The 416 an Industry standard...

Welcome to the pro Audio this week. These guys are professional and motivated with Tex the vo stars, George Wisdom, founder of Sauce Elements, Robert Marshall, International Audio Engineers, Darren Robot, Roberts and Global Voice Andrew Peters. Thanks to try both Austrian audio making passions, the Sauce Elements, George the Tech Wissom and Robo and APS International demos. Find up more about us check the pro audio sweet dot com and don't forget the code t R I PAP two hundred that will give you two hundred dollars off you'll try booth Now. I've been playing around with the proximity effect of the forty one six, the legendary forty one six, and I've never really set it up to shoot straight down the barrel. So what's your default, Loka, what's your default placement? Usually slightly off to the side, okay, so still relatively level, but just coming pointing out you a little bit after the side. Yeah, and I'm pointing down, so pointing down but slight side this way is still pointing down, targeting the mouth, but going full straight at it. And I did one read like that, and I followed it up with one slightly to the side, and then I followed it up with an eight one eight. But I couldn't I know, we've talked about the proximity effect of the forty one six, but I actually couldn't believe the difference. It was. It shocked me that it was so bright, and it's how I remember the forty one six sounding. Well, So what you're saying is like you kind of you've kind of de tuned the mic. You de tuned it to calm down. What makes the mic so aggressive? Yea, by using that placement well, and then when I put it back, it was like, holy crap, Oh yeah, that's what that mike. So it's interesting because there's there's a guy who AP and I know who were and have both worked with, a guy called Steve Britton who's of the big ballsy rock and roll voiceover guy, and he actually uses it to his advantage because he's not so hyped, his natural voice is not so sort of steeped in those sort of high mids and highs that so he actually gets right up on it. And I mean, the best way I can describe it is he pretty much swallows the thing when he does a voiceover and uses it to his advantage because it sort of obviously accentuates that that part of his voice that isn't really there naturally. The only deficit is that from an engineer's point of view, that as soon as you touch anything in the highs it just blows up. You've got to be so careful around up there with him when you're when you're sort of mixing him. Yeah. Well, the strange thing about his voice is are very like you think you're going to about to play with all the lows because it's such a big, deep voice, but as soon as you touch anything the high is just going mental. Well yeah, and it's the way you've got to work with Steve's voice is rather than sort of additive eq, it's subtractive. You've just you've really just got to sort of balance it by taking away some of that deeper stuff that's there in bucket loads and just leave the top alone. Otherwise it will just destroy itself. And you've got you know, I've seen people with three DSS on a track trying to get rid of it once they've started, you know, sort of trying to get that typical radio cut through, which is the biggest mistake. And as soon as you say start again, but don't touch the highs, just you know, cut some loads, they go, oh yeah, okay. So my question is with the forty one six, it was the guy who was the voice of the love boat. He was the Was he the first guy to use I don't know if he was the first, but he was certainly the most well known for it. Dife on team made it really popular. Well, Ernie is the one who's caught on camera, didn't using that mike on video and other things where he's in the studio at EBC and he's literally doing promo, you know, And I got to imagine someone just did because like, here's a mic. It's the one that the freaking news guy uses, but here you go say the word. The story I heard was not like I think he was a bit paranoid and he didn't like being in the booth because he thought people were talking about him, and so he wanted to sit out in the control area, that's right, And he couldn't use a normal large diyve frame out there. Yeah, every damn thing. So one of the guys on the floor came came up with the idea of using the forty one six. That's what I heard. Weren't you use this razor blade to record your voice? It's probably a four fifteen whatever they had at the time, Yeah, probably a t a tea power Yeah, yeah, I got I got a couple of those. Those sound a little bit different than the yeah forty one, a little bit more, a little bit less, were distorted, Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. So. Yeah, so that that sound, and for whatever reason, better for worse, it's become the character of what voiceover sound sounds like. Like when you listen to a voice recorded with a close up mic, I think we've gotten incredibly