next »

[NathanielEdwards]

Hey! I have a (slightly southern) American accent and an expensive microphone! I can do this!

[Evan Balster]

For anyone who wants a serious semi-professional setup for low cost (about $150 for everything) try mine:

----------------------

This mike ($50-60) is one of the cheapest condensers that can be bought and is surprisingly good.  Comes with case and shock mount.

This interface ($30-40) will hook it up to your machine through USB.  Portable and low noise, and from a well-regarded manufacturer who'll happily replace defective devices.  If you're looking at others, make sure they have "phantom power" for the condenser.

An XLR cable like this (25ft for $13, longer is better because your computer makes noise) -- DO NOT plug the icicle directly into your mike.

This pop filter ($15) is cheap and good.  These are essential and keep Ps, Bs and other 'plosive' sounds from creating windy noises in the recording.  Don't let your cat claw it up.

A sturdy boom stand ($10-$25?) is really worth the money.  Bought mine from a store a month after everything else and am really happy with it.

You can make a sound room for yourself by finding a narrow closet and covering the walls with pillows, blankets, tapestry, or some other muffly cloth.  Room echo and ambient noise are really bad for recordings.  Apparently memory foam mattress pads work extremely well, though they're pricy; I get along fine with some down comforters or (while at school) the soundproofed practice rooms in the music building.

-------------------


Anyway.  Should we make an honest-injun site for this thing?  TIGVA or something?  The newgrounds community has a spinoff site for similar purposes.

[ThePortalGuru]

I'm pretty happy with my Blue Yeti USB mic right now.  The sound quality's wonderful, and I just think I need a pop filter, and I'm good to go.

[Accidental Rebel]

The shorter mic cable you can get, the better to maintain audio quality. I couldn't say exactly why, but it's the what every professional engineer I've met has told me.

I'm not exactly sure, but I believe that the longer the cable is the higher the resistance is inside the wire. The higher the resistance, the signals sent deteriorate over time. As soon as it reaches its destination, the signal is all worn out resulting in a low audio quality.

[Daniel Eddeland]

This idea sounds like a lot of fun, as well as interesting possibilities for games! Sucks I don't have an expensive microphone, but I'd like to at least try with a bad mic (or borrowing a good one from someone).

[vorpaldinger]

I'd be interested in donating some line readings, as long as it wasn't for some huge and sprawling indie version of fallout III. I performed on an audiobook recently for simon& schuster, & I have a good digital audio recorder.

[Ness Kain]

I love this idea, because I would like to include voices in my games, and my own voice is... not very likable.
What Mr. Sandoval said is an unfortunate and significant problem, though. My solo project is currently in the very early stages, and it may never fully emerge, but if it does, I will need several female voice actors.

Anyway, if my idea for the compo gets off the ground, I'll probably be asking you folks for help!

[Evan Balster]

The shorter mic cable you can get, the better to maintain audio quality. I couldn't say exactly why, but it's the what every professional engineer I've met has told me.

I use a fifteen-foot cable.  It's a convenient length, and I'd stress the importance of being able to get away from your computer.  Even quiet laptops have surprising effects on recordings.

I had the guidance of an audio engineer friend while looking for most of this stuff.

[PaulForey]

On cable length:

It's a matter of the weakest link in the chain. The quality of a recording is bottlenecked by the worst piece of equipment you have or the room's acoustics or the performance itself.

While a shorter cable does indeed mean less analogue signal degradation, this won't matter one bit if you're using a sub-par microphone, or a dodgy soundcard with poor quality analogue to digital conversion, or if you're in a terrible sounding room (Cellulose's advice on this is good stuff). And no-one is going to notice any of these issues if the performance itself isn't up to scratch

To sum it up, only worry about the length/quality of your cables if everything else is awesome first.

And yeah, computer hum/noise in the background is more noticeable than signal degradation in an audio cable. In the studio's I do the occasional work in, most of the cables are 6 meters in length (so that's just under 20 feet).

[Trevor Dunbar]

I wanna join, I can do all kinds of crazy cool cartoon voices <4
(No really, not trolling. I talk in all kinds of different voices during the day because I get bored and like to inflect in all the different voice's mannerisms. I also don't have multiple personality disorder )

[Evan Balster]

So I'm starting to wonder if we should piggyback this on TIGS or have a sister site elsewhere like Newgrounds does.  I could host one easily.  But is that overkill?

Thoughts?  :/

EDIT: ooh, I've got a sexy domain name lined up too...

[mewse]

My trouble is that I don't have a room with good acoustics.. have everything else sorted out, but everything sounds vaguely echo-ey because of nasty audio bouncing off all the walls.. 

I really need to find something to absorb some of that sound..

[LemonScented]

I'm a little concerned that the acronym for this is TIGVAG, but otherwise it's a nice idea. I have a couple of "meh" microphones (better than headset mics but by no means fancy), and can do English accents and hilariously bad accents from some other countries. I'd be happy to contribute if people need a Brit voice (I have no idea if it's a particularly pleasant voice - to me it sounds like nails down a blackboard, but I think that's true of everyone who hears their voice played back from a recording). Mostly I might be interested as a customer. If this thing is going to fly, we need demo reels.

DEMO REEL POSTINGS: ACTIVATE!

[Trevor Dunbar]

If I post some voice stuff, I expect some kind-of instant feedback!

[John Sandoval]

If I post some voice stuff, I expect some kind-of instant feedback!

do it

do it for honor

for glory