaging work on my PC (no studio or mixing desk, just a PC). You may want to advise on this idea too .. are people doing this yet? High quality Wave files are usable by productions studios aren't they? What's stopping voice-over people from working from their PC, in the same way that they currently do, using ISDN lines? Have we yet reached the stage where we can work from the PC only?

My sound card is a Delta 44, and I added a pre-amp, AudioBuddy, my mic is a Sennheiser e815S, but I can't get good recordings with it because it's too quiet, low volume output, I have to get too close to it and shout to anything near decent, but it's not quite right. Where am I going wrong? Is there an impedance issue here? Do I need to use a condenser mic for PC recordings. Back in the days when I had a head-set mic for web cam work on the PC (with a Sound Blaster card), the mic was super loud, but too tinny. Hence my investing in a pro audio card. But I still don't have the right mic. When I produce my voice recordings I can of course boost volumes and add compression, reverb etc., but there is some slight hiss when I do this because the original recording was not loud enough.

Help please  

Yes, it's all perfectly possible - people are doing it! The ISDN uplink kit isn't that cheap, though. As far as microphones go, the Sennheiser is certainly what's letting you down here. One mic that gets used a lot for ths sort of work is the Audio Technica AT 4040 - you can pick these up from Digital Village quite easily - their page on it is here. This should work rather better with the AudioBuddy, I think.

The other thing that you have to consider when you work like this is the acoustic environment - you need somewhere that's going to be fairly neutral, and also not suffer from background noise problems - and because all half-way decent condensor mics are going to pick up everything, (rather more than the Sennheiser dynamic will), you can't really afford to ignore this. And of course this has implications for your PC and its inherent noise generation capabilities as well.

I think that at present, if you want to submit wav files to people in radio, you are still going to have to get over a bit of inertia, although I think that this will change. With a broadband uplink, I can't see any reason why files shouldn't be submitted this way at all - after all, it's not as though any of them is actually likely to be that huge, if they are for imaging purposes, is it?

The website that Steve links you to also offers a whole host of other good bargain mics.  Check out the AKG, Oktava, Groove Tube, Rode and Studio Projects offerings as well.

 

I know that it's strictly hardware, but as a matter of principle I've moved this thread into the Radio, TV and Video Production forum - I'm sure that you can work out why!

The website that Steve links you to also offers a whole host of other good bargain mics.

That it does, but the particular mic I suggested is known to be good for spoken voice, and also designed to be rather more shock-proof than many. And it will give a similar sort of 'sound' to many of the mics in current use in radio studios around London, which is why I singled it out...

I was going to post my question in this forum, and thought twice about it  

Anyway, good call Steve, the AT4040 does look good, and quite affordable too.

And it will give a similar sort of 'sound' to many of the mics in current use in radio studios around London, which is why I singled it out...

I assume you're referring to (amongst others) the Neumann M149, which I see just about everywhere. That's what I should be getting, but that puppy would set me back around two and half grand (£), I'd need to sell the wife to get that, hmm.. might be a .. nah.

Now that you've suggested the right mic, I've spent the day worrying about the mic picking up the noise from my hard drive; it's fairly quiet compared to most but makes a noise just the same, might have to consider having the mic the other side of the room. And that might create newer problems, because I would also need to move my monitor, or it's musical chairs every time I want to voice something. Any tips on this? Put my HDD in a cabinet perhaps? S'funny, in the radio studio I do regular imaging, the HDD is on the floor about 3 ft away from the mic (a Neumann) but you can't hear its noise.

Get a long KVM cable and move your CPU out of the room.  You can spend a lot of time and money making your computer a lot quieter (ask me how I know) but the ultimate solution is to put it on the other side of the door.

The cable shown can be had in a 25' version for $22 here in the US.  I have a 15' version and have no image quality issues on my monitor and I run at very high resolutions.

I assume you're referring to (amongst others) the Neumann M149, which I see just about everywhere. That's what I should be getting, but that puppy would set me back around two and half grand (£), I'd need to sell the wife to get that, hmm.. might be a .. nah.

I think that the main reason that M149s are popular is because their pickup patterns are fairly restricted in the vertical plane - which makes them rather better for not picking up a lot of surrounding noise. Can't think of any other reason that you'd want to spend £2,500 listening to somebody saying 'That was... this is...' But other than this, the Neumanns are vastly overpriced for what they actually are - that's one expensive badge!