tuned what that sound is. It's become what was the word you used, rabbo standard but something else, Yeah, didn't I I used a big word printed benchmark. It's a benchmark, benchmark, ye, kind of a benchmark. Yeah. So when I I've been hearing that mike with my clients and promo people for so so long. So when I hear another mic right upside of it, if it's an accurate mike with very little color, such as the O C A one eight, it sounds well, it sounds like this. Here here's a forty one six of Andrew, and then the eight one eight, So this is what you know. This is what a non accurate mike and then an accurate mic sounds like side by side. And then you did in two different placements, right, Yeah, I did that because of our discussion a couple of weeks back, where we're talking about placement with the forty one six, which I'd never I thought, oh, yeah, well whatever, Andrew, where do you like the four sixteen. You'd be surprised he's got a dark brown voice. No he hasn't. Well, if they say that your voice is chocolate, you can tell them why it's getting a bit messing. Now. Yeah. I always had the forty one six sort of like facing down but to the slightly to the side, so I'm sort of almost not quite slight addressing, but you know what I mean. That's how I had it, and I got used to that sound. And then after our discussion, I thought, I wonder if the proximity, I wonder what it really is like. So I moved the mic and went basically pointing straight at me but slightly downwards towards my mouth, and I couldn't believe the difference. It was just like two different mics. It was two different mics, and it was the old get a toothpick and ste get in Uni drum kind of you know sound that you get with the forty one six. Yeah, which is which is the other reason why I think engineers like it because you get a voice recorded on that and it's just going to cut through everything and you don't have to do a lot more to it. It just sort of has this pre processing that works for a lot of that in your face advertising, the Hamburger helper of microphones. Yeah, it's just like in your face advertising. Right, they're done. Now here's what it sounded like. Here's the samples I got them running here. The Messides Bands g L E SUV is the complete package. The Messedes Bands g L E SUV is the complete package. The Messides Bends g L E SUV is the complete package. So that's the first one was straight down the barrel, second one to the side, and the third one was the eight one eight And you can hear it. Yeah, yeah, it just gets less and less edgy less. It does. But I mean the interesting thing about the four one six, and I guess it's impact on the industry is it's been copied a few times, probably or tried to be copied. But I mean, I'm on an NTG five right now, and it's probably the closest I reckon then I've had. NTG five's got more base. I'm on an NTG five two. I think it's I think the NTG five is a warmer mike. Yes, it does have that shot gunny in your face thing, but it's a little bit actually bigger sounding, but not it's not necessarily more cutty the four sixteen. I think this the eight one eight. You could take it and EQ it to do what the four sixteen does, Oh yeah, pick up more room. But the four sixteen is sort of like there it is. It's gonna put done for you. It's a cut and yeah. I mean, I'm so used to the way that bright quite condensed from Mike sounds that I add EQ to my own mike because I want it to sound more like that break condenser mic sound. So I'm talking into the right now, I'm talking to the Earthworks ethos, which is a very flat mic. And if I cut my ten D ten what is it ten killer heards six D bach you know shelf. Basically, it's not a shelf, but it looks like one and it sounds like it sounds like this, right, and it still sounds good. It just doesn't have that top end sizzle. And I think the extreme difference would be go from a four sixteen to an SM seven. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well them seven has like this kind of this mid range thing that I've never been a big fan of the way that sounds. Yeah, for voice, like the PL twenty, the R E twenty better than the SM seven, Yeah, personally radio voice. Yeah, the PL twenty is the R twenty without that big basket on it the front, right. No, I cannot tell you the difference between them. Actually, I believe they are the exact same. One year's difference for this year to this year. They made the R twenty and then they were I think the PL twenty was before the R twe got you. Yeah. No, I think that it is powerful and big of a mic, and no matter how much Rush Limbo wanted to gold plate his I think the SM seven beat the PL twenty and overall installations since the pandemic at least, it's like, holy cow, did they get the SM seven out there on podcasts? Yeah? I don't. I don't know who they have to thank for it, but I'm Joe Rogan's probably high up on the list because he's been you know, youtubing his podcasts