recording of narration

DK712

Newbie Joined: Apr 07, 2012 18:00 Messages: 27 Offline

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Jun 16, 2012 18:57

Hello all. I'm new at this and found this forum to be very helpful. So, thank you. I'm curious as to what type of audio recording devices people use for recording narration. I'm working on a family video (my first) where I'm going to be narrating over pictures, video, and music. I tried using the integrated microphone on my laptop and was not happy with the results. I'd like to hear what others use. Thanks

HP Pavillion dv7-6c90us
• I7-2670QM 2.2GHz
• 64 bit operating system
• 16GB RAM
• Raydeon HD 7470M
• Windows 7 Home Premium , service pack 1

stevek

Senior Contributor Location: Houston, Texas USA Joined: Jan 25, 2011 12:18 Messages: 4663 Offline

Jun 16, 2012 19:05

I prefer a standard old fashioned battery powered microphone plugged into the mic port (audio in). Sometimes, a USB mic will give garbarge that can't be removed.

I don't know where yuu live but you can pick one up a your local big box store. I got mine years ago at Radio Shack and have never has a problem with it.
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Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Jun 16, 2012 21:56

There are a lot of low cost Electret condenser microphones that do a good job, The better ones have built-in power which is needed for Electret Mics to work.

Dynamic mics also work well and do not require any power.

For use with Powerdirector's Voice over, your computer must have a Microphone input.

I have used a headphone with a Electret Microphone attached.

Here is a Microphone test I did of a $4 Microphone.
http://youtu.be/2FrJvgw26rg

After I fixed the cable, the microphone works very well.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jun 16. 2012 22:01

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

bolda

Member Location: Liberec, Czech Republic Joined: Feb 02, 2011 15:10 Messages: 96 Offline

Jun 17, 2012 01:10

Hi:

I sometimes do commercial voice over projects and I use a dynamic microphone with a separate USB adopter (that allows connecting a condenser microphone as well), both from the same reputable manufacturer. They, however, cost together about three times more than PowerDirector Deluxe 10 now.

USB microphones make the best signal processing sense as they amplify and digitize the signal as close to the transducer as possible thus virtually eliminating noise picked up on the microphone's cable. Cheap audio cards or mother-board circuitry are basically a guarantee of more or less of such noise. Good audio cards are also quite expensive and their main purpose is different from reducing analog input signal noise reduction.

There are, for example, a lot of USB condenser microphones on the market but you should do some research before you buy if you decide to go this way as some of the cheap ones may not be very good.

Oh, and cardioid sensitivity characteristics is the most suitable. I can record okay even when my neighbor's dog is barking...