"nothing great can happen if you always aim to get away with stuff... unless your career choice is a fugitive." Excellent quote (and nice video, too)! Thanks for the helpful tips!
One tip I can share is listen to your voice over using headphones. You just hear way more defects. One in particular is lip smacking. Use vaseline! Also warm up your voice!! Stretch all our neck etc. Drink water. And record in the morning for a deeper voice. Maybe practice speaking before doing voice overs by reading a book out loud. It takes a while but you have to get an ear for bad sounding voice overs. Once you get that professional ear it makes things a lot easier. And lastly: Don't strive for perfection. 80% in a day is better than 100% in a week. You just burn yourself out being to hard on yourself and you learn faster by producing more videos. So after a while your rapid 80% will be much better than your slow 100%. Cheers!
Kai, sorry, but it sounds to me like a person explaining photography but who never used any processing besides Lightroom presets, and never knew any settings besides automatic. I mean, do you want me to record a bunch of plosives right into my condenser in an intreated room? It's not a must to control your technique, no; apart from it sounding better in terms of just perception of a person, not from a technical standpoint. I love your content, appreciate you as a person and follow you for many years, as your other fans do. :) I see the appeal of making this video and I imagine a lot of people asked you for it over the years, as you do have a great smooth deep voice. Still, here, to me as a professional, you're passing along some "grandmother wisdom" that is so, so not current. It was current to that guy who recorded television in 1986. When digital cameras didn't even exist, you know?.. Or when you stream in the field and all you rely on is position and technique. I don't use any popfilters, i sit a fist away from a big-ass condenser, and not one of my students hear any distorting plosives. Or my room. None at all. Cause I do sidechaining and prefiltering and phase rotation and gating etc. Monitoring myself in real time as well. And polar patterns are not connected with condenser/dynamic, obviously. Your video kind of suggested that, maybe inadvertently. In short: you present 2 most common polar patterns and mic technique as deciding factors. They are ultimately not deciding if you want to get a "professional" sound. I could somewhat agree if we decided that audience doesn't want to know ANYTHING about processing, or they performed live, but I don't see such caveats. So, it comes off either misinformed or way, way oversimplified. There's still a lot of cost involved to go the home mic route. One might as well know things. Otherwise, get a phone mic and let it do the compression, sloppy denoising etc. That's way easier and cheaper.
Hey Kai. Great video. Except for one thing. The idea that condenser mics are more sensitive and therefore pick up more room noise than dynamics is a myth and one that keeps doing the rounds on the internet. The truth is that because they are more sensitive people tend to put them further from the sound source, in this case the mouth. When a sound source is closer to the mic the background noise is reduced relative to the sound source. But if you place a condenser the same distance from your mouth they will give the same level of background noise as the dynamic. So if you want to use a condenser turn down the gain and get close to it. Unfortunately being more sensitive condensers are also usually more susceptible to plosives which makes them tricky to use that close. So in summary dynamics don’t reduce background noise compared to dynamics, they are more easily used in a way that makes them pick up less room noise. Lewitt mics does a great video on this and there is an SOS article explaining it in more detail. PS I am assuming that the dynamics and condensers have similar polar patterns eg not omnis vs cardioids or cardioids v hypercardioids. See myth 3: www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/15-popular-audio-myths
I've been recording and mixing noise for broadcast television since 1986 and this is one of the best "how to" videos I've seen in a long time. Well done.
The Heil sounded pretty good and natural (not very dynamic-y). I use a PreSonus PD-70 dynamic mic for my Zoom calls & am surprised at how natural that sounds as well.
Similar to just taking the flash off the top of the camera, microphone placement and technique is the most important contributor to good audio. These days there are tons of microphones that for under US$100 would sound great for any podcaster or UA-cam video creator. XLR mics generally sound better, but require an interface to record to a computer as they are analog and don't process the signal. But there are also many very good microphones that connect straight to computers via USB.
Thanks for the informative video! I use a zoom h6, with a TZ AUDIO Stellar X2 in a quiet room which is a bathroom that I gutted and lined with moving blankets. I use a Shure SM58 with a dynamite stick for more dynamics on the H6 for addendum Voice overs so I don't need to make the trip to my quiet room. The SM 58 definitely sounds decent considering that I am recording amidst computer noises and bad room acoustics. You mentioned having a listen to material to make some suggestions. I could either send it to you, or you are welcome to check out some of my stuff. I often feel like I get too close to the mic when I record. I'd be curious to get your thoughts on it.
90% of bad vocal takes I hear on YT videos could benefit from just having a rug in the room to make it less bouncy sounding. Most rooms are a box. The ceiling and floor are parallel. So they do the acoustic version of an infinity mirror, turning a short echo into a series of short echoes. You really cant do much about the ceiling in most cases so putting a rug underneath where you will record does wonders. The walls are usually broken up by furniture. You can often improve this by slightly rearranging shelves and chairs etc so that you dont have big stretches of blank wall facing each other. In addition to the pop filter Kai mentions, they also sell these baby vocal booth things which are just a big foam contraption that goes behind and around the mic, catching your voice as it blow past the mic and limiting the amount of spill that goes into the room. They also reduce the amount of out of phase echoes coming back to your mic from the room. Expensive mics are carefully tailored to reject these. Cheap ones arent. So you can mitigate your $100 mics weaknesses with a cheap foam thing. Also, if you are working at a table, put a towel or sweatshirt down to catch some of those reflections.
That Heil PR40 has some of the best off-axis rejection i've ever heard in a mic, coupled with a decent level of output, makes it a much much better choice for V/O work than the oft-seen Shure SM7b (nice mic - but you need a preamp with a LOT of clean gain, or something like a cloudlifter)..
Hey Kai can you please make a video talking about yourself, where you grew up, how come your English sound perfect British? I enjoy watching you vids. Thank you for posting these.
Some nice tips here, when using different takes, I often find that I talk with different speed, and at least I can really hear a big difference between takes. More training needed I guess...
Oh how great it would be to have a cohesive tutorial of voice editing from someone... Followed several tutorials and everything I record still sounds like crap. (mic is not the culprit) I just really have no idea about sound and editing software.
There are tons of videos in the audio segment of YT. Here's an excellent video for starters, from a great channel: ua-cam.com/video/j13Vl2hpZQg/v-deo.html
Rode sucks for voiceover. Try a Behringer sb78a. It is not a large diaphragm condenser. Cheap also but sounds amazing. Cardioid polar pattern. Another option is a ribbon mic.
Erm, Kai... Isn't that a side address microphone, and not an end address microphone? You're picking up more reflected sound than direct sound by pointing the top of the mic at your mouth.
Mics are great, but a shit room is a shit room. On 3 opposing walls hang up simple moving blankets and just about any room will sound 1000% better. Stay away from "acoustic" foam as it really is overpriced crap and isn't great for the environment. The moving blankets will stop reflections from continue to bounce around the room. Sure, you can use AI to remove the echoes but the sounds will always sound "processed" to some extent. Get a basic mic, and treat your room, profit. If you concerned with hanging blankets on your mom's finest basement walls. Use what the pros use, a closet.
@@TykoBrian7 I use Acon Digital Deverberate 3 but I also have used Crumplepop deverb which is cheaper I think. There's others too and they all do a great job making pretty much any room sound like it has been treated
"You can practically hear the sound bouncing off the walls"... yes, YOU can, when recording - we can't though. After all the compression on your and especially UA-cam's side of things and the speakers on our end of the internet, we litereally cannot hear that. So, yes, with the "right" setup and a little post processing you can get away even with a webcam mic if you're not selling videos to clients or making movies. For your own content on any social media platform, listened to via shitty smartphone/tablet/laptop/PC speakers the better of the cheap stuff available and smartphones that people have anyways to record audio will do perfectly fine as long as you put in just a little bit of post processing.
"nothing great can happen if you always aim to get away with stuff... unless your career choice is a fugitive." Excellent quote (and nice video, too)! Thanks for the helpful tips!
One tip I can share is listen to your voice over using headphones. You just hear way more defects. One in particular is lip smacking. Use vaseline!
