Mic Preamp

Recently I have been hired to record a variety of voice over talent in my home studio. Unfortunately, when recording with women who's natural speaking voice is very soft I end up turning the gain on my mixer almost to full power before I can capture a solid signal.

I was told once in the past that a solid pre-amp is a must have but I've never experienced problems getting good levels until I started working with voice overs(i'm use to rappers and singers).

Can anyone recommend any good mic preamps? My budget is $500-$1000. Thanks in advance everyone.

Here are a few manufactures that make great pre amps

You can go to any web site like sweetwater.com or samash.com and look at them
Avalon
Grace
Universal audio
Focussrite

Prime brought up a good comment. what kind of mic do you have? It may just be a bad mic and even a bad mic in a great preamp will still be a bad mic.

Preamps are very subjected. I listed the ones I use or used and liked.
There are tubed preamps and solid state preamps with some varieties in between.
Pre-apps are personal, just like mics are
Cj

What is the mixer you are using now? How much gain does it have?

the mic would be the first thing I'd look into.  The shure sm7 (or Electrovoice RE 20) are the standard radio broadcast mics.  Hel is making some good dynamics, too, or so I hear.  As a plus, either of the named mics makes a good kick and bass mic.

Also, I have had success w/ female voices w/ a Oktava Mk 102 SD mic.  That is for singing, but I would suppose VO would work too.

Preamps for VO work are usually clean, transformerless designs (or at least they seemed to be favored).  The m-audio dmp3 is a stereo model that can be modified, which should work (I think it was Black Lion that did the mod) for cheap.  The FMR audio really nice preamp is a step up @ $500 - both are stereo units.  The True systems solo is another VO artists use for about the same amount.  You can spend more, of course - John Hardy comes to mind.  If there are any VO studios recordists in your area I would pick their minds for more exacting info - but the above should work.

good luck

@

NLight10


Recently I have been hired to record a variety of voice over talent in my home studio. Unfortunately, when recording with women who's natural speaking voice is very soft I end up turning the gain on my mixer almost to full power before I can capture a solid signal.

I was told once in the past that a solid pre-amp is a must have but I've never experienced problems getting good levels until I started working with voice overs(i'm use to rappers and singers).

Can anyone recommend any good mic preamps? My budget is $500-$1000. Thanks in advance everyone.

Actually. I know exactly where you are coming from. I've done lots of VO work here too with all sorts of "talent" (can you detect my sarcasm?).
 
Those low talkers always pose a problem. Also, the ones with plenty of mouth-noise issues. I don't know which is worse. And it's a ridiculous notion that you can simply "tell them to do better".  These people pay my bills. I'm not about to tell them they should give it up and find another hobby or occupation. Or go home and practice for 6 months and then come back. I'm gonna find a solution even if it hurts.
 
There is no one-size fits all answer or solution here. A good mic (generally, a condenser will produce more output signal than a dynamic mic) married to a good preamp with a lot of clean gain should take care of the weak signal problem. Inherently though, the more you crank the gain, the more you bring other problems into focus (like background noise, mouth-noise issues). Sometimes, it takes a fair amount of gentle, diplomatic prodding to get the low talkers to speak in a more forceful, energetic tone. Hey, if you or someone has to stand out there next to them and poke them with a stick, then so be it. Sometimes, that's all it takes. It's been my experience though, that these types will respond to prodding but it usually dies off after a little while and then you have to prod them again. In the meantime, the vocal takes range from good to not so good.
 
Check out that Aphex 230 preamp. It's great for VO work. Has built-in expansion/gating which is almost a must if the gain is cranked. And it has that Aphex Big Bottom feature which can add more body and low end to the thinner voice. It produces a really nice smooth radio-ready quality without a lot of muckity-muck.
 
Good luck.
 
Other opinions are welcome as I'm interested in this too.

Thanks for the feedback thus far.  A few things....

My microphone is a Behringer B-1.  I have it connected to my CFX12 Mackie Mixer and it is powered with Phantom Power using the 48v switch right above the level display on the mixer.  The maximum gain on the recording channel is +30db which increases the over noise of the recording(background noise, computer noise, etc).  From the feedback it seems like a different mic with a stronger input signal would require me to turn the volume up less in order to achieve a solid signal. 

Any further advice is appreciated.

Low talkers, mouth noise people...sounds like an episode of Seinfeld.
 
Regarding the original question. If you have $1000 then I would recommend either a Great River or a used Neve Portico 5012, 5015 or 5032. All in this price range.

Also, you might check to see what your sound card input level is. It may be mismatched to your mixer output.

The output of the Behringer B-1 is comparable with most condenser mics.  It sounds like more of a problem with the performer.  I would roll off some of the highs off that mic which will help a little on cutting down the background noise. 

Jim

My favorite is when I'm working with talent that is having mouth noise issues and then the producer says "do you want a drink of water?"... which always seems to accentuate the mouth noise.

Like Kriz says... day in a life.