Microphone for recording speech

1232 Views 7 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Moon Dog, Sep 14, 2007

heresjohnny

Discussion Starter · Sep 13, 2007

All of you who have recorded sound bytes, was there anything special about the microphone you used? I need to digitize myself telling some ghost stories that I can play back through the talk-through Boris.

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Moon Dog

· #2 · Sep 13, 2007

Just make sure you use a decent quality mic. One from Radio Shack or Parts Express should be sufficient.

Do several takes and pic the best ones.

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Moon Dog

· #3 · Sep 13, 2007

Here's a link to Parts Express... take a close look at the second mic in the list (priced at $16.50).

That one (or one like it) should work just fine for you.

If you look at one of the Shure SM58 mics, those are the ones we used when I worked for a professional sound company.

It's further up the price list, but well worth the money if you want to spend that much.

Microphones

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skeletonowl

· #4 · Sep 13, 2007

I have a crappy one that came with my computer. Works great in free program Audacity!

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Revenant

· #5 · Sep 13, 2007

The Shure SM58 is sort of like a gold standard for stage performers, and it's great in a studio too. And not a bad price for $100-$120But here's a dirty little secret: There's a clone mic from Behringer called the XM8500 that's identical that you can find for 25 bucks; $20 at Musicians Friend. I bought one and was blown away. Lent it to 2 friends who have the Shures and they A/B'd it against the SM58 and they couldn't tell the difference.

If you want really want crystal clean sound reproduction, you want a condenser microphone. But those start at a few hundred bucks... unless... you buy an M-Audio MXL-900. Available also at Musicians Friend, for fifty bucks. Professional studio quality sound; I know a couple of professional VoiceOver people who bought those to take in their "road kits" when they're paranoid about losing or damaging their thousand-dollar Sennheisers when they're travelling. They also make it in a USB-powered version for $100 that you can hook directly up to your 'puter without a mixer or external sound capture device.

These mics are studio/stage mics, so you need to plug them into some sort of mixer or recording interface that has a microphone jack and "phantom power". This may all be more than you were looking for (I did a little VO work so I bought some equipment), but with that and a copy of Audacity (awesome mixing power for freeware) you can make professional-grade recordings for hobby money.

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Shakes

· #6 · Sep 13, 2007

For a cheap way to do it check out MP3 players, alot of them have microphones built in that you can record voice, download it to your computer & edit it. I know sandisk makes a cheap one.
:zombie:

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heresjohnny

Discussion Starter · #7 · Sep 14, 2007

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm already set up with software to handle the mixing, I just need a way to digitize myself speaking. I was hoping for something decent I could plug straight into the sound card, doesn't need to be studio quality.

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Moon Dog

· #8 · Sep 14, 2007

This is more the one I was mentioning - Microphone

I was mentioning the Shure mic for reference.

But I agree with Revenant's post above...

The mics that I was pointing out do need a mixer, but was figuring that a lot
of stereos have mic inputs and with most folks today having their computers
wired into their stereos...

As mentioned above, any standard computer mic will work.

Sorry, I get a little "over the top" sometimes... just part of my nature...

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