วีดีโอ

Nailed it!! 😎

TH-cam's loudness standard they would like you to meet is -14 LUFS, but meeting this for TH-cam this isn't as crucial as it is for VO because TH-cam will just turn your video up or down depending on where your measure your audio to.

@@JamesYounger oh wow, I did not know that!

@@homestudioacademy Eh, I always measure my final audio to anywhere between -16LUFS - -18LUFS because -14 is just too loud IMO 😬

@@homestudioacademy Eh, I always measure my final audio to anywhere between -16LUFS - -18LUFS because -14 is just too loud IMO 😬

In the world of voice over the industry standard is normalizing your audio to -3dB. In every other industry it can be different. Music is usually measured by LUFS. Audiobooks are the only exception in the voice over industry and they use RMS. As a voice actor, you're not trying to increase your loudness unless you want to deliberately screw yourself out of the job and piss off the engineer you're sending your audio off to. As I said in the video, I leave my opinions at the door and solely speak to the industry standard. Everything starts getting murky real quick when everyone tries to make their opinion a standard. The industry standard is there to keep people from using other methods that will inevitably just screw yourself out of a job anyway.

😁😂

😂

Hopefully I can review them soon, but if it's all the same (minus the polar patterns) I'd say they're probably perfect for VO :) But I gotta review them to be 100% sure

Thank you so much for the feedback! It means a lot to me! :)

Hey there! Thanks for the question! This sums up how I feel pretty well: th-cam.com/video/_vSOwrym6Ws/w-d-xo.html But to add to it I (personally) don't see why actors couldn't use a dynamic mic for audiobooks (assuming they understand how to properly use it to get the best sound out of it) however the industry still doesn't agree which is what I talk a little about in that clip. Let me know what ya think.

@@JamesYounger The issue I'm having is I work with a lot of authors or people that aren't used to work like this - voiceover work in general, content creation, or working with any of this equipment. And because it's sometimes done remotely and not inside studios it can make it hard to determine what is happening in the setup to cause issues. I was thinking of maybe suggesting the MV7 as an option for those that aren't used to this but have received pushback for it being a dynamic microphone and not a condenser. However, we're working with people that do not know sometimes even basics about audio work because that's not their job, but I have to still produce an audiobook all the same.

@@wombataudio That's gotta be incredibly frustrating. I personally don't think that voice actors SHOULD have to learn all of this technical stuff, but unfortunately they MUST because of the way the industry has shifted. And even though I don't think they SHOULD have to learn all the technical stuff, at the same time, I personally would have learned as much as I could on the technical side as a voice actor because it can only help to know about your equipment and all the other technical stuff. I just know most voice actors couldn't give 1 hoot about that stuff.

@@JamesYounger It is incredibly hard to convince authors working remotely that need to record their own voices, and especially if they live in rural areas, to learn and to get on top of this. Especially when they're older as well and don't have a basis to work off of (the amount of times I've had to talk to relatives of authors to help with aspects of troubleshooting). I'm just wondering if using a dynamic mic like my suggestion with the MV7 would work for a smaller publishing house looking to put these books out. These authors aren't professional voice actors and will likely only ever do this for the 1-3 books they might be asked to record.

@@wombataudio Unfortunately I have no idea if that would work for them or not. Personally, I don't see it as an issue (using the MV7) but there's no way for me to know if the publishing house will go for it or not. Each will probably have their own varying response 😕

I'm so glad my video helped! Thank you so much for the comment!

Thank you sir! And duly noted! Less for me to edit 😂

Thank YOU for letting me test/review the ETHOS! I absolutely LOVE it!

Thank you Nolan! Much appreciated as always! :)

I'm so glad you got something out of the video! That's my goal, so to have viewers tell me, let's me know I haven't completely failed 😂

Most Definitely! :)

@@byRRVW Thank you so much!

Absolutely, they can sound quite similar to the untrained ear! I'm actually releasing a video in the coming weeks that highlights the importance of ear training. I share a great story about an intern at an ADR recording studio who initially couldn't distinguish between the different mics they used at the studio. But after just a few months of dedicated ear training, the differences became so clear to him that he was amazed he couldn't tell them apart just a few months earlier. It's incredible how much ear training can enhance your listening skills!

Oh definitely! Phone speakers can't reproduce the full frequency spectrum so you actually miss a lot.

I've /taught/coached thousands of people at this point, and about 50% of them had the Rode NT1 4th & 5th gen mics and not even 1 of them had an issue. Reach out to RODE. You might be surprised.

