The M600 Universal Microphone Mount.

I’ve written here about noise problems I had in my voice-over studio in the past and how I solved them. They turned out to be low frequency rumbles that were fixed by weighting my microphone stand (cost: $0). Occasionally I still get a bit of rumble due to external noise creeping in, and I wondered what else I could do to address this. I sent an email to Enhanced Audio last month to inquire about the M600 and the owner, David Browne, called me from Ireland. As soon as I learned that one of his U.S. distributors is my beloved Mercenary Audio, I was on the telephone to my guy at Mercenary to order one. Since they’re in my home state of Massachusetts, I had the M600 in my studio the next day. It took just a few minutes to put it up, for which this impatient gal was grateful.

The verdict: it makes a difference. It’s hard to describe the difference, and if you visit the testimonials page at Enhanced Audio, you’ll find that few people make concrete statements about how their sound changed with the addition of this microphone mount to their studios - or at least, they don't base their impressions on the physics behind the change in the sound. I think a lot of people are mystified by it because the M600 is a solid structure, and audio engineers are used to shock mounts with rubber bands that supposedly allow low frequency noise to be dampened. My impression of the difference the M600 makes was certainly not based in science either. The way it struck me when I first used it was that it made the voice go from sounding two-dimensional to three-dimensional – and the silence between sentences is much more silent. I am very happy with it indeed. If Enhanced Audio also offered a mic stand to go with the mount I’d get one in a second.

U.S. consumers can get the M600 at Las Vegas Pro Audio as well as Mercenary. ElDorado Recording Services in Los Angeles may soon become a dealer as well.

Mobile recording studio.

I don’t take very many trips, partly because I like my voice-over work and don’t want to miss any. But I couldn’t avoid it last week, nor could I avoid working, because I have a client who needs narration work from me almost every day. So, I finally allowed myself to be dragged into modernity, and assembled a little mobile studio consisting of the following:

MacBook (can you believe I didn’t have a laptop until now?) - 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard drive

MicPortPro

Studio microphone (I took my Neumann TLM 103, because it has a nice carrying case, and my permanent studio was sounding so good I didn’t want to touch a thing in it)

Vanderwall Collapsible Cube – I couldn’t find the right size locally but my friend Connie Terwilliger had an extra one that she sent me. Bless you Connie!

Sonex foam to line the cube (I had some leftovers that I took with me)

Mini mic stand (I removed the boom)

To state the obvious: the signal went from me, to the mic which was sitting in the Sonex-lined cube, to the MicPortPro to the Macbook. And no printing of scripts, I just read them off the client’s emails.

I recorded using a trial version of Twisted Wave, and edited in Audacity. I don’t like either of those as well as Adobe Audition, but since all of this was new to me, I really haven’t given them a fair trial yet. I’m not a gear head – I like this stuff and think it’s cool, but it’s a means to an end and I don’t have time to get all ga-ga over it. I just wanted it to work so I could get the audio to my client in a timely manner and get back to vacationing. And everything did work (it wasn’t the equipment’s fault that I had to stay up way late to record, in order to avoid the sound of lawn mowers and traffic).

For more about this kind of set up see Harlan Hogan’s website – he came up with the idea of using the collapsible cube for a "portabooth". The Vanderwall variety may be extinct (it was a special purchase last month at Aldi’s, which is where Connie picked up her extras), but there are other possibilities. Search on collapsible cube at Amazon. It just has to be 14”.

The MicPortPro is used by lots of voice-over people and was discussed in detail here and here. It’s simple and wonderful, measuring about 5 inches in length and with a user manual of about 2 paragraphs. For several days prior to this trip I had been trying out various other mobile studio configurations: a usb mic connected directly to the laptop, or a Zoom H4 recorder as an audio interface. Neither solution was satisfactory. I ordered the MicPort Pro at the last minute and had it sent to my destination. I love the Zoom recorder and even figured out all its buttons and menus (that is one complicated device), but I think I will get more use out of it as a stand-alone unit for recording bird song and human dialects in the field. I don’t think anything can beat the MicPort Pro for ease of use. You just plug it in, push the little button for 48 V phantom power and you’re in business.