for quite a few years now. I mean, there's a there's an ad campaign that I've never seen an ad for an SM seven that's marketing. Yeah, that's right, Yeah you need it. And I didn't even tell you. I mean, I just installed a podcast studio. And the mic was not chosen because that's the best mike. It was chosen because that mike was seen on you know, another podcast yep, exactly, Yeah, you know, because the owner is in the four sixteen's got that too, And so it's like, yeah, the SM seven, you can abuse it, and it's going to be pretty consistent and whatever, dark and warm, and and it has that thing for radio where it's not going to pick up it's just gonna seem to pick up the voice and not the other stuff, right, like the four sixteen's got the cut. Yeah, the SM seven. SM seven b basically eight the things anyway, and they built like a tank, which is perfect. Yeah you can you can, you can abuse the whole mic and yeah you won't hear I mean I don't know how Howard Stern gets away with like abusing his new him and condenser the way he does, and you never hear it. Can you explains still that one? Still, it's like, it shouldn't just be like like this kind of because it's connected. I'm sure of it. I don't think it's connected. It's a fucking prop those things. Yeah, it's a prop. Yeah. Now, now this sounds more like an SM seven, bad, doesn't it. It does a little darker, fatter, likes top end, a little bit more mid bump on one K couple of DV. Now it's now it's like an SM seven. I could go to the low frequency and boost up the bottom and now it would sound even maybe a little bit more so in the spirit of don't send us a processed voice. Stop using four sixteens because they sound too processed already. Yes, all together, but it's kind of weird, isn't it. We're like, we get we get a lunched I fram Michael something, and then we try and eq it up to sound like a full one. Yeah, it's like, just use the forty one six and be done with it. Really, I've caught myself doing that, like somebody's like, Okay, here's a sample of my forty one six. Here's a sample of my tail on one on three. Can you make me a stack for each of these two mics? And I just over the time, I'm just like, okay, I'm not going to touch the EQ at all on the four six six. Yeah, and then you're gonna make their tail on one oh three sounds like a forty one six? So what did you consist the urge? I used to. I used to, but I resist the urge. And now what I'm doing is I'm mostly just going to do correct a EQ. Yeah. So yeah, like when there's like a harshness, a nasal, some resonance in the booth, then that's it. I think with the with the TLM, you could give it a little bit more of a glassy sound and not so much of an upper mid but a way airy high like frequency, kind of airy boost and and make it like nice and it's it'll still have some sort of I wouldn't call it cut but presence literally, but it'll be different than the four sixteen, which has that that that that frequency that every speaker has, all right, it's like four K eight K all and packed in there. It's like like your worst speaker on Earth plays back those frequencies for sure, Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, well you know and the I one night, Well, it's like polar opposite, isn't it. It's just like when it's like the TLM, you could you could just give it like a glassy airy sound. You're not cornered into the sound of the four sex Like I think the eight one eight could be more of a chamellion than the four sixteen. The four sixteen it's the thing, and that is it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a one trick pony, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's a one trick pony. But the way you manipulate it is by placement. Yeah, well that's became obvious. Yeah, absolutely. I mean it did sound like two different microphones just by moving. I mean the first time I saw a fourteen different voice actors sometimes yeah, yeah. The first time I saw forty one six any audiobook production facility, I was like, h yeah, yeah, that seems like for a long term thing. It's like, that's a that's a harsh mike to be listening to eight hours of the same person. You don't want a nice pillow e Mike. Yeah, so I don't know what post they were doing on the audio. I'm sure they're doing some IQ. It's like listening to classical music on NS tens. Yes. I was going to say, you'd be pulling the earbuds out, you know, halfway through moment, halfway through mowing the law, and you'd be gone, Jesus my ears a blading. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well maybe it's good for the lawnmower. You're mowing the lawn. It's like arn, It's like I can hear four K and I'm going I've got to stop going deaf, but I'm getting deaf anyway. Yeah, yeah, here's a little here's a little test. Tell me what this is. The Messides bands g L e HUV is the complete package? That is that is either the four sixteen straight on I think or maybe to the side. All that was was the eight one eight with a shelf high shelf shelf. Yeah yeah, it was a eight dB shelf starting at seven. Wow, that's a shipload. That's a lot of that's a lot of dbs. It's just it's so funny. I opened up the au filter plug in, which is like a really simple four band EQ and the setting I had last loaded wasn't that's what it was. It was just like a an ADP shelf at seven K. I was like, all right, let's see what that sounds like that that's what that sounds sounds. So the four sixteen is boost at four K and boost at sixteen K. Right, but if you play, if you if you ran that EQ on the four sixteen, well you would get this Messides bands GELI make it stop D four sixteen Trust selling a Mercedes bands with that sound? Yeah, yeah exactly, Oh my goodness. Yeah, off brand for sure. Yeah yeah, yeah, but it's weird. There's a lot of commercial worktting booked, especially female voice stuff that is really bright. Yeah, it is. I used to say, like you know, like a lot of the times depending on four four fourteen, Like some females didn't work as well with the four fourteen because their voices were already kind of airy, and then you get that really Tom Mike on it. Yeah, and it's like the over the overcompensate, and sometimes like a U eighty seven worked better because you're just sort of SA try to pick up some of those lower mids. And I used to recommend the Road NTG three all the time for women because it was a very dark, flat and warm mic, and so it worked really to their advantage. Yeah, a lot of times. In fact, that's funny each set up because that's the mic I got for for Somerset. Fun Yeah, because it just did not shop and nasty. So yeah, it's it's funny. It's you. When you have a good mic that gets all the information with no distortion, you can really eq it, you know. And when you have a mic that is pre filtered, pre cute, and arguably has some degree of distortion, it's much harder to corrected. Like like anything with audio, it's easy to work with a blank slate compared to train to uncompress. Oh boy, it's impossible or unds right or uncrazy four sixteen eq something because no matter what you do, the fix that you apply will will create other harms. Ye, and you'll just end up with Swiss cheese in the end. Yeah. So these these broader, flatter, big diaphragm mics or what's interesting is I think to get a really accurate voice, like I've not seen anybody try to record voice with say a like a KM one eighty four and sometimes you see a lot of the opera singers like like, what's an opera singer set up like a nice small diaphragm away from the singer yeast place distant, right, And then you get that just like that is what it is. It's there's no proximity, there's no and I'll bet you for some people's voice, maybe something like a really pure, like small diaphragm condenser would be pretty interesting. That's what I was curious about. Those those road TF mics, Yeah, those look, those look pretty high end small diaphragm condenser, and I bet you those would probably didn't one of you guys get the small diaphragm Austrian audio, Yeah, Rubber it's got them. I got the O C eight, Yeah, I got the eights, and those are good. I don't think that. Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't think there's cheps killers there. They're close to one eighty four's. They're not cheps, but they're they're much closer to like, honestly, they're much closer like four four fifty ones, four fifty ones. They're a little bit less full and very good for symbols, but not necessarily the whole I think a really good small diaphragm, like like a chep would be amazing on the right person's voice, but you'd have to have the right booth. Yeah, right, there's no way, you know, you can get a chef's headset microphone. I actually demoed at once twenty four hundred dollars headset, Mike. It was. It was an ultrasoune headphone, six hundred dollars headphone with a chefs The microphones like a pencil. It's like a pencil. Yeah, it was pretty big. Actually, I had a big windscreen. It was for sportscasting. I had a big goose neck on it, and it was like this ridiculous contraption that I was able to get from. I'd get a demo of one time and I used it. It's on YouTube somewhere. Twenty four hundred dollars head to head, said Mike. Cheps and being Kay's man, not cheap Mikes, no compromises. Yeah, they are good though, definitely. I mean Annoyment's two, but those are like like Cheps doesn't even try to make a one oh three, Like you're gonna make a thousand dollars microphone. Ha, We'll make a seven thousand dollars microphone, you know, yea like our cheapest mike is two thousand dollars. I would love to at some point find out how the forty one sixty become so prevalent, you know it. I always, honestly, I always hurdles Don la Fontaine. I remember, I was shocked when I found out, like, really, if we're sixteen, it was just for the record. It was not the mic that was in his booth when I met him, Like, I