Now that you've suggested the right mic, I've spent the day worrying about the mic picking up the noise from my hard drive; it's fairly quiet compared to most but makes a noise just the same, might have to consider having the mic the other side of the room. And that might create newer problems, because I would also need to move my monitor, or it's musical chairs every time I want to voice something. Any tips on this? Put my HDD in a cabinet perhaps? S'funny, in the radio studio I do regular imaging, the HDD is on the floor about 3 ft away from the mic (a Neumann) but you can't hear its noise.

With a spoken voice, especially doing imaging, you are going to get a good signal to noise ratio whatever you do as far as the mic is concerned - you really don't need the preamp gain turned up too high at all, as a rule, unless you like the 'hard' sound of a preamp getting close to clipping... you may also want to consider getting a pop screen - usually worth it, as long as you can see past it!

If you are working at home, there are a few other things to consider - like the script mount you use, for instance. I don't know if you prefer to work standing or sitting, but if you sit, you really don't want a hard, reflective surface with a script on it as a reflector between you and the mic - I built a script rest that was basically made of braced pegboard with the holes drilled out somewhat, covered in some thin, acoustically transparent material. For the person concerned, who has quite a deep voice, this improved the sound quite a bit for very little outlay. Canford do a very nice acoustic script lectern for £240+VAT. The one I built cost me about £20, and does the job identically. Maybe I'm missing out on something here...

It is worth making sure that your environment really is going to keep itself out of the mic, though, otherwise you may find that your contributions have interesting questions asked of them... although a lot of radio tech staff these days seem to be curiously deaf, it's still a good idea to try to keep the quality as high as possible.

Hi Karl,

(sorry to take this slightly off the track, but...)

I've been a bit reluctant to go for the "stretch" (I've got a rather small, but very effective isolation cabinet in the control room), but it would make far more sense (here, in our working space, anyway) to just get the computer into the machine room, altogether...

So - how's the video quality with cables which are that long? If it's still good, I'd move the box out of here in a heartbeat!

Best... -Jon

Well Karl, thanks for the suggestion, but having the box in another room is just not practical for me at the moment. I'm just going to have to try an AT4040 and see what happens. At the very least I could make high quality demos at home.

Steve, priceless advice, thanks mate.

So - how's the video quality with cables which are that long? If it's still good, I'd move the box out of here in a heartbeat!

My cable is 15' - figure another 6 on the monitor.  I run 1600x1200 at 75Hz refresh rate.  Image quality is fine.  I'm a mechanical engineer and heavy CAD user.  Lots of wireframe work - high contrast line graphics - so I'd notice ghosting.

Actually, I have a little ghosting, to be perfectly honest - but that is only when I have my KVM switch in the loop.  No KVM switch and the image is as good as with no extension cable.

Thanks Karl. Sounds like I may have to go shopping....

Best... -Jon

Actually, I have a little ghosting, to be perfectly honest - but that is only when I have my KVM switch in the loop.  No KVM switch and the image is as good as with no extension cable.

Hehe! I had that problem too. The fix is painful; First, you have to make sure that the KVM has individual ground continuity for the RGB signals. and with half of them, and this often means an internal rewire if it's a mechanical switch, and second, the cable either side of the switch has to be identical - otherwise the internal reflections at the switch junction in both directions (which is what causes the ringing) can make some things on the screen, like text for instance, disappear altogether!

But I can't see any reason why a single longer video cable should give you results any different from a shorter one - you don't run into any reflection problems at all. If you extend an existing cable though, you could potentially have a problem if the cables are different.

Hehe! I had that problem too. The fix is painful ...

 The ghosting is very slight and usually very difficult to see unless the conditions are just right.  I'll just live with it.  Next time I'm moving gear around, I'll be a little more careful about matching cables across the switch.

[AT 4040]

One mic that gets used a lot for ths sort of work is the Audio Technica AT 4040 - you can pick these up from Digital Village quite easily..

I've tried Digital Village and a few other Audio Technica dealers, and no one seems to be stocking the AT 4040. Can you recommend another stockist who is likely to have it please .. in the Surrey/Middlesex/London area.
Thanks.

[AT 4040]

I've tried Digital Village and a few other Audio Technica dealers, and no one seems to be stocking the AT 4040. Can you recommend another stockist who is likely to have it please .. in the Surrey/Middlesex/London area.

What a pain! Studiospares have them listed here. Have you tried them?