I must say it is fun to travel with a laptop, especially one with an Extreme Airport card so I can get email and play on teh intarwebz and upload files and not bother with cables. And nice that it can do other stuff, like play DVDs in the car. Heh. Who knows - I may take another trip someday! My one regret is that we did not have time to stop and visit anyone along the way.

Richard Thomas in voice-over session at Tapeworks.

Erin Paul of Tapeworks in nearby Hartford, CT was kind enough to send me the following press release (thank-you Erin! I'm always pleased to hear news of local studios):


Richard Thomas, renowned TV and stage actor, visited Hartford’s Tapeworks recording studios Tuesday to record voiceover tracks for Mercedes-Benz latest radio and TV spots.


The session was recorded using ISDN technology, which allowed Thomas to voice the spots in Hartford while being recorded by a production team in NYC. An in-studio monitor screen provided a video reference for the TV spots, giving Thomas the feel and attitude needed for his delivery.


Television and movie actors are often chosen to voice commercials even though their voices aren’t always recognized by the average viewer when their face isn't shown on-screen.

Mercedes-Benz chose Thomas as the voice of their new campaign, much of which promotes the Certified Pre-Owned sector of their dealerships. Thomas warm and soothing voice credibly amplifies Mercedes’ pride in their cars and engineering skills while affirmatively answering the old chestnut; Would you buy a used car from this man?


Thomas is in Hartford this week performing 12 Angry Men at the Bushnell. The show went on tour in February, and opened Tuesday night in Hartford and will run through Sunday March 30th.


Tapeworks is celebrating its 33rd year as a Hartford mainstay. The studio is regularly the temporary home of TV and movie celebrities when their voices are needed elsewhere.

Richard Thomas (left) wraps Mercedes session with the help of Tapeworks staffer Erin Paul (right)

A Producer a Day ....

I visited a producer yesterday of whose existence I’ve been aware since almost the first day I started in the voice-over business, a bit over a year ago. His company is situated a scant dozen miles from me but we had never met. In addition to doing voice-over and production, he can duplicate CDs, which is what finally brought us together as I needed to duplicate and print my newish demo CDs and did not want to get an entire 100 this time. This producer, whom I will call Mr. R. to protect the innocent, has a beautiful studio amongst woods and rolling hills. His indoor environment exudes wicked feng shui – as soon as I walked in the door I felt relaxed, as if I could jolly well knit up the raveled sleeve of care without eight of the dreamless (oh dear, Shakespeare and P. G. Wodehouse in the same breath – there should be a law). We spent a very pleasant half hour chatting about the industry – he has been in the business for 20 years – and I left with a great feeling about Mr. R. He has created an intensely professional studio, complete with ISDN, in a serene setting where he can do exactly what he needs to do and then step out his door and take a walk in the woods. I paused by those woods as I drove away, just to listen – a solitary chickadee sang, but in about a week the songs of hermit thrushes and warblers will ring from those trees.

I love the voice-over business. My reasons for loving the voice-over business are many and are material for later blogs, but I do enjoy it tremendously. The downside of the biz, at least the way I do it, living in a beautiful region outside of a large metropolitan area, is that I can do everything from home and not see people. Not even people like Mr. R., who are so nearby. There are scads of producers within 2 miles of my home and I’ve only met a few of them. And that’s my bad.

Back in my days as a biologist I saw my immediate colleagues every day, got invited to give seminars at other colleges, universities and museums, and every year there were the annual meetings to look forward to. The opportunities in the business world are just as great; one just has to figure out where they are. That’s my new goal: to see people every week. To exchange energy. Wonder if therapists talk about this at their meetings these days – isolation-induced pyschosis in telecommuters.

Funny goal, huh? To see people. Simple. But important. Hold me to it, okay?