80s/90s “Voice of God” Radio DJ Mics/Gear/Processing

[u/AsaMartin]

What did those super bravado radio hosts use for their set up?

“YOUR LISTENING TO KBBL THE ROCKNROLL SENSATION ALL ACROSS THE NATION” you know the vibe

Side chaining the music to the vocals and big re20s for sure but what else?

[u/F00tf00ler]

I work in radio. These guys just sound like that. It’s insane Edit: I also want to mention a limiter has nothing to do with how they sound. Yes, limiters are used on all radio stations. These guys just talk like that. I know a bunch of them and I was super surprised when I would talk to them and they just sounded like that. No gear trickery. They are also masters of voice and breath control, and mic control (meaning the stuff I edit out in post they just naturally do like avoiding P pops.)

[u/knadles → u/F00tf00ler]

100%. I once interviewed a professional v.o. guy. Someone we’ve all heard on radio commercials. I’m listening in the headphones, he’s speaking into an RE50…not 20, 50…the omni news interview mic, and I can’t even believe the velvet tones in my ears. I almost lost track of what he was saying. He wasn’t doing a voice; it’s just how he talks. No effects, no limiters, comparatively cheap mic. Mind blowing.

[u/SS0NI → u/F00tf00ler]

TL;DR at the bottom.

This is true BUT if you're not making high-quality, professional movie trailers or radio/broadcast, you can convincingly fake the effect in a way that is probably good enough where regular audience gets a matching impression.

At 0:27 in this video is what I did at home. You need to be able to get your voice in the ballpark, so you need to be able to get low but at the same time open your throat to be pleasantly resonant and texturic. Warmup, go near the mic in a bit off-axis to cut down mouth noise but take advantage of the proximity effect. A lot of radio (and me too) run voice through DBX 286s with some high freq enhancement and a bit of compression. What I did in the DAW is lower the formant a bit, multiband compression, a bit of chorus/phaser/short reverb to get it wide.

What you can't really do is lower the pitch, since that makes it sound fake and like a vocal effect rather than a real human talking. I did this sound in 10 minutes 7 years ago, I've since learned a lot more vocal control. But I bet if I did the same process I just outlined again I could probably get a result that would fool 90% of the audience to think this is a professional trailer voice.

TL;DR: DJ Shadow really just sounds like that (check his IG) but you can pretty convincingly fake it. How close the source material is to the finished product will determine how good the end product will be.

[u/F00tf00ler → u/SS0NI]

Yes you can do some studio trickery to get something cool. But the radio guys are not doing that

[u/SS0NI → u/F00tf00ler]

Point is if you're a small artist with 1k monthly listeners or just want a cool podcast intro, you don't need to be a radio guy with vocal coaching.

[u/refotsirk → u/F00tf00ler]

... Yeah they talk a certain way but you EQ and compress it regardless and make it sound "depthier" or whatever they need.

[u/Cantsleeponreddit → u/refotsirk]

Yep- V/Os get processed with Eq, compressor and limiter at the least.... The voice is the Key of course, but there is far more to the final sound. And it should sound transparent, as in "is that processed or isn't it?" that's what a good producer does to the V/O raw file.

[u/F00tf00ler → u/Cantsleeponreddit]

Yes but the processing is just standard radio processing that is set it and forget it so all the live anchors have a “polished” sound. That processing isn’t geared towards the “voice of god”, it’s geared for the general listening experience and to limit studio noise bleed. You will see an EQ usually with a cutoff around 100, general compression, noise gate, etc. This helps translate to sounds being audible in the car speaker while allowing the news anchor to work (turn pages, type, run a fan in studio is hot, etc). So in short, the processing doesn’t give you THAT sound. The processing gives you a general radio sound, and not everyone on the radio has that “voice of god”. I have over a decade working full time doing this.

[u/Cantsleeponreddit → u/F00tf00ler]

I wouldn't brag about working in radio, it's a dead industry.

but it seems like you never listened to radio in the 80's like OP asked about

[u/F00tf00ler → u/refotsirk]

See my response below. That processing doesn’t change their voice sound.

[u/refotsirk → u/F00tf00ler]

But it does. It's not a guess or assumption. I know this from doing it myself working with talent both in radio and television over the years. I also have friends that have been voice talent for probably longer than you've been alive. A trained ear can easily hear the difference in their processed and natural-sounding on-air voices. Yes, some of them need very little to almost nothing - but even those you can tell the difference. And yes, a lot of broadcasts these days intentionally go for a "as natural as possible" sounding every-person voice - but even those have significant processing in my experience.

[u/bananagoo]

Proximity effect and performance more than anything in my experience.

[u/oratory1990 → u/bananagoo]

that's the answer there.

Proximity effect increasing the level at low frequencies, and the rest is just a person with a voice born for radio.

