It's been a strange, long, frustrating, trip. No joke. I've been writing about the state of Android recording for years now.
Now with Android 5.0 "Lollipop" we finally have one of the most sought after, and completely neglected features, for those of us looking at project, home, and travel recording. I took a little time to demo USB Audio input and output on an NVIDIA Shield Tablet with the Lollipop update and my Blue Yeti Pro. It's always nice to have another option for recording, and makes Android a LOT more valuable for Voice Actors. Enjoy!
So, if you've been following my exploits over at that other web site I've been producing, you would know that we just recently acquired a Zoom H4n portable recorder. We were shopping around an inexpensive way to get high quality audio while filming on cameras like the Canon 5D mark 2. Really we were won over by the stereo phantom powered XLR ports which could be run off of a pair of AA batteries, and we really didn't even consider using the built in stereo mics. While recording some street ambiance however, I decided to try 4 channel mode (which records from both the stereo mics and the XLR's), and was surprised to find that I actually preferred the built in mics to the external I was using. I know others have already tackled this test more scientifically, but I wanted to get a sense of what this thing could do for a voice over talent, so I put it up against one of my studio's work horse mics the RODE NT1a. Using an intro from a project we recently produced (apologies in advance 'Surf Patrol', I'm not a VO talent) I recorded myself using the Zoom and the Rode at the same time.
Here are the results:
Rode NT1a:
Zoom H4n:
Now listening between the two myself, I prefer the RODE ever so slightly, but I really do feel the Zoom is a bit more accurate. For those of you that care about such things, The Zoom was recording straight to SD card at "75" (I'm not really quite sure what their gain metric is, one draw back I suppose) with the mics set to 90 degrees, and using the AC Adapter. The Rode was plugged into an ART TPS, run through a Mackie board, ending in an M-Audio Fastrack Ultra. I really do think the tubes in the ART add to the slightly more pleasant sound, but detract from the accuracy of the recording.
No other alterations were made to the recordings other than to mix the zoom down to mono (combining both tracks), and converting both files to MP3.
Conclusions? Well, the Zoom has just become my favorite USB mic. Of all time. Really. I've never liked the Snow Ball, and the AT2020USB is decent, but I usually end up recommending people go with something like the MicPort Pro.
No longer.
The Zoom fulfills ALL criteria for a beginning VO talent, and I say this without hyperbole. It comes with an excellent pair of microphones built in. It can power a pair of microphones when the talent wants to upgrade (we routinely use it to power an MKH416 and C414XLS with EXCELLENT results), and it can also function as a talent's audio interface, even accepting signals from preamps and mixers. For $300 this little Zoom is easily the most versatile bang for buck anyone could hope for, which makes it even more satisfying that it's versatility does NOT come at the expense of it's quality.
I'm kinda stuck, and some opinions from my faithful readers would be very helpful.
I need a new mixer.
More specifically I'd like to replace both my mixer and my sound card in one fell swoop, so I'm looking at Firewire and USB mixers. I've gone through Alesis, and Mackies, and Phonics, and I think I've got it narrowed down to 2 units in my price range. I'm completely torn, so on to the comparison.
The two I'm stuck on are the M-Audio NRV10 and the Allen & Heath Zed-14. I need four or more phantom powered XLR ports, and individual channels sent to computer. Both units do that, so what's bothering me?
The Allen & Heath (typically about $450) is, well, an Allen & Heath. That already makes it desirable. Six mono inputs, 4 buses, USB interface, and 100mm faders round out an impressive feature set. I've always enjoyed the build quality of A&H, and those extra buses are awesomely flexible.
Next up, the NRV10 (Usually around $700) comes from a company I'm VERY familiar with, having used M-A soundcards for YEARS now. I think I like Firewire better than USB (especially when I have to use my dog tired laptop). The NRV10 has fewer inputs, no alt buses (so less routing flexibility), but each channel has individual send selectors, giving it some good (but not great) channel flexibility. Lastly, while the mixer itself isn't quite as flexible as the A&H, it comes with one powerful advantage for me. It will play with the copy of Pro Tools M-Powered I picked up for my FW410.
So there's the question. Do I go with the more expensive less flexible mixer because it uses PT, or do I go with the more flexible less expensive mixer and use another program (I like Sound Forge and Audition, but I do need PT from time to time)? PLEASE leave me some comments with your thoughts!
Future Music (my favorite "DVD-stuck-to-the-outside-of-the-magazine-with-sticky-goop" magazine) has the scoop on the new MBox2 Micro, just announced by Digidesign.
