Recording Studio and Capabilities

Microphone: Shure SM7b dynamic microphone (primary) and a Nova cardioid condenser mic by M--Audio (backup) — The Shure SM7b is an excellent voice over microphone, especially for female voices. It picks up subtle vocal changes well, whether you're whispering or yelling; is well-shielded from any line noise; and is amazing at isolating your voice from any background noise that might creep in. I tested it near an open window and it recorded me, but not the plane that flew by during the test recording. Despite its advance filters, I still use it with a pop filter to further reduce spikes from plosives and to protect the mic.

Mixer-preamp: Behringer Eurorack UB1002FX — The Eurorack is also effective at isolating line noise, even before I switched to better shielded sound cables. It offers 10 channels, excellent quality and versatility in a portable box. The FX model also comes with 100 preset sound effects, which are great for live narrations or DJ parties. The mixer is still susceptible to power fluxes which cause volume dips from time to time, so I have it on a dedicated battery backup which compensates for brownouts.

Phone patch: JK Audio Inline Telephone Audio Interface — This connects the mic and computer audio with a standard phone line. Radio stations use a phone patch to broadcast phone interviews. Voice over artists primarily use this for live feed of their mic voices to a director or producer at a remote location for real-time direction during sessions. Frankly, you can accomplish this with a less expensive quality speaker phone. However, the JK Audio also allows for direct feed of pre-recorded audio into a phone line. This lets you deliver pre-recorded voice prompts by simply dialing into a client's voice mail system and playing back your recordings at each prompt. I primarily use the phone patch for this type of delivery.

DAW: Custom PC — My digital audio workstation (DAW) includes a custom acrylic computer (pictured left), which I designed and built myself. CPU is a 1.5 GHz Athlon, slow by today's standards, but it manages all my computer operations without any lag, and anything faster adds heat and the need for louder cooling. The fans go off and vents open during recording sessions to reduce noise. I'd move to a silent-running water cooling system, but introducing algae into my work computer doesn't thrill me. If you're a voice artist looking on this page for tips: first, if it's not broken, don't fix it. It would be better to get a second, hardier computer for video editing or gaming than to try to have one machine do everything. If your DAW works now, with little or no line noise, run it to the ground. If you're shopping around, don't just consider a PC. Apple Computer has been doing video and sound editing for a long time and I'm told MACs have been pretty robust and way more forgiving on sound and video editing software, than have PCs.

Soundcard: Soundblaster Live 5.1 — I know, it's old by PC standards but still effective, though if you're recording instruments, I'd recommend upgrading to a newer sound card with a break-out box offering more auxilliary inputs. For single or two-channel voice over recordings, the Soundblaster does just fine. If you choose a mobile USB preamp, like M-Audio's Fast Track Pro, a good choice, keep in mind it actually bypasses your soundcard for recordings (you'll just use it for playback), which makes the card less important. The M-Audio mobile preamp is ideal for laptop DAWs.

Software: Adobe Audition 1.5 — Formerly Syntrillium's Cool Edit Pro, Adobe Audition offers excellent recording capabilities and the most effective noise reduction filter I've experienced yet, though I've seldom needed it since I started using the Shure microphone. The software includes great sound effects, and an excellent multitrack system for easy mixing and mastering of I think up to 128 channels (I've never needed that many). It also includes a large royalty-free music loop library (Loopology) that comes with the software and helps you create great sounds beds for presentations and narrations. If you're new to Audition, I'd recommend you buy Total Training's DVD tutorial for Adobe Audition 1.5. The lessons are taught by Jason Levine, Adobe's Audition evangelist and creater of most or all of the loops that ship with Audition. Levine is a good narrator, organized, entertaining and articulate, and he doesn't just give you the nuts and bolts of the program but some decent mixing and mastering tips that really you get only through experience. Even if you know Cool Edit, like I did, the Audition 1.5 training DVD is essential because it covers a lot of features not available in the older program.

Royalty-Free M&E Library: In addition to an ever-growing sound effects library, I have royalty-free music for client's needing complete mixes — voice with music, or voice with music and effects (M&E). I have a buy-out license on most of the Lazertrax Music Library produced by Creative Digital, a recording studio in Georgia. Licensing on all Lazertrax music requires only a cue sheet for national broadcasts and I can provide those details to the client. I never use music with "pay as you play" (needle-drop) licenses. I also create my own music beds with the royalty-free loops from Audition Loopology, as I indicated above, and have some of my own compositions created through incredible music software, Finale 2006 with the Garritan Orchestra.

Delivery: I have stable broadband and servers for email and FTP deliveries, including a password protected site for client downloads. I'm of course able to send CDs through the usual major carriers for fast domestic or international delivery, at client's expense. (I'm also just a couple miles from local commercial recording studios with ISDN capabilities, but outside studio sessions require advance booking and incur additional rates.)

Bottom line: I'm comfortable with my voice and my equipment.