Favorite VO Mics

[Jay Lee]

Hi there,
Wondering what your favorite VO mics are and why. Primary usage for me will be docs, industrials and promo work. Generally, VO will be over nat sound or music bed. I use both male and female voices. I like warmth and accuracy in terms of sound quality. My pre-amp will most likely be an M-Box going right into Pro tools. I've used an RE-20 in the past and it's ok, but I'm leaning towards a condenser mic. For field production I use an RE-50 for hand held and a Beyerdynamic 96 shotgun (which I really like). Anyone had experience with the Beyerdynamic M99? For now I'm using Sennheiser lav mics on my wireless system. I'd like my VO mic to tonally match as much as possible to what I have. Budget wise the $300-400 is better, over $500 would take some serious thought to consider.
Thanks, let the games begin.....

[Ty Ford]

If matching is imperative, stick with your lav in a quiet and mostly dead room. Given where the lav is placed for on camera work, there's no real way to match it with a condenser.

They come close in feature films, but they do a lot in post production to do the match.

Reagrds,

Ty Ford

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Jay Lee

Hi there,
Wondering what your favorite VO mics are and why. Primary usage for me will be docs, industrials and promo work. Generally, VO will be over nat sound or music bed. I use both male and female voices. I like warmth and accuracy in terms of sound quality. My pre-amp will most likely be an M-Box going right into Pro tools. I've used an RE-20 in the past and it's ok, but I'm leaning towards a condenser mic. For field production I use an RE-50 for hand held and a Beyerdynamic 96 shotgun (which I really like). Anyone had experience with the Beyerdynamic M99? For now I'm using Sennheiser lav mics on my wireless system. I'd like my VO mic to tonally match as much as possible to what I have. Budget wise the $300-400 is better, over $500 would take some serious thought to consider.
Thanks, let the games begin.....

Are you talking about VO narration or ADR dialog replacement? The requirments are different - VO is directed at the viewer and should seem close-up and personal, the viewer is a participant in the conversation and the narrator is speaking directly to him. For dialog, OTOH, the viewer is not a participant in the scene at all, he is watching the action from a distance and eavesdropping on the conversation. Because of the two different psychological spaces for the viewer to be in, it's not only not necessary for VO to tonally match the on-camera dialog, in most cases it probably should NOT match so as to maintain the emotional distinction!

Voice recorded in studio as part of the dialog - say, an off-camera character who is heard talking while the camera is focussed on the on-camera character's reactions - is another matter and the sound should be the same whether the character is on-camera or off, hence using a mic with the same tonal qualities for those portions of dialog recorded in studio as was used for those recorded on the set.