Microphones For Your VO Studio Pt. 1 – The Basics

I find myself talking about microphones a lot. The most common question is “What microphone should I get for my voice?” That’s a reasonable question to ask, but a slightly tricky one to answer. While I do recommend certain microphones, there are other factors to consider. For a voice actor contemplating microphones, it’s helpful to understand a few core variables, so I want to start there.

Microphone Placement Matters

Back when I was first learning recording, the studios I worked in had only a single mic, or at best a small number of options. “Mic Locker” was not an appropriate term. Limited choice meant we had to get creative. Mostly through trial and error, we found that both microphone placement and distance from the source have a strong capacity to change the texture and quality of the sound. We would experiment and find things that worked.

When we are recording voice actors in reasonably treated spaces, there’s not as much variability in the source material. Certainly not as much as you would find between, say, a cello and a snare drum. It doesn’t mean there aren’t differences. But it’s important to note that when we consider microphones appropriate for VO, we exclude a large number of options. Many just don’t sound that great when used to record the human voice.

Voices Are Similar Instruments

Considering the source material, even the deepest and highest pitched speaking voices you can think of actually fall pretty close to each other in the scheme of things. Capturing the pitch differences is not that great a challenge. A common fundamental frequency range for male and female voices is from 80 to 255 Hertz (Hz). Any decent vocal mic should be able to handle that range.

But what makes your voice sound different than mine? In this case we are talking about the timbre of a voice – its characteristic tone. Those differences are created by the overtones – the waves above the fundamental frequency. Those overtones combine together to influence the overall sound through interference between the waves. It’s how a church pipe organ creates very complex sounds when you pull out all the stops and add in the overtones. You’ll hear a characteristic vibration which adds character to what would be a very simple sound. Those little micro beats you hear are from that wave interference.

Human voices generate much more complex waveforms than a pipe organ, but the texture also comes from those parts of the sound which occur above the base frequency. If a microphone captures all of that sonic information accurately, then the recording is representative of the source.

Microphones Are Basically Filters

But microphones are actually a type of filter. By that, I mean that they don’t necessarily respond to all frequencies the same way. Some models tend to capture the higher frequencies more readily, while others tend to respond less to those pitches, favoring the low “notes”. You can get a sense of that by looking at the Frequency Response Curve for a given microphone.

Keep in mind that we’re never really recording just the voice – we record the voice in a specific space. Every physical space has a tendency to emphasize or attenuate different frequencies as well. It’s why I often remind students and clients that a microphone will never sound better than the space it is in.

Next: Microphones, Pt 2 – types of mics and how that changes things.

Microphone Basics – Microphones Pt. 1 – can be found here.

Types of microphones – Dynamics, Ribbon, & Condenser – Microphones Pt. 2 – can be found here

Condenser microphone capsule designs – how that influences sound quality – Microphones Pt. 3 – can be found here.

What exactly makes a “good” microphone for VO? – Microphones Pt. 4 – can be found here.

Recommended USB Microphones for VO – Microphones Pt. 5 – can be found here.

Recommended XLR Large Diaphragm Condenser Micrphones for VO – Microphones Pt. 6 – can be found here.

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