Which mic for recording spoken voice?

[_tom_]

Hopefully someone here has a bit of experience with recording spoken voice. For uni I need to record a radio drama but dont know what mic to choose to get the best quality voice recording for narration. We have all these condensers available (I guess a dynamic is no good for what I want?)

AKG   C414-Xls
AKG   C1000S
AKG   C3000B
Audio-Technica   AT822
Audio-Technica   AT4033a
Beyer-dynamic   MCE86.1
Beyer-dynamic   MCE86
Neumann   KM184
Rode   NT1
Rode   NT1-A
Rode   NT3
Rode   NT-K
Rode   NT4
Rode   NT2000
Samson   C01U
Sennheiser   K6 Kit
SE Electronics   SE Z5600
Octava   MKL2500
Octava   MK-012-01

Any recommendations from that? The only ones I've used from that are the C414, C3000B and NT3, but they were for acoustic guitar. I guess its something I'll have to research myself, but if anyone here has any experience I'd be very grateful for your advice:) The only mic I've used for voice is a t.bone SC1100 condenser, for radio broadcast, but we dont have access to those for this module so I dont know what to go for really..

[Oli]

I'd say use the C414. I used it a couple of months ago to do some dialogue, it's just a great mic :) One day i'll be able to afford a pair of them, then i'll be happy!

[hunter]

Hopefully someone here has a bit of experience with recording spoken voice. For uni I need to record a radio drama but dont know what mic to choose to get the best quality voice recording for narration. We have all these condensers available (I guess a dynamic is no good for what I want?)

AKG   C414-Xls
AKG   C1000S
AKG   C3000B
Audio-Technica   AT822
Audio-Technica   AT4033a
Beyer-dynamic   MCE86.1
Beyer-dynamic   MCE86
Neumann   KM184
Rode   NT1
Rode   NT1-A
Rode   NT3
Rode   NT-K
Rode   NT4
Rode   NT2000
Samson   C01U
Sennheiser   K6 Kit
SE Electronics   SE Z5600
Octava   MKL2500
Octava   MK-012-01

Any recommendations from that? The only ones I've used from that are the C414, C3000B and NT3, but they were for acoustic guitar. I guess its something I'll have to research myself, but if anyone here has any experience I'd be very grateful for your advice:) The only mic I've used for voice is a t.bone SC1100 condenser, for radio broadcast, but we dont have access to those for this module so I dont know what to go for really..

wow, what a list!!! I'd have said U87, but it's not there :O)

From what I know the distance, room, compressor are probably as important as the mic, especially room should not be underestimated for a play. Ideally you could use different locations for different ambience, unless you wanna fake the ambience with samples and reverb.

Interesting project!

I wish I would be a student and could do stuff like that :(

[_tom_]

Yeah, we've been told to record all voice overs/narration in the isolated sound booths we have. They're not perfect because you still get the computers fan noise but if youre using a cardioid mic you can get rid of most of it :)

It's a fun course, but I only have 3 uni weeks to get this all finished and I dont even have a script or voice actor yet :\

[Oli]

Yea, i'd suggest putting the mic in the middle of the room, and setting it to a figure of eight pattern, so that you don't get the 'proximity effect' when people move closer to the mic. That way you can use the ambience of the room, without close people seeming really boomy (unless it's Brian Blessed).

-- if you do use a figure of 8, by turning the mic 90 degrees, you should be able to get rid of a lot of the fan noise like with the cardioid.

If you leave the mic in the same place, and move the actors about, you get a better sense of one-ness, compared to moving the mic and the actor.

[_tom_]

The C414s tend to be booked out of the store room all the time so I dont know if I'll be able to get one :( Anything else you'd recommend from the list? None of the others seem to have figure of 8 patterns.. I will only be mic'ing/recording one person at a time though because of the size of the sound booths (and I only have 2-3 characters anyway), so maybe the cardioid pattern wont really matter too much so long as they arent positioned too close?