River City Select

Voice over recording has become much requiring little effort and commodious since the invention of USB mics. Your entire studio may be a laptop computer and a USB mic. But there are a lot of drawbacks in using a USB mic rather of a established analog mic. Let’s look at the good, the bad and the ugly of USB mics.

First of all, what is a USB mic? For decades microphones have been gadgets that have converted sound waves into a neverending analog electrical signal. This signal was then fed through a mixer to a tape recorder which then recorded the waveform on tape. When the tape was played back, the electrical signal reproduced was amplified through speakers and the initial sound was reproduced. But that was so last millenium! As the new century dawned tape disappeared and sound was being recorded as numbers on a computer–digital recording. To convert sound to numbers (digital), the analog microphone signal was put through instrumentation that contained an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). These numbers were then passed on to the computer to record. When the numbers were played back through the opposite instrumentation — a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) sound was heard once again in the speakers.

Then a heap of bright inventor decisive to put that analog-to-digital converter into the base of the microphone and send the digital signal out over a USB computer cable (yep, just like your printer cable!) and therefore was born the USB mic. And the world of recording was much better… well, not exactly.

The Good. Convenience. Cost. In it is simplest form you may now have a recording studio that comprises of your microphone and your laptop (or desktop) computer. The gimmicks are “plug and play” which means they don’t require a sound card or drivers to operate. You just plug it into the USB port of your computer and the mic appears in your sound control panel. Traditional analog mics required a preamp, a mixer and then the A-to-D converter to get the same occupation done. For voice over talent this means you may record with much less investment. And your studio is much more portable. Just take your mic and laptop with you to the Bahamas and you may still nail that “must do” audition or occupation and send the finished files to the client by way of the internet. Reasonable quality mics are available starting at around $100. When you get up to around $200 the quality is just fine for VO work. And you don’t have to buy all that extra equipment.

The Bad. Not rather professional. Single mic use. Early mic designs applied a popular A-to-D chip that was fixed to 16 bit/44.1 kHz recordings. Although this is CD quality, a heap of pro recordings use the higher 24 bit/96 kHz standard. But this is changing. The latest mics are using a new chip that provides this 24 bit/96 kHz option. Also If you have a application where you need multiple mics or you need to mix the mic with other signals you’ll need a mixer and you’ll want to use analog mics. Because the USB mics are seen as computer signals, recording software may ordinarily only handle one, or at the most a stereo pair of USB mics. This shouldn’t be a drawback for simple voice over jobs where you’re only recording one voice.

The Ugly. No gain adjust. Latency. Some USB mics don’t have gain adjustment, or at best they have a level switch. When you do voice overs you might whisper for one occupation and shout for the next. You need a way to see to it that the recording level is adequate but not clipping in any performance. Analog mixers had “gain” knob that let you adjust the mic level. You shouldn’t have to adjust your speech volume or your mic distance to achieve the rectify recording level. So no gain knob is a problem. USB mics likewise have latency. This is a computer processing delay amidst the time you talk and the time you listen your voice. In the worst case this may be as long as a quarter second. This makes monitoring yourself with headphones annoying or impossible. The latest generation of USB mics has recognized these two difficulties with the addition of infinite gain knobs and direct monitoring. So you may adjust the mic gain to fit your situation. And now you may plug headphones directly into the mic and listen your voice in real time through an analog headphone jack with a volume adjust.

All In All I Like Them. I think the pros of USB mic far outweigh the cons. The latest generation of USB mics with gain control and latency-free monitoring grant you to sling your studio over your shoulder and take it anyplace in the world. Add a high-speed internet connection and it’s “have voice-will travel”. Bahamas here I come!

Microphone For Digital Recorder Photo

Microphone For Digital Recorder Image

Microphone For Digital Recorder Image

Microphone For Digital Recorder Picture