Microphone Technique: A Secret Weapon

Welcome to Voice Over Experts, brought to you by Voices.com the number one voice over marketplace. Voice Over Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom, and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voice over. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voice over talent. It’s never been easier to learn, perform and succeed from the privacy of your own home, and at your own pace. This is truly an education you won’t find anywhere else. Now for our special guest.
Frank Piazza: My name is Frank Piazza. I’m one of the founders of APVoices in New York City. My partner is Ellie Devers. Together, we’ve helped hundreds of students get started in their voice over career by providing coaching, training and professional demo production.
The microphone is a very powerful tool and has the ability to actually enhance your voice recordings. It’s not only designed to record your voice. If certain techniques are used properly, it can help make your voice sound even more thunderous, or sexy, or just plain conversational.
These textures are very desirable on a professional level. It’s mostly about your positioning when facing the mic. What is the correct distance your voice should be from the mic when recording your voice? How loud should you speak when recording a script?
Later in this podcast, I will answer these questions and also demonstrate examples of some noticeable differences on how microphone technique can affect the recording.
There is a term professional engineers use for recording voices or instruments. It’s called microphone proximity. Microphone proximity is referred to the distance you place your voice from the microphone when speaking. A good large diaphragm condenser microphone has the ability to capture your voice with accuracy.
Whether your voice has low tones, or nasal tones, or crisp tones, the microphone is designed to record all of those characteristics. It also reacts to changes in volume, or warmth. So much depends on how you position it. And, by the way, this is also true when you speak in a live setting, like through a PA system.
When recording scripts, the idea is to try and combine or match the mic proximity with a style or a motion of the script. For example, if a producer is looking for a warm, soft, sexy voice, you’ll want to record your voice very close to the mic. By doing this, it allows the microphone to respond to the closeness of the tone created by your voice. If the script calls for a loud, excited, or hyper read, you might try adding a little distance when recording. The mic should be able to record the height and performance without squashing or over-compressing your emotional tones.
Believe it or not, that cold metal cylinder-shaped tube can do all that. If you are not sure what these differences sound like, I will demonstrate this for you now. I’m going to ask my partner Ellie Devers to read an excerpt from a typical beauty product script. We’re looking for a sexy, intimate performance. This first example will be recorded at a normal distance from the mic, about three inches.
Are lashes this long legal? Maybelline introduces new illegal lengths mascara.
Now let’s try it close up to the mic, about one inch away.
Are lashes this long legal? Maybelline introduces new illegal lengths mascara.
To my ears, the closer recording captures Ellie’s sexy or sultry tones, very appropriate for beauty-style reads. Next, let’s try an excited, loud script reading, maybe a pro wrestling promo. The fist example will be recorded at a normal distance from the mic, about three inches.
One ring. Something’s gotta give. Superstar Wrestling on ESPN.
Now let’s try it further from the mic, about eight inches away.
One ring. Something’s gotta give. Superstar Wrestling on ESPN.
To my ears, the furthest version gives me room to appreciate maybe an arena or large space, as if Thor is waving his sword on a mountaintop. Of course, you need to experiment and try different versions, until you are satisfied with your final results. There are many combinations you might try when combining mic proximity and emotions of your script. Some are more obvious than others.
For sure, this podcast benefits those of you who are already recording on your own and are interested in being more effective in your auditions and finals. Microphone technique can definitely give you an advantage when recording your reads. In fact, using a little mic proximity can turn out to be your secret weapon.
The truth is, you never really know who’s listening on the other end, right? So before you hit that upload button, remember, a little extra effort can go a long way. At APVoices, after training, coaching and recording a professional demo with our students, we encourage them to send examples of their at-home recordings to us for review. This way, we can comment on things, such as, overall performance, recording levels, emotional connection, mic technique, and others.
We want you to feel confident with your new skills and equipment. We know you have the ability to submit pro-quality recordings from your home. All it takes is a little practice in patience, and we can help you get there. We hope you’ll take a moment to visit our site. Please go to www.apvoices.com, or give us a call at 212-873-8772. We’d love to hear from you.
Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voice Over Experts show notes at podcasts.voices.com/voiceoverexperts. Remember to stay subscribed. If you’re a first-time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes podcast directory, or by visiting podcast.voices.com. To start your voice over career online, go to Voices.com and register for voice talent membership today.