While this may be your experience (to your ears) I’m going to list out some things to keep in mind (not saying you’re wrong, but want to make sure to educate my viewers any chance I get) To clarify, I treat home studios for a living. I've treated anywhere between 500 - 1,000 home studios of all types and variations at this point, many of them being (pro booths) like studiobricks or whisperroom etc. Not to mention the Whisperroom I owned for 6 months, meticulously treated, and was told by many people it was the best sounding booth they have ever heard. It’s important to make this clarification because a lot of people say a lot of things on social media but can’t back up their claims with experience. A booth is BY FAR one of the most challenging spaces to make sound not just usable, but professional. The acoustic treatment booths come with when bought don't even put a dent in what’s needed to make a booth even sound usable. (I go into this more further down) Training your ears to discern bad audio from usable audio, all the way to professional sounding audio takes MANY hours and years to get a handle on. Getting really good at it takes even longer. Hearing your own space won’t train your ears unfortunately, because you have nothing to compare your space to. Myself (and other engineers/home studio experts) hear audio from ALLLL spaces and situations all day every day. Perfect for training your ears. However, you must take even more action on your own to train your ears and get good at it. Most people/voice actors have absolutely no idea their space sounds bad. They usually don’t even hear the boxiness in their audio until an engineer or home studio expert either shows them an example of how it’s supposed to sound right beside their audio, or they consult with an home studio expert to fix the space and hear the before and after. Simply placing 1 bass trap in a booth and covering the window and stating that it solves the acoustical issues completely defies the laws of acoustics, and the science that goes into It. It’s just simply impossible. Especially in a tiny space like a booth. The smaller the space, the more acoustic treatment that’s needed to make it sound usable. Not only MORE treatment, but thicker treatment is also needed to make a challenging space like this work. 1-3 inch thick treatment simply won’t be enough (even when covering the entire space). Bass traps MUST go from top to bottom in ALL corners to get the desired effect especially in a space like a booth. If you don’t do this, you REALLY need to understand how acoustics work to find a work around that actually works (I’ve done this a few times for clients and myself). Acoustic material works based on thickness and type/quality of material. The thinner the material, the less frequencies it will attenuate. Thin material will only attenuate high frequencies. The thicker the material the lower and lower the frequencies it will begin to attenuate. The human voice is most prominent in the mid - high mids (1k - 5k) which is also where human hearing is the most sensitive. That’s yet another reason why the thinner acoustic material isn’t effective enough to properly treat a booth. This thinner material is what the booth comes with. In other words, what the booth comes with doesn’t even put a dent in what’s actually needed to make the booth sound professional. (again, this comes from experience and having treated many booths for a living including my own). I hope this was helpful. That’s my goal. To help. I give advice based on industry standards, science, experience etc… I want voice actors to elevate & improve their audio/home studios because it only helps empower them and potentially book more jobs. You can’t be a successful photographer with bad photos just like a voice actor can’t be successful with bad audio. All the best to you Oli!

You're awesome! Thank you for your honesty! I think a lot of people would have edited their answer after seeing the rest of the video! Good on ya! :)

Absolutely! Sorry it took so long!

Thank you so much!

Pretty much spot on! :)

The wave forms on Audition didn't change my answer but I was pissed that I mistook the loudness of #3 for being over processed.

No no! In #3 I literally just put a limiter on the audio and cranked the loudness which is VERY much like over compression. So for you to think #3 was over processed was very accurate because technically it was. You're not wrong!

@@JamesYounger Thanks! I can keep trusting my ears.

Believer it or not, you wouldn't even want to compress it at all if it was a booked job. However, you could definitely do some light processing if it was an audition.

(watches more of the video) yea yea...#2 is more normal sounding👍

Other than the loudness of #1 (-3dB) and #3 (-0.1dB??)...what processing was different? the EQ? The waveform isn't as "even" in #3.

I actually just limited the piss out of #3, which ends up sounding like over compressions because it basically is. I did add a little deessing as well just because I didn't want to destroy anyone's ears :)

У него лучше детализация. Более выраженные транзиенты. У меня есть оба эти микрофона. NT1 хорош на бэк вокале.

In one of my other mic reviews, In that untreated test, I told the audience that the mic isn't as far from my mouth as it looks due to the wide angle lens I'm using in that space. I just don't say it for every review because I forget 😵

@@JamesYounger gotcha! Just kind of odd how resonant the room is 🧐 I’ve used sm57 in extremely bad rooms with huge reverb, but it sounds like I’m in a booth when I just talked really close to the mic

@@wm1573 Oh yeah, dynamic mics definitely do a better job at rejecting rooms but that's a completely untreated bathroom. Nothing but reflective surfaces in their. I like to give extreme examples to push the mics to the limits. Give this video a watch if you feel like it: th-cam.com/video/pQ-X1Sv2jtM/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NYcNbOderg8u-mXS super eye opening video about foam and acoustics.

To be honest, I took down one of the videos because the studio I used to work at ended up doing some shady crap that I didn't agree with so we parted ways. Don't really want to promote a studio that's taking advantage of people (thank God I found out) you can find the other videos on my channel.

@@JamesYounger That's crazy. How can voice over work turn into that?

Wait, turn into what?

@@JamesYounger Voice over work that turns into dark fields involving pain and suffering. I'm interested as an independent-freelancer VA. Never heard of such stories from the industry; i'm curious

@@chanselur th-cam.com/users/shortsD_E2ABbxOos?si=WnAiRO_rr2suVcWM th-cam.com/users/shorts5XOtwPGY5tw?si=Lnj_w_MV_SC5hfOg th-cam.com/users/shortsPYXw_yZIlrE?si=7bYC7vVR-L19QkV6 th-cam.com/users/shortsmq7sIiyY87U?si=mcQ4j6z3TUkWse-F

th-cam.com/video/g_YmLfygvCU/w-d-xo.htmlsi=eH-aEPfHZVkVQuIh

@@JamesYounger I do not think this product is advertised for voice overs or voice actors rather this product is made for vocals / singing and dealing with live vocal recording sessions.

@@thejrband2445 I wish that were the case, but in the VO industry it's pushed at voice actors like you wouldn't believe. Same with foam. Trust me, I didn't make the video for fun. I made the video because of how many of my students and clients either used this product or were about to buy one.

@@JamesYounger I get it, thanks !

@@thejrband2445 Also, I just wanted to say, a closet doesn't give you a muffled sound. The muffled sound can only come from how you choose to acoustically treat that closet. And that goes for any space. 90% of the voice actors in the business are voicing out of their closets. My job is to consult them on how to properly acoustically treat their closet so it sounds dead, but not muffled, as well as many other issues that you can avoid if you know how to properly acoustically treat a space. It's a totally different world than vocals for music. I found out the hard way YEARS ago when I went from music production to voice over.

I personally use the Rode PSA1+ and love it!