Also warm up your voice!! Stretch all our neck etc. Drink water. And record in the morning for a deeper voice. Maybe practice speaking before doing voice overs by reading a book out loud.
It takes a while but you have to get an ear for bad sounding voice overs. Once you get that professional ear it makes things a lot easier.
And lastly: Don't strive for perfection. 80% in a day is better than 100% in a week. You just burn yourself out being to hard on yourself and you learn faster by producing more videos. So after a while your rapid 80% will be much better than your slow 100%. Cheers!
could using mics like rODE go II or DJI mic be a good choice?
I like how he says “Precious Pentax Puts Out Another Pointless Camera” every time for the audio test
Kai was low key just looking for a reason to bully Pentax a bit more 😂
@@SyntheticFuture yeah he’s been making fun of Pentax for a decade now. It’s funny seeing him still doing it
Pointless peripheral
@@danbbrawner the pointless Pentax peripheral propagates poisonous particles in the pacific ocean 👀🤭
is digital rev dead?
The best asian guy who speaks britishenglish. A fan since digital rev days. More power kaiman
Love this, more tutorial please :)
Part 2 - Eq and Compression. Yes?
Kai, sorry, but it sounds to me like a person explaining photography but who never used any processing besides Lightroom presets, and never knew any settings besides automatic.
I mean, do you want me to record a bunch of plosives right into my condenser in an intreated room? It's not a must to control your technique, no; apart from it sounding better in terms of just perception of a person, not from a technical standpoint.
I love your content, appreciate you as a person and follow you for many years, as your other fans do. :) I see the appeal of making this video and I imagine a lot of people asked you for it over the years, as you do have a great smooth deep voice. Still, here, to me as a professional, you're passing along some "grandmother wisdom" that is so, so not current. It was current to that guy who recorded television in 1986. When digital cameras didn't even exist, you know?.. Or when you stream in the field and all you rely on is position and technique.
I don't use any popfilters, i sit a fist away from a big-ass condenser, and not one of my students hear any distorting plosives. Or my room. None at all. Cause I do sidechaining and prefiltering and phase rotation and gating etc. Monitoring myself in real time as well.
And polar patterns are not connected with condenser/dynamic, obviously. Your video kind of suggested that, maybe inadvertently.
In short: you present 2 most common polar patterns and mic technique as deciding factors. They are ultimately not deciding if you want to get a "professional" sound.
I could somewhat agree if we decided that audience doesn't want to know ANYTHING about processing, or they performed live, but I don't see such caveats. So, it comes off either misinformed or way, way oversimplified. There's still a lot of cost involved to go the home mic route. One might as well know things. Otherwise, get a phone mic and let it do the compression, sloppy denoising etc. That's way easier and cheaper.
Kai you are the expert at this glad you made this for us
So, with your Heil and Shure mics, which scenario is each best for?
Hey Kai. Great video. Except for one thing. The idea that condenser mics are more sensitive and therefore pick up more room noise than dynamics is a myth and one that keeps doing the rounds on the internet. The truth is that because they are more sensitive people tend to put them further from the sound source, in this case the mouth. When a sound source is closer to the mic the background noise is reduced relative to the sound source. But if you place a condenser the same distance from your mouth they will give the same level of background noise as the dynamic. So if you want to use a condenser turn down the gain and get close to it. Unfortunately being more sensitive condensers are also usually more susceptible to plosives which makes them tricky to use that close. So in summary dynamics don’t reduce background noise compared to dynamics, they are more easily used in a way that makes them pick up less room noise. Lewitt mics does a great video on this and there is an SOS article explaining it in more detail.
PS I am assuming that the dynamics and condensers have similar polar patterns eg not omnis vs cardioids or cardioids v hypercardioids.
See myth 3:
www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/15-popular-audio-myths
A different but extremely useful video. Pretty cool insight. Bring back Alamby.
YES, revive Alamby!
I've been recording and mixing noise for broadcast television since 1986 and this is one of the best "how to" videos I've seen in a long time. Well done.
