I do a lot of voice over recording at the agency I work for and I am wondering if our setup is up to par or do we need preamps,equalizers, or compressors?

My recording room is small and has another workstation in it, it is always off when I record, it has some homemade sound pads on the walls. They are just square sponges with speaker cloth around them. I use a Shure KSM44SL Studio Condenser Microphone with pop filter and shockmount. The signal goes thru XLR into a Fat man Tube compressor. The compressor does not have XLR output just input so I have to output 1/4" into 1 channel of my Mackie mixer and then Output XLR from the mixer to my AJA Kona card XLR input into my Final Cut Pro System.

Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.
Baldo

Most important question...How does it sound?
Bruce S. yarock
www.yarock.com

Only comment I'd have is to suggest you record 'dry' without any compression etc. Then when doing the mixdown in post apply any compression equalization etc that you feel works out. But if you apply it during the initial recording, there's no changing your mind later if it doesn't sound quite right.

What program would you suggest for audio compression? FCP audio tools are not very powerful. Would Soundtrack be enough for audio compression?

Soundtrack Pro does have compression and limiting. The controls are a bit weird because they don't have the same controls and values that you'd find on hardware or even most software gain reduction devices.

I do VO for a living and I do a lot of the recording here. I use a Neumann U 89 among others and I do compress a little on the way in.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Ty,
What kind of compressors do you use, and do you use a preamp also?

I use the Millennia Media STT-1 preamp/Compressor/EQ.
http://www.proaudiosolutions.com/ProductDetails.asp?Click=13036&ProductCode=MILLENNIA-STT-1

The Symetrix 528e and DBX 286a are good entry level preamp processors.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Thanks, ty