So you want to upgrade your home studio and the obvious step is upgrade your microphone. You’re clever and I like it. So what is the best microphone for a voice over studio? I want to start at the end. The two dream microphone are as follows:
Neumann U87
Sennheiser MKH 416
So they’re the dream. Now it’s time to come back to reality. I think the first thing to think about is what your goal is for your home studio set up. I spent many years gradually building up my studio, and though I learnt a lot doing that in some ways I would have been better off either keeping the setup more simple or going harder on certain more long lasting pieces of kit.
To begin let’s assume you’re kicking off a basic voice over studio. The best microphone I can recommend:
Rode NT1
This microphone is incredible. And for the price it’s stupid. I’ve had this microphone for years and can’t fault it. It’s clear, versatile and easy to use. It also has an incredibly low 5db of self noise. That’s lower than the dream microphones recommended above. This is really important for narration or voice overs that have no backing.
Neumann TLM 103
This is kind of the younger brother of the U87 which is many ways the industry standard of voice over, and well vocals in general. The TLM is one of the most common microphones for professional voice over as it’s precise, clear and again has an incredibly low self noise.
Some other cool microphones.
People often talk about the Shure SM7B and the RE-20. Both awesome microphones. These are great for broadcasting and can be excellent for certain ads but have certain limitations.