It's small. It's sexy. I just don't get what it's for.
Near as I can tell it's a thumb drive with Protools software and a headphone jack. There are no inputs, so you can't record into it, and at $279 it's just $20 less then the MBox2 Mini or the M-Audio Firewire 410 (what I use).
I mean even the MicPortPro, at HALF the price, has an XLR port with phantom power and a dedicated headphone jack, and it's not much bigger than the micro.
XLR Port? Check! Phantom Power? Check! USB Connectivity? Check! Direct Headphone Port? Check! Hardware Gain Control? Check! Reasonable Price? Check!
Well I think that just about covers it. If you've read here I'm not a big fan of USB Microphones. I kinda lump them in with TV/VCR combo sets. They get the job done, but if one piece breaks...
Even though it cuts down on mobility I still tend to recommend separate sound card and mic combinations.
Well the mic port pro should help with this.
Yup that's it.
So if you need all of the above, have about $130 to spend, and need to be traveling light, this looks like the solution for you.
I do quite a bit of business teaching people how to record themselves. Working in voiceover, this is becoming more and more necessary. Not that VO artists need to be full on recording engineers, but having a basic understanding of how to make their voices sound presentable is becoming more important. At work we recently worked on a promo job where the budget was so low, that to pay for union talent they had to be able to record themselves, and send the audio back as quickly as possible. They didn't care about whisper rooms or ISDN, just a decent clean recording and a good performance. The job would've covered 30+ national promos.
Not a bad incentive to invest in some recording equipment!
My favorite setup to recommend is an external soundcard and condenser microphone. For newbies I tend to start low, say a USB MobilePre and MXL 770 (I can't say I'm a big fan of USB mics, as they don't give you anywhere to go, say you want to upgrade the mic or soundcard, you're starting from scratch all over again, not to mention adding a mixer, preamps, or monitors). Good flexibility, good sound, and all starting at under $300 (including stands and cables).
So, why not use a more expensive mic?
I get this question quite a bit. Every VO actor seems to have dreams of recording at home on a U87 or some vintage ribbon mic, and expensive mics are great, but an expensive mic wont make something sound "good-er". You get an expensive mic because it has a particular character that you are wanting to use. Personally I prefer the sound of an AKG 414 to the U87 FOR MOST PEOPLE. This is of course totally subjective as no one's really going to sound "bad" on either of these, but the Neumann will run you two to three times as much. Will you sound two to three times better?
It's all about bang for buck. For a newbie at recording, who wont understand about monitors, mixing, preamps (where mics really start to shine), and sound proofing/isolation it makes little sense to spend more than a couple hundred bucks to start experimenting. This kit can get really expensive really fast.
So all that being said, I've setup a little experiment. I've taken 3 of my favorite mics (and one beater) set them up under the same conditions, and two at a time, recorded the same piece of text (the first paragraph of 'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas, one of my favorite plays). All mics were connected directly to my Firewire 4-10, with gain set at half for each. Mic diaphragms were set approximately 10 inches from my face. After recording I punched each track through Sound Forge 9 and boosted the volume about 300% (exactly the same for each), then mixed each down to an mp3 @ 320kbps.
The mics we'll be hearing are:
*The M-Audio Aries @ $120 - Hand held condenser mic I got for free with my soundcard.
*The M-Audio Solaris @ $300 - This was the first multi-pattern condenser I've ever purchased, and it's served me very well for years.
*The Neumann KM184 @ $700 - I inherited this mic, before I was serious about recording, from an internet news "broadcast" station I worked at briefly in college. None of us knew about phantom power, so this mic "never worked". Years later I figured it out, and this has been a great utility and over head mic.
* The Sennheiser MKH 416 @ $1400 - This is THE L.A. mic. Originally used for outdoor broadcast, it also found a home in studios thanks in part to it's laser like focus.
With introductions out of the way, let's take a listen! While listening try to keep your headphones or speakers set to the same level. Each clip is about 40 seconds long.
M-Audio Aries:
M-Audio Solaris:
Neumann KM184:
Sennheiser MKH 416:
Wow! The Aries sounds not great at all! To be fair it is meant to replace dynamic mics like the sm57 (which I originally planned on using but sounded even worse), and even though it's phantom powered, the Aries really is meant to be passed through a preamp just like the Dynamic mics it competes against.
The Senny 416 sounds great. This thing is meant to be attached to video equipment or thrown on a boom, run off batteries, and get ONE person's voice even in noisy environments. Little wonder it handily beats the living crap out of the budget "studio" mics, and at twice the price of the Neumann, it had better.
