While in Ft. Worth, TX for my daughter’s college graduation, (see yesterday’s blog) I got the call we all love/hate to get: a voice over job, and they needed it yesterday.
Since we all seem so overwhelmingly infatuated with creative solutions for recording on the road…and since device manufacturers are only too happy to oblige our geek-gene…and since I probably express that gene more than most, I had — of course — planned well for this contingency; or so I thought.
My #1 solution: my Zoom H6n was on loan to a producer who didn’t think it was all that. At least he didn’t think the H4n was that great, so I was out to show him the H6n was better by lending it to him. So that was not available to me.
Then, I forgot to grab my trusty H4n, which I keep at the TV station. So when it came time to pack, I went through the remaining options at my disposal. iOS or Android? Twisted Wave or Audio Evolution? Laptop? USB mic? XLR mic? Which DAW? Which pre-amp?
Here’s what I ended up with: an MXL 330 ($100) mic with shockmount, a tiny 3-legged stand borrowed from an AT2020 USB mic, a Shure X2U (MicPortPro contender), a windsock, an XLR mic cable, a USB cable, and my laptop using Adobe Audition 6.0.
AND…with Dan Lenard’s voice ringing in my ears: I knew all this would be good IF I could create a decent recording environment.
THAT’s where the hotel room luggage rack came in handy. I forgot to take a picture, but just imagine the rack pictured above with a blanket over the top, and my handy MXL990 underneath. Throw in my Samsung Note 8 tablet for reading the copy, and that’s it.
Below is the result. No it’s not the quality of my home studio. Remote recording set-ups rarely CAN approximate that sound, but it was enough. Oddly, I was in a Ft. Worth, TX hotel room, recording a spot for the Ft. Worth Symphony. Weird coincidence? I think not!
CourVO
