I did a voiceover recently with a $150 Rode VideoMic mounted on a tiny desktop camera tripod. I recorded the VO into a pocket sized Sony ICD-ST25 flash ram recorder and transferred the audio via USB using the software that came with the recorder. It sounded great, especially considering that the whole setup cost less than $300. I did the recording at the dining room table. Check it out here:

http://vegasusers.com/vidshare/textdisp?laurence-backpacks

Hi Birdcat,

You should have this (or something like it) anyway:



- Travis
www.Announcing.biz

The VO is OK, but I think you might have applied compression to the final mix. I'd try leaving the music as it was and applying compression to only the VO track, not too much though or it'll sound too much like a TVC and get tiring. If you don't want to spend ages ducking the music then apply light compression with a long release time to the ouput bus, you don't want the music coming up between the phrases.
The video though, way too much motion going in every direction, nothing wrong with having some movement but you need to break it up with static shots.
Bob.

I was going to say, get an inexpensive phantom power unit but for $49 USD the Behringer Eurorack UB802 Mixer that Travis pointed to looks awesome for the price. Can’t go wrong there.

In the $100 range you might want to check out the Audio-Technica AT2020. I have one and it’s a very nice sounding VO mic for the price. Not as good as my AT4033 but ¼ the price. It’s surprisingly good.

Also, if you are going to feed this into the sound chip on your motherboard, you might not get the quality you’re looking for. The noise floor on these chips is quite high for recording audio. Even an inexpensive pro soundcard like the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 ($99) will significantly improve the quality of your recordings.

It looks like the Behringer US802 has RCA tape outs and the Audiophile 2496 has RCA inputs so these two devices look like a nice combination. I realize you weren’t planning on spending an additional $148 but it is something to consider that will be a significant improvement over what you are using now (‘cuz plugging a great mic into a garbage soundcard will still sound like garbage).

~jr

A director i used to work for years ago once told me, "If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel of wine, you get ... sewage."

Your best effort will look or sound as good as the worst part you put in it.

What's an example of a soundcard with phantom power and balanced inputs?

>A director i used to work for years ago once told me, "If you put a spoonful of wine in a >barrel of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel of wine, >you get ... sewage."

>Your best effort will look or sound as good as the worst part you put in it.

Great quote! I'll use it in the future, but...

A better quote might be "drop a little meat on the floor, you get garbage. Put a little of what dropped on the floor back in with the meat and you get chicken nuggets" ;-)

Exactly what part of the chicken is the "nugget?"

John

frazerb : I'd say M-Audio FireWire 410, which looks like being popular here (a firewire unit).
There must be some more reliable PCI one, though.

> What's an example of a soundcard with phantom power and balanced inputs?

For PCI cards there is the ECHO Gina 3G, Echo Layla 3G, etc.
For Firewire there is the M-Audio FireWire 410, FW1814, FireWire Solo, Echo AudioFire8, AudioFire12, PreSonus Firepod, etc.
For USB there is the M-Audio Fast Track Pro.

All of these have balanced XLR/TRS and 48v Phantom power. I’m sure there are more but these are the companies I’m most familiar with.

~jr

M-Audio Mobilepre may also be worth looking into?
Preamp, A-->D converter, phantom power, headphone monitoring with volume knob. You don't even need a mixer.
(Haven't tried it myself, but looks like it'd do the job. May be slightly pricier than ghetto solutions.)