never saw him using that booth. Four sixteen was not the mic that Don la Fontaine used, not when I met him. I mean, I've really been in two thousand and five, but he'd already been recording for twenty years by that point. Andrew, when to the four sixteen become all the rage? Because when I started in like nineteen ninety eight, it was like, you know, U eighty seven s four fourteens. A couple of people are using shotguns. But I'm just like early engineer who's like, shotguns are colored. You only use them because you have to, because you have, you know, mitigating circumstances. Why would you ever use a shotgun in a perfectly clean booth? And I start working on higher end commercials and you start finding these voice talent who are using it, and I actually, come to think of it cutters. We had VIP fifties until like the early two thousands v and then we got these my labs very interesting mike rectangular diaphragm, So the skinny side of the rectangle is supposed to be give you the best of a small diaphragm MIC, and alongside of the rectangle supposed to give you the best of a large diaphragm MIC. But they were they were good, and I mean we even had some voiceaglele like what's that mike? Like ire set up in one guy bought one. But by the early two thousands we put four sixteens in all the booths, and eventually that was just the mic, Like the VIP fifties got pushed to the side and everyone who walked in and just cut by recording at four sixteen by default. And that's by two thousand and five, I feel like we were just all four sixteen. So Andrew, I don't know when do you feel like the four sixteen took over? Because I was in radio until ninety seven, so I didn't really see any commercial studios because everything was done in the radio station, so there was From memory, I don't remember seeing any shotguns in any radio stations. It's usually sms. You still don't You still don't see shotguns in radio stations, Well you do here now you do see them in the production areas. Really absolutely, there's all forty one sixes in the production areas of radio stations. So the first time I saw a forty one six would have been probably late nineties, seven ninety eight. I guess that's when it started taking over, in like late nineties, early two thousands. Yeah, and then they became everywhere. And a funny story actually, because I was I had to do a job when I was in La so I had to find a studio, so I went to La Sound, and of course they had the forty one six there. But I was talking to I won't mention the person's name because he's pretty high profile and get the ships with me, but I was talking about the forty one six with this person and about the foamy, and he said, no one in this country would ever have the foamy on their forty one six. It just doesn't happen here. I don't know why you guys do that. That's ridiculous, that's crazy. You've never seen it before. Well, usually you just put the normal. You put the normal, like you know Steadman screen when screen in front of it, nadder, Yeah, I sent him a photograph. There's me in the in the booth LA sound with the foamy on the forty one six. So they definitely had the foamy on. Well, there you go. I always used to fine me. I used to because there's plenty of people who didn't know how to use the mic. Used to, you know, truly get up all over it and just make it. So here's here's a funny one. Even Harlan Hogan's v O one A was based on an older MSL model. Was it based on or was it just an older MXL model? Like, no one will really know except m But they say it's a one. I think a one thousand and six or something. It's the one thousand and six. And I have two of those and they sound they sound amazing. I got several one a really fucking good cheap seven. It's a really good cheap mic. I mean it just it was the first one hundred dollars large diaphragm mic. I bought for me too, and then and then I had, and then I had. I won't say who in Australia modify one. Yes, I know that is yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll leave that bit out. Oh. So the chef's headset is the HSC four v XP. It's a model number if you want to look it up. And the very unique mike and the capsule on it is what's probably you're more interested in. And they make different versions so they have a strong proximity coup and compensation model so you can get it like designed to actually compensate for proximity effect, which is interesting because you know, again sports they want the boom right up in front of their mouth to reject background noise. Dude, let's start. We'll start putting like parabolic mics in the booth. I know you talked about that. That would be crazy. Well, the capsule, which is funny. I'm looking at an ad for the mic and they don't mention the capsule, but I think I did in my video. I haven't video on YouTube from years ago. If you just search for Widham's World episode ninety headset mike round up, you'll find this video. And I actually try out a bunch of them, the Kip, the Kip Winger headset my head. I mean I was trying from really really cheap, crappy stuff all the way up to the ships and everything, the stuff that like like you start out with the mics that only pick up this is right, like or have no low end response period. They just roll off below too karts or something. If you ds them, they go silent. