At Pro Tools Expert we are often asked, what is the best microphone to buy for voiceover recording? We usually reply with more questions such as...

• What is your budget?

• How much room treatment do you have?

• Do you have phantom power?

• Is this for narration or for ADR?

• Which mic pre-amp do you have?

But to try and help the community, and the help of Richmond Film Services and KMR Audio, we undertook a series of tests in four groups under carefully controlled conditions using the same mic preamp, the same voiceover artists, a standard distance from the mic and all files carefully loudness matched.

What Microphones Did We Select for The VO Mic Shoot Out?

In the first 3 groups, we selected a variety of commonly used microphones representing a good spread of budget and styles ranging from industry standard large-diaphragm condensers to cheap dynamic microphones for our voiceover mic shootout. 

• Neumann Family

  • Neuman U87

  • Neuman TLM 103

  • Neuman TLM 193

• Dynamics And Shotgun

  • Shure SM58

  • Shure SM7b

  • Electrovoice RE20

  • Sennheiser MKH 416

• Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphones

  • sE Electronics 4400a

  • Audio Technica 4040

  • Sontronics Saturn

  • AKG 414 ULS

In the 4th group, we chose some of the higher end and specialist microphones to see how they would perform against the reference Neumann U87.  You can compare any of them as they are all recorded under the same conditions.

• Josephson C715

• Brauner VMA

• MicroTech Gefell UM900

• AEA KU4

• Manley Reference

• Peluso 2247LE

• Sontronics Aria

• sE Electronic Gemini II

The Test

We invited professional voice-over artists, Andrew Bicknell and Posy Brewer, to give us examples of both male and female voices to demonstrate each microphone.

• We used a common mic pre-amp, the Focusrite ISA One as it is both typical and affordable by most.

• We kept the input impedance at the ISA110 standard setting (1k4ohm), and engaged the high pass filter (75dB knee frequency with 18dB/Octave roll-off) to avoid pops.

• No foam pop shields were used, just a mesh filter.

• The distance to each microphone was kept uniform, with the special straw measuring tool, at 6.5”

• Any multi-polar pattern mics were recorded set to cardioid.

• All mics were recorded at 24bit 48KHzas close as possible to a level of -23 LUFS (using Nugen’s VisLM loudness meter) with NO compression or EQ or ANY plug-in.

• The test rig was running Pro Tools 11.2.2 HDX on a Pro Tools PC (OSX 10.8.5) and the audio interface was an Avid Omni clocked to a Rosendahl Nanosyncs.

After the recording session was over, each microphone recording was top and tailed, and then mastered to exactly -23 LUFS with Nugen Audio’s LM Correct to ensure each recording sounds equally loud using the K-weighted curve and BS1770-3 universal standard algorithm. Each microphone was allocated its own dedicated playlist in our master session.

Listen For Yourself

In the original articles we didn't identify each microphone so that the results of the blind listening tests would be valid, but here we have the examples in a playlist so you can listen to each microphone knowing what it is and how much it costs.

The VO Mic Shoot Out Results

We undertook blind listening tests in 4 different groups where you could vote for which one you thought sounded the best, without knowing which mic was which. The results of those polls are below. The winner for each group is highlighted. We have also included a street price so you can compare the cost as well is the blind listening test results.

What Do You Think?

We haven't been able to test all the microphones on the market but for the first 3 groups, we chose commonly used microphones and then in the last group we selected some of the more boutique and high-end mics some of them with prices to match, more as a bit of fun. Do share in the comments your thoughts and views on these tests.

Thank You

Thanks to the Pro Tools Expert team members involved in this comprehensive test, it was a true team effort. Special thanks go to professional voice-over artists, Andrew Bicknell and Posy Brewer for their commitment to this and thanks to Richmond Film Services and KMR Audio for their support too.