But here's where a little know-how comes in. What if we normalized the volume of the Neumann and the Solaris to match the volume of the 416? Would the Senny still sound that much better? Let's see! Solaris NORMALIZED:
Neumann NORMALIZED:
OK! That's much better. The Solaris comes in a little brighter. The Neumann made my voice a little muddy, but now we're much closer in terms of "quality".
Now can we really say the Senny is twice as good as the Neumann? FOUR times better than the Solaris? Or if you're just starting out do you just boost the volume after the fact with a budget mic?
Thin voice? Movie trailer voice? No one mic is going to be the best. Matching a mic to a voice is as personal as the right pair of shoes/jeans/etc. Dumping a ton of cash on a "good" mic is kind of useless unless you've got the time, money, know-how, and effort to put into the surrounding kit as well.
Let me know what you think! Comments always appreciated! Hopefully I'll be able to do more of these as time goes on.
With a piece of software? Really? Kinda reminds me of that old joke "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"
With all of the mic and amp modeling packages out there, I guess I don't understand why anyone would pay almost $400 on a 1/4" to USB adapter and some amp modeling software.
"The combination of AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix(TM) and StealthPlug represents a huge step forward in guitar technology allowing, for the first time, every guitarist to easily plug into their computer and hear the classic sounds that inspired one of the most influential guitarists of all time, Jimi Hendrix."
Oh... I guess that ... explains(?) it ... Read the rest here if you're interested. someaudioguy some audio guy music recording production audio engineering demo auditions USB
Some people love them. Some people hate them. I think they're OK.
I can't say I've ever loved the sound out of an MXL mic, but I do have an MXL beater lying around in case I need it.
What I'm not sold on is the idea of a plug-n-play USB Mic. I regard it as the audio equivalent of a TV/VCR/DVD combo. Sure it takes up less space, but none of the individual components are going to be any good, and if one piece breaks you can't fix it.
Well now MXL is jumping into the scene with the MXL.008USB.
I've set up clients to remote record, set up home studios, and have NEVER come across a USB mic I like. I've tried Logitechs, the Snowball (which I hate), and the only one that comes close is the Samson C01U, which doesn't really succeed, but is any inexpensive way to start recording on a large diaphragm condenser.
I guess the thing that bothers me most, is the sound quality IS usually decent, but they're billed as being "so much easier" for non-techie types to use. I find this to be misleading. Sure they are easier to transport and take up less space, but cabling can be harder if you want to record farther than 10 feet from your computer (which you should be doing), and there seem to be a lot of software issues. The mic will show up as an audio interface, but controlling the mic needs to be done with hard to find plugins (why I hate the Blue Snow-Ball). Also you'll never be able to grow beyond it.
MXL is pricing their USB Mic at $199.99. For the same price (with a little shopping) you could get an external USB sound card and an arguably nicer mic like a Nova. Want to add a nicer mic later, you'll still have the sound card. Want to add a mixer, mic preamps, limiters, effects, instruments, all of this can be done FROM your initial $200.
If you like MXL's kit then this could be for you (but if you know MXL's mics well then you probably already have one). If you need a good USB mic then I'd recommend going for the Samson (at less than half the price of the MXL). Ultimately though, I think you could do better than either.
So, if you've been following my exploits over at that other web site I've been producing, you would know that we just recently acquired a Zoom H4n portable recorder. We were shopping around an inexpensive way to get high quality audio while filming on cameras like the Canon 5D mark 2.
For those of you that care about such things, The Zoom was recording straight to SD card at "75" (I'm not really quite sure what their gain metric is, one draw back I suppose) with the mics set to 90 degrees, and using the AC Adapter.
The Allen & Heath (typically about $450) is, well, an Allen & Heath. That already makes it desirable. Six mono inputs, 4 buses, USB interface, and 100mm faders round out an impressive feature set. I've always enjoyed the build quality of A&H, and those extra buses are awesomely flexible.
Next up, the NRV10 (Usually around $700) comes from a company I'm VERY familiar with, having used M-A soundcards for YEARS now. I think I like Firewire better than USB (especially when I have to use my dog tired laptop). The NRV10 has fewer inputs, no alt buses (so less routing flexibility), but each channel has individual send selectors, giving it some good (but not great) channel flexibility. Lastly, while the mixer itself isn't quite as flexible as the A&H, it comes with one powerful advantage for me. It will play with the copy of Pro Tools M-Powered I picked up for my FW410.
