I'm a designer and sometime music industry hanger-on (journalist) trying to share what I know about recording through an infographic. I know a lot less than all of you, but more than many of my podcasting peers. I'm trying to make sure the information I publish is good and am here for help.
What I want to know is how - specifically - you'd advise someone with limited equipment to produce a good voiceover sound.
Most advice about 'radio' assumes AM or FM transmission. It's all about dbx and symetrix hardware pushing massive compression ahead of multiband Optimod units in the stations themselves. There's also a weird cult of AM, all about replicating the EV RE20 over AM sound (noise? I jest - but I can't stand it).
What I'm trying to learn and share are tips for the lighter, more hi-fi, NPR and BBC sound. I'm assuming everyone will have a mic or two (and I'm already on top of the pros and cons of dynamics and condensers) running into a DAW (often Audacity or Garageband) which gives access to basic plugins.
So questions. If you have anything to add, thanks. You can feel free to answer some, none or all.
1. How do you structure the gain?
2. How can you record well WITHOUT being able to compress your input signal
3. Multiband or single channel compression? How much? Typical bands etc.?
4. EQ settings. When and how? Are male and female voices treated the same or differently? How and why?
5 Tricks for recording in non-ideal rooms.
Anything else?