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, there's just been a tradition of bad sounding headset mikes for so many years. Sure has I mean, do you remember that Audio Technico that I was playing around? Is it a really cheap one headset mike. I think it might have been a dynamic and it didn't even have the headset. It's just a head war Yeah. But like like it didn't even have to use those in many aerobics or fitness studios where budget was an issue because they were just to be destroyed, you know, and it wasn't a huge loss. But yeah, those are or desert classics. But I know Audio tending Get just came up with a headset mic that where they graft a basically an A twenty twenty capsule onto a headset boom and it's like a two hundred dollars headphone with a twenty twenty capsule, and it's pretty freaking bad. I mean it's pretty good. I mean again, comparing it to what else is out there, it's pretty good. Yeah, but it's still it Well, it's the reality. It's like, I mean, honestly, if someone gave me a voiceover recorder on a cell phone, I'd get it on the air. You'd find a way and it would I'd find a way and I'd freaking base synthesize some stuff and make it sound as good as it can go. And unfortunately, with a lot of clients, they're like, Okay, sounds good. I understand the words, like, they're not like sounds like a commercial to me. But there's but we know, there's a huge, huge, huge difference between all that stuff. You know. It's like I've i don't know, like I still don't like it, but I've had a couple of voices. Now I've run into the tiny basically road video microphone USB medium mic go too. Yeah, it's like it's like your pinky. That's probably because I've recommended it to a bunch of people. You can blame me for that. One. Yeah, it's like it's okay, it's one hundred dollars Mike. Yeah, it's like yeah, And it's like you find the flaws are exposed much quicker, and the escape routes are smaller. It's probably marginally better than the phone, Mike, and the iPhone just it's a shotgun, so it's a little bit more directional. Yeah, at the end of the day, I'm blown away with when you use the iPhone mic correctly, how good it actually can sound. It's crazy. Yeah, And especially if they start putting like a rays of microphones in there and doing pain forming they're doing I don't know which well they're already doing that. I mean, you don't realize it, but they are doing that. They use three capsules and it's a beam. Oh, there's a beam. The microphone and the iPhones. They have been for quite a while. I even had an LG phone. It was like a V forty or something, you know, it's probably six years ago. And I could steer the microphone pickup pattern front to back depending on who. They had a little slidder on the screen, and I could say, make it pick up the guy in front of me, and then make it pick me up and I could go back and forth. So that that's been around in cell phones for a while. But anyway, I had a lot of fun doing interviews with the new road Wireless kit with the wireless M because they use the road Capture app on the phone will shoot both cameras, so I'm shooting a video of me and shooting a video of the guest. And they have a mic and I have a mic. So when I'm done, I have two videos and two audio tracks to manipulate and posts and it's amazing, Like how good of a production you can make from that? Really? So yeah, from like your Pockets crazy? Yeah, I did a couplet a couple of interviews. Was that the one with the woman from Hyle? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I saw that. This is why we're all out of business. I thought you, I thought you'd actually done some knotty shots in but I didn't realize you were actually live with your bits to camera as well. What's going on with the AI voice realm? Is that calm down? Or are people still freaking out on AI taking over? Like it's less a little bit less discussed recently. I haven't seen much at all what microphone do you use on and on an AI voice. How many drummers does it take to change the label. I'll tell you the same number of voiceovers it takes to read a book, because you just get an AI to do it. Well. That the Audio Suite and Austra an audio recorded using Source Connect, edited by Andrew Peters and next by Robo. Got your own audio issues? Just ask robo dot com. Tech report from George the tech wisom. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and joining the conversation by our Facebook group to leave a comment, suggested topic, or just say it. 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