What’s the best mic for a voiceover artist?  Lots of people reckon that when it comes to VO work and spoken word projects the name in mics to choose is Neumann .  Specifically many point to the Neumann U87 as the big daddy of voice mics. It’s certainly the daddy price wise that’s for sure!  In reality the “right” mic depends on the voice and most importantly how it sounds – sometimes for certain voices something that’s not high end may be the “best” for the job.

Anyway I’ve recently invested in a Neumann U87 for my dVoicebox studio and I’m evaluating it in my own voice work and with clients who come to the studio. I’ll write about it soon – but first here’s something I came across while researching the mic before I bought it.

I’m bit of a sucker for geeky studio stuff so when I found a link to a “mic shoot out” putting a vintage U87 head to head with a new U87A model I wanted to check it out.  The video from the Microphone Show shows a studio in the US where they put the 2 mics through their paces with a voiceover, a singer and recording an acoustic guitar.  It’s worth a look if this is the kind of thing you find interesting (though whether you can really tell which mic sounds better when its playing in a YouTube clip is another matter)  Anyway if the geeky stuff isn’t for you then I suggest you cut to the bit of the video that made me laugh out loud.

Basically these sound engineers are sitting round in the studio control room drinking beer and chatting about the mics in the different tests.  It’s all rather earnest… and one guy is looking a bit the worse for wear – but then check out when the tray of new beer bottles are brought in – link here and fast forward to around 7mins.

and no one bats an eyelid!  In fact it carries on being a rather earnest discussion about mics.  That’s Studio engineers for you. They’ve seen it all!