Simon Wegman
Forum Replies Created
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I’m sure TY knows his stuff, and after more than 10 years as an audio engineer, I feel that I’m pretty cluey as well. I’ve never at any point said that dynamic mics don’t require more preamp gain, my point is that in an untreated room that hasn’t been soundproofed, the advantages of a condenser mic may actually prove detrimental to the end product, as reflections and background noise will be picked up more easily. For VO work, you don’t want to hear the room, and you definitely don’t want to hear anything beyond the room.
My recommendation would be to spend a chunk of the budget on acoustic treatment. Soundproofing is a whole other issue, but if your room is sorted, absolutely go for a condenser. Craig, I’m a recording studio guy, not a field audio guy, I think Sound Devices stuff is for portable recording. Is your unit battery powered? If so that might be why it has less gain available, and if you dial it all the way up for a dynamic, it probably will add noise and/or become less linear. A studio mic pre shouldn’t have this issue, as they run on mains power.
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If your pre amp can’t drive a high quality dynamic mic like a 421 without adding a significant amount of noise, it’s time to buy a new mic pre. Dynamics are indeed less sensitive than condensers, but not to the point where something like a 42, EV RE20 or Shure SM7 could not be used as a VO mic with excellent results. I’d expect any of those to perform better than a sub $100 condenser. If your room is truly free of any problems, an LDC priced towards the top end of your mic budget would probably be a better choice, but if the room has issues, I’d stand by my suggestion of a high end dynamic.
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For $600 I’d recommend the Audient iD22. It contains 2 high quality mic pres, and the AD/DA conversion is very good. It’s laid out as a great desktop monitor controller as well. It’s quite mobile, and the quality will absolutely smoke an Mbox. I personally have an SPL Crimson, which is a similar unit with a bit more functionality in the monitor controller department, but it’s an extra $100.
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For what you’re doing now, it seems like one monitor is sufficient, however if your situation changes and you need to do any kind of work in stereo, you might have a hard time finding an identical monitor to complete your stereo set, depending on whether that model is still currently in production. Also, some monitors are sold in matched pairs (they analyse each monitor’s frequency response and pair the ones that happen to be the most similar). What kind of monitor(s) were you thinking of getting?
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I would throw in the slightly left field suggestion of a Sennheiser MD421. It’s a dynamic mic, but sounds really good on the voice (I used one while my U87 was having its capsule cleaned, and was very pleasantly surprised). The reason I suggest this is it will pick up less background noise and room verb than a condenser. I know you’re saying your room isn’t a problem, but there may be issues you haven’t yet discovered.