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Voice Recording specialist Tommi Schneefuss on choosing Lake People microphone preamps for his voiceover studio in Berlin<\/h2>\n
Tommi Schneefuss is a recording engineer who specialises in voice recordings.<\/p>\n
Having developed a love of music through DJing, he studied audio at SAE before moving into the gaming industry, working on a number of triple-A<\/span> titles (Assassin’s Creed,<\/em> Far Cry<\/em>) and building his own Sound of Snow<\/em> studio, a dedicated recording space in Berlin.<\/p>\n These days he primarily specialises in voice recording, offering expertly engineered sessions tailored to the nuanced demands of audiobooks, narration, podcasting, overdubbing and radio theatre.<\/p>\n Below Tommi tells us why he favours the F355 A 2-channel mic pre from Lake People<\/a> for all of his voiceover work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Originally just by listening to music. Records, DJing,” Tommi says on the question of how he became an audio engineer. “I initially trained as an optician, but soon realized that that wasn’t for me.”<\/p>\n Deciding to switch his focus fully towards audio engineering, he enrolled on a course at SAE, where he says he quickly found that speech and sound were \u2018his thing\u2019.<\/p>\n “I originally wanted to go into film, with dreams of winning an Oscar for Sound Design,” he smiles. \u201cWhilst in Hamburg I wrote my thesis on Logic’s first convolution reverb. The title was ‘ADR sound with convolution reverb recorded from a camera perspective with a 20\/20 sine sweep<\/em>‘. This means that, in theory, you fold the room for the ADR recordings, making it much easier to patch in later. It also worked quite well!<\/p>\n \u201cThen I did an internship and actually co-produced Tokio Hotel<\/a> (German Synth-Pop\/Rock group). I recorded Durch den Monsun<\/em> with Peter Kapellmeister – back then they were still called Devilish. Then I went to SAE in Berlin and did my Bachelor’s degree there, and then another internship at Blackbird Synchron.”<\/p>\n Having discovered a love for voice recording, Tommi ended up working on a variety video game titles, although he admits the work had its downsides.<\/p>\n \u201cAssassin’s Creed<\/em>, Far Cry<\/em>, Watch Dogs<\/em>, Rabbids<\/em> – more or less the whole Ubisoft range. I was freelance Head of Audio<\/em> back then and produced it with a team. It was really fun, but at some point it was too many days recording war cries over and over. ‘Cover! Right! Left flank! Grenade!’… All day long through headphones!<\/p>\n \u201cEventually it became a bit much for me, and so the moment came when I said ‘computer games need to disappear from my life again – I don’t want to be shouted at all day long.'”<\/p>\n Moving away from the gaming industry, Tommi decided to set up his own studio in Berlin called Sound of Snow<\/em>.<\/p>\n “I wanted to do things a bit differently,” he says. “With Sound of Snow<\/em>, we started right away with the relatively big radio plays – Monster 1983<\/em> by Ivar Leon Menger. We’ve just been awarded a gold record for it.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI always work with condenser microphones in the studio,\u201d Tommi advises regarding the technical side of voiceover recording. \u201cWe occasionally have a contact mic for Foley stuff, to really pick up the bottom end.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the most important thing for me is to have a clean signal that I record as faithfully as possible to the original – exactly as it comes out of the mouth – without any distortion.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd without any inherent noise, of course. In my experience, you can dial almost anything in afterwards, but you can’t always remove it. For that reason, I always try to record everything as cleanly as possible and with as much dynamic range as possible. That’s what\u2019s really, really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the heart of Tommi’s studio setup is a signal chain built around gear from Lake People. Whilst maybe not as well known in the UK as names like Neve, SSL or API, German manufacturer Lake People has been providing high-end microphone preamps and headphone amplifiers to studios in their native Germany for decades – quietly earning a loyal following for their precise, audiophile-grade designs among engineers seeking clean, transparent signal paths.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my opinion, nobody does it as well as Lake People,\u201d says Tommi on his choice of studio equipment. \u201cWe use the F44 for A\/D conversion and the F399 for all the headphone mixing for the actors. Then the F355 Class A<\/a> is our preamplifier for recording. For the D\/A conversion I use a Grace Design, because I really wanted to have that one for my monitor controller. So that’s actually the only device that isn’t from Lake People.<\/p>\n \u201cThe setup is so harmonious, the background noise is minimal, and the signal is simply clean. The workmanship of the devices is also fantastic. They simply feel good, the pots don’t flip and nothing wears out.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn 20 years I’ve used so many other brands and devices, and I haven’t found a single one that made me think about replacing any of my Lake People gear. Quite the opposite in fact – I’m buying more and more from Lake People. There’s nothing in the signal that’s distracting, the distortion factor is a dream, the signal-to-noise ratio is insane.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI always record a little quieter because the signal-to-noise ratio is so incredibly good, so that I have enough headroom at the top if a voiceover artist really wants to go for it.<\/p>\n “Often when people who come here they’ll warn me: \u2018It’s about to get loud!\u2019. And all the people sitting here with me, who have known me and the system for years, start to grin and just say: \u2018Try it. But you’re not going to drive this system against the wall.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I regularly hear something along those lines from a vocalist – \u2018I want to shout on this take, but I’m only doing it once, to save my voice.\u2019 And I\u2019ll say \u2018I wasn’t going to let you do it twice.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Yes, but everywhere else it always distorts on the first take\u2019 they say.<\/p>\n “Yeah well it doesn’t with me. With these pres you really can record with the gain really low – it feels like you can boost the signal by 1,000 dB without anything compromising the signal.\u201d<\/p>\n Big thanks to Tommi Schneefuss! Visit the Sound Of Snow<\/em> website below, or check out his Instagram:<\/p>\n www.soundofsnow.com<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Recording](\"https:\/\/www.synthax.co.uk\/latest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Tommi-Schneefuss-soundofsnow-berlin.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBecoming a Voiceover Engineer<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nOn voiceover recording and choosing a preamp<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n“In my opinion, nobody does it as well as Lake People”<\/h2>\n
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