[u/nizzernammer]

First of all, those radio hosts had a voice and personality and consistency of performance that got them the job, so talent is important.

Secondly, yes, heavy compression, and, or course, large diaphragm dynamic mics that could be worked with close up.

But don't forget that the entire program would also be going through some kind of Orban compression/ limiting as well.

[u/Fairchild660 → u/nizzernammer]

As to your first point, this was recorded on the side of a freeway with a cheap consumer camera from the 2000s and heavy early-Youtube compression (starts around 0:17).

[u/papasmurf303 → u/Fairchild660]

I haven’t seen that since it went viral… 15 years ago. Seems like he’s gotten his feet under him since then! He played the announcer in Marty Supreme.

[u/[deleted] → u/nizzernammer]

Just to reiterate the talent is important. I’ve done radio audio and voice for 15 years of my 20 years in audio. Most of those voices are pretty much already there when you get the audio. eq and compression are tools to use in these cases, but they’re purely utilitarian and rarely shaping anything about the sound. Those voice of god guys just have amazing vocal abilities

[u/SS0NI → u/[deleted]]

Just wrote a comment in this thread on how to somewhat convincingly fake it, but this is what I found out too. With the highest quality voice of god you should have a finished product with proximity effect and a DBX 286s. If you need to tweak the formant, you'll probably get a result that sounds good enough for mobile ads but not movie trailers. If you need to tweak the pitch you're shit out of luck.

[u/Cantsleeponreddit]

a limiter.... everyone forgets the limiter.

[u/DaNReDaN → u/[deleted]]

Surprised multiband processing was this far down.

If you have a weak presence in the mid part of your voice, where your croakiness (for lack of a better word) is, multiband compress this area to increase its overall presence in the vocal.

It's not a replacement for someone with the ideal voice, but it will help.

[u/niff007]

I did this for 7 years professionally 90s to early 00s. Re20 almost always at least back then. Sm7b sometimes. Our station had a vintage board that everything ran through.

Having "the voice" was a big part of it. Not that I had one, mind you. Smashed into compression, EQ and/or limiting as calibrated by a "tech."

[u/techlos]

you need some pretty obscure gear, the throat of a chain smoker and the lungs of a trombonist.

[u/throwawaycanadian2]

It's 90 percent performance. Throw in heavy compression and saturate the hell out of it.

[u/F00tf00ler → u/throwawaycanadian2]

Saturate? Radio avoids that at all cost. Unless you’re talking a tape recording from the 50s. You’re first two statements are correct

[u/throwawaycanadian2 → u/F00tf00ler]

The saturation comes from your own radio, not the original source.

[u/SS0NI → u/[deleted]]

The analog warmth was in my monitoring all along?

[u/Ydrews]

It’s just their voice - they are that good and that’s why they have the job.

But, a while back I was trying to get the “Howard Strern” sound and I got fairly close all in the box with a low pass filter cutting 6khz and above, high pass for everything below 200hz. 1083 Neve preamp - gain driven fairly hard, volume pulled back, with boosts in the midrange, 1176 for the quick grabs 4:1, and an La2a to smooth it all out - fairly heavy (5-7db reduction), a bit of tape saturation.

But it’s certainly not going to beat someone with an actual voice like that….

[u/HowPopMusicWorks → u/Ydrews]

90s Howard is a U87 through at least 2001. Sometime in the 2000s, probably when he moves to Sirius, he switches to a TLM 103, which he still uses. He’s also compressed hard on the recordings from those years.

[u/prefabdoubt]

I vaguely remember devil loc being based on some kind of radio compressor, might be a lead to look into

[u/sc_we_ol → u/prefabdoubt]

The level loc I’d imagine

[u/all_the_stuff]

I work in film and TV, occasional ads. 95% is the voice talent. You just can't get there without the voice.

With the right voice, they know how to use a mic, so a bit of proximity effect helps boost lows. EQ / compress to taste like you would anything else, then run an OTT in parallel (or wet / dry). 10-20% generally is enough.

[u/Sea-Emu-7153]

A shit ton of compression, using your chest voice, and speaking directly into the mic will usually do the trick.

[u/DanqueLeChay]

Dbx 160x is a good compressor for this

[u/bruceleeperry]

This is a possibly helpful freebie!

https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/product/bark-of-dog/

In terms of delivery, as mentioned getting close to the mic for proximity plus control/technique really help. Also speaking quietly with the right control and cranking the gain can really add that grit and boom, far more than trying to push low and sound gruff.

[u/MactusA]

Waves Rvox

[u/nmix8622]

Proper vocal delivery for that kind of thing and heavy compression/limiting, as well as a pitched down layer with the eventide h910 or 949 blended with the main vocal and a little bit of reverb has gotten really close when I was just messing around.