The Heil sounded pretty good and natural (not very dynamic-y). I use a PreSonus PD-70 dynamic mic for my Zoom calls & am surprised at how natural that sounds as well.
A "Supreme" Shure 58. So, Kai found a way to pay $500 for a $100 microphone. What a genius.
hanging some duvets up will calm your reflections, and also provide a homely "blanket fort" look
You painted your already sexy SM58 an even sexier pinkenta? WOW! I should do that with my 57s.
Now you can finally write off that SUPREME mic from your taxes as a business expense.
ofc not for mac users but the nvidia rtx voice program is worth a mention for improved audio imo
Happy advance one million subscribers mr. Wong
Preferred Pentax Produces another Pretty Perfect camera.
I always enjoyed the voice over in the middle or end of the videos with drtv
Similar to just taking the flash off the top of the camera, microphone placement and technique is the most important contributor to good audio. These days there are tons of microphones that for under US$100 would sound great for any podcaster or UA-cam video creator. XLR mics generally sound better, but require an interface to record to a computer as they are analog and don't process the signal. But there are also many very good microphones that connect straight to computers via USB.
Thanks for the informative video! I use a zoom h6, with a TZ AUDIO Stellar X2 in a quiet room which is a bathroom that I gutted and lined with moving blankets.
I use a Shure SM58 with a dynamite stick for more dynamics on the H6 for addendum Voice overs so I don't need to make the trip to my quiet room. The SM 58 definitely sounds decent considering that I am recording amidst computer noises and bad room acoustics.
You mentioned having a listen to material to make some suggestions. I could either send it to you, or you are welcome to check out some of my stuff. I often feel like I get too close to the mic when I record. I'd be curious to get your thoughts on it.
90% of bad vocal takes I hear on YT videos could benefit from just having a rug in the room to make it less bouncy sounding.
Most rooms are a box. The ceiling and floor are parallel. So they do the acoustic version of an infinity mirror, turning a short echo into a series of short echoes. You really cant do much about the ceiling in most cases so putting a rug underneath where you will record does wonders.
The walls are usually broken up by furniture. You can often improve this by slightly rearranging shelves and chairs etc so that you dont have big stretches of blank wall facing each other.
In addition to the pop filter Kai mentions, they also sell these baby vocal booth things which are just a big foam contraption that goes behind and around the mic, catching your voice as it blow past the mic and limiting the amount of spill that goes into the room. They also reduce the amount of out of phase echoes coming back to your mic from the room. Expensive mics are carefully tailored to reject these. Cheap ones arent. So you can mitigate your $100 mics weaknesses with a cheap foam thing.
Also, if you are working at a table, put a towel or sweatshirt down to catch some of those reflections.
That Heil PR40 has some of the best off-axis rejection i've ever heard in a mic, coupled with a decent level of output, makes it a much much better choice for V/O work than the oft-seen Shure SM7b (nice mic - but you need a preamp with a LOT of clean gain, or something like a cloudlifter)..
You left out a very important technique: use a deep bass or baritone voice with a British accent.
I'd love to hear Kai and Lok bicker with each other for an hour and a half in perfect clarity. Maybe a weekly podcast?
Great video! You can also get a shock absorber to reduce noise from touching the table.
I missed the recorder to which you hook up the mic.. pc? Many cameras including my zcam have poor audio processing. Maybe a zoom recorder?
nice
could using mics like rODE go II or DJI mic be a good choice?
i was definitely attracted by your sound when I first watched your channel😊
Cool video - thanks
My favorite vid ever was D rev Pentax Q review
Soon 1M 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Informative video, thanks. How about audio processing/post production?
Tbh at 3:18 i dont hear such a big difference (dynamic vs condenser) - even with headphones.
making it through to the end after making a mistake is helpful for on-camera bits as well. I’ve been conflicted about it, thanks for this tip 🤘🏼
I keep saying you have a fantastic voice. And yes, you are "clossy".
Some very helpful information provided here, Thanks.
Hey Kai can you please make a video talking about yourself, where you grew up, how come your English sound perfect British?
I enjoy watching you vids. Thank you for posting these.
