Vocal Recording for “The Barrier”

One of the issues I have with recording a lot of voice work for “The Barrier” is the cost of renting a studio and recording engineer. I wonder if I can do that on my own.

I did my own voice over recording for “Who Shot the President”, “My Next Film”, and the original version of “My Most Difficult Case”. I was happy with what I got, but I know that I am not really a professional sound person. I don't have professional quality equipment either. Nevertheless, I think I might be able to put together something that will give me what I want.

I have a small room in the basement, that I think I could modify to use as a sound booth. A previous owner built it as a cold storage room, but I never used it as such. It has insulated walls to keep the heat out. While mainly intended as heat insulation, it also does work as sound insulation.

Now, I think it would need to be modified. Two of the walls are concrete. I would need to add some kind of sound absorbing material to reduce echos. My current thought is to get some old drapes and hang them along the walls. I use the room to store some of my film gear and files. I don't think I would need to remove them, especially if I do use drapes to control the sound.

As far as recording equipment goes, I have a laptop computer that is very quiet. I think that might work out OK. I have some old microphones, but none of them work very well. I will need to get a good microphone. I am not sure what kind of microphone I should get. I tend to go for a cheap one, but that may not be of adequate quality.

Up until now I've assumed that I would work with one person at a time. The more I think of it though, it may be better for the voice actors if I have several record at the same time. The interaction with other characters would bring out better performances. At the least, it would help to have some one read the other character's lines to help with timing. I've tried to do that myself in the past, and I was terrible at it. Besides not being an actor, I am not good at multitasking.

If I do work with more than one actor at a time, would I need to have a separate microphone for each. I might need to have a microphone mixer as well. The room could get very crowded if I have more than a couple of actors.

I need to investigate more before I commit myself to this route. Maybe I need to try some tests.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog