notesdontmatter

AArts Wk 2 - "Voice Recording"

Okay, this is not my first experience in voice recording for radio purposes. I recently held a recording session of this nature in my home studio, for a friend who was auditioning for an announcer’s position on ABC Classic FM. I certainly don't think this makes me an adept engineer in the field, but I hope I don't make similar mistakes to those which occurred on the said occasion...

I started out squeezing the input compression (which I have taken to inserting at the input stage via an auxiliary track) at a monstrous ratio of 10:1, as I have read in the past that this is the preferred setting for voice over recording engineers. This quickly proved to be overkill as I could virtually yell into the U87 and only register some 40% of level at the track stage of the signal chain. I then realised that as I was recording in the control room, the compressor forced the mic to pick up too much background noise, so I abolished the idea of input compression altogether.

I began with a flat read of my fictitious advertising blurb, performing two takes - one with the U87, and one with the intimidating NTV (two takes were performed in this way for all readings and singing (?) attempts. Backing off the gain was an early necessity as the mic was distorting badly.

I have chosen to leave the compression off for the examples I've posted so that you may judge freely the quality of microphone usage on display. Even for the 'expressive' readings of the ad it seems that there was little danger of peaking unless I really started to yell.

For my pitiful attempt at singing however, the real art of vocal recording began to rear its head. I deliberately left the moment of distortion at the end of Unchained Melody, so that you might hear the result of bad (but loud) vocals being pumped at point blank range into an unsuspecting U87. Its so sensitive... The interesting fact about the distortion issue is that the gain on the desk was way down at 45% or so and the level meters weren't peaking, so I can only assume it's a result of harmonic distortion occurring in the mic's diaphragm itself.

This was less of an issue with the NTV but I still have a lot to learn with regard to tackling such issues. I suspect it's partly down to a singers microphone technique (distance from mic during loud passages etc), but we can't rely on them for everything now can we?

Check out these fine examples of my less than mediocre vocal skills:

U87 Flat vocal delivery (0.400Mb,Mp3) (sorry, this one was disallowed by box.net)


U87 Expressive vocal delivery (0.400Mb,Mp3)


NTV Flat vocal delivery (0.400Mb,Mp3)


NTVExpressive vocal delivery (0.400Mb,Mp3)


U87 – Dave fails at Unchained Melody (Righteous Brothers) (0.400Mb,Mp3)


NTV – Dave fails at Black Dog (Led Zeppelin) (0.200Mb,Mp3)


Satan is coming...(0.155Mb, Mp3)

Reference:

David Grice. “Voice Recording”. Lecture presented at EMU Space and Studio 1, 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide. 06/03/2006.

posted by David J Dowling @ 2:19 AM