Could I use a Lav microphone to record a voice over? Or should I use a boom microphone?
and one should def read the manual of the mic to assure if it is front address or side address. I have seen quite few youtuber to mess that up ,...
Some nice tips here, when using different takes, I often find that I talk with different speed, and at least I can really hear a big difference between takes.
More training needed I guess...
Bro, please do more videos like this
"Dynamic mics aren't as .." I look up and see a PR-40... THAT mic isn't losing anything to a condenser lol
Oh how great it would be to have a cohesive tutorial of voice editing from someone...
Followed several tutorials and everything I record still sounds like crap. (mic is not the culprit) I just really have no idea about sound and editing software.
There are tons of videos in the audio segment of YT. Here's an excellent video for starters, from a great channel: ua-cam.com/video/j13Vl2hpZQg/v-deo.html
Well done thank you all very helpful and clear.
Ok, got it. Cardioid = ass and don't splode into the ass.
Nice guide BTW. Honest and no BS.
Isn't that Heil PR 40 a side address microphone?
Perfect video! I needed this. What software do you use to record your voice overs?
On his screen i see hes using Audacity, its free...
Rode sucks for voiceover. Try a Behringer sb78a. It is not a large diaphragm condenser. Cheap also but sounds amazing. Cardioid polar pattern. Another option is a ribbon mic.
Erm, Kai... Isn't that a side address microphone, and not an end address microphone? You're picking up more reflected sound than direct sound by pointing the top of the mic at your mouth.
I tried to get headworn microphone setup - and 4 years later still have nothing.
Great info, entertaining way of making a tutorial. But now I’m a bit self conscious about my bad breath 😂
Poor mans recording tip: Record your voice over under a blanket. 0 echos. 👍
Sorry. Blankets don’t stop lower frequency reverbs. They don’t have the required mass. Might help with higher end reverb.
Wow. Shotgun is echoy
Kore wa *PEn* desu. English is brutish language according to those Japanese public service announcements.
Epic ., ,,
Mics are great, but a shit room is a shit room. On 3 opposing walls hang up simple moving blankets and just about any room will sound 1000% better. Stay away from "acoustic" foam as it really is overpriced crap and isn't great for the environment. The moving blankets will stop reflections from continue to bounce around the room. Sure, you can use AI to remove the echoes but the sounds will always sound "processed" to some extent. Get a basic mic, and treat your room, profit. If you concerned with hanging blankets on your mom's finest basement walls. Use what the pros use, a closet.
use a condenser mic and then a deverb plugin , no need to treat the room they work really well
Which reverb plugin
@@TykoBrian7 I use Acon Digital Deverberate 3 but I also have used Crumplepop deverb which is cheaper I think. There's others too and they all do a great job making pretty much any room sound like it has been treated
Kai puts out another pointless video again, yep I'm a Pentaxian 😂😂😂
Me likey ❤
6:37 “if your ring’s touched the mic” lol… no you grow up
wha wha what can u do? 😂
"You can practically hear the sound bouncing off the walls"... yes, YOU can, when recording - we can't though. After all the compression on your and especially UA-cam's side of things and the speakers on our end of the internet, we litereally cannot hear that. So, yes, with the "right" setup and a little post processing you can get away even with a webcam mic if you're not selling videos to clients or making movies. For your own content on any social media platform, listened to via shitty smartphone/tablet/laptop/PC speakers the better of the cheap stuff available and smartphones that people have anyways to record audio will do perfectly fine as long as you put in just a little bit of post processing.
IDK, I could absolutely hear the reverb.
@@Bruno-cb5gk I could hear absolutely no reverb at all.
dislike from Pentax lol
Understanding the British accent should be some kind of priviledge
3:10 This is starting to look wrong Kai.🧐 Keep it bokeh not bukkake.😬
First!!!
Very annoying video
I heard the built in microphone of the new MacBook Pros Is fantastic. Prove me wrong
Professionals don't use it. Proved! Thank you.
I can't prove that you heard anything. 🤣🤣🤣 Goodbye.
First
100% boring but I could not stop his rambling....
when。M11M？ cant wait to see the review.