VAM 116 | The Computer Skills and Audio Knowledge You Need to Be a Voice Actor, Part 3
Welcome to episode 116 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
In the first episode of this three part series, I outlined the basic computer skills you need in order to be able to record professional quality audio in your home studio. In the second episode, I expanded on that subject and explained the actual process of digital recording using simple metaphors. After listening to those episodes you should have a much clearer understanding of how your computer works and how your microphone and audio interface process and record audio as digital information. If you haven’t listened to the the previous two episodes in this series yet, I highly recommend that you review them both before continuing. As I conclude my discussion of this topic, I’m going to be building on the information I shared with you in the last two episodes.
In this third and final part of the series I want to talk about how to use your home recording setup to its fullest potential. I’ll be revealing to you the settings that professionals use to maximize the quality of their recordings. I’ll explain the differences between different digital audio formats, and I’ll also be warning you about some of the most common mistakes voice actors make when recording at home so you can avoid them! As I’ve mentioned previously, it may be good for you to have a notebook nearby to write down the terms and ideas I’ll be discussing. After listening to this series of episodes, you should have a solid foundation for understanding the fundamentals behind professional quality digital audio recording.
If you have any thoughts, thank you’s or questions about this 3-episode series, please feel free to leave a comment on this blog post!
I’m also getting ready to do my next round of Q&A here on the podcast, so if you’d like a chance to have your question answered in a future episode, you can call the Voice Acting Mastery phone line at 323-696-2655. Please remember to state your first name and what city in the world you’re calling from before leaving your message. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you in the next episode!
Download Voice Acting Mastery Episode #116 Here (MP3)
Really interesting. I’m going to have to play around with these settings tonight.
Thank you for your time and wisdom.
You’re very welcome. Glad I could help.
SUCH USEFUL INFORMATION!!! I’ve been recording so my levels are hovering about -12, cuz that’s what my film professor taught us. I always thought -18 was too quiet, but I suppose not! I’ll play with these settings later~!
Would Noise Removal and Normalize be avoided or no?
Thanks so much for this information, looking forward to the Q&A sessions!
I’m not Crispin, but I can maybe help you with this one.
The answer to all of this is: “It depends”. Live film and voiceover often need different things, so the best level for one may not be best for another. Even so, -18db is just a guideline. If your audio will have more whispering or yelling, you may need to set different levels than you would for conversational speech.
Normalization is generally done during editing, not recording. What it does is adjusts your audio levels evenly so that everything is a certain amount louder or quieter than the original recording. Normalizing audio too loud can introduce clipping, but if your audio is already recorded properly, normalizing to no louder than 0db can be a helpful boost for distribution, so that the listener does not have to turn up their volume.
Generally, I would not advise normalizing audio like that until the very last step of production. Lower levels give more wiggle room for things like compression and other audio effects. Even perfectly clean audio, if it’s too loud, can begin clipping once you begin to apply other adjustments in editing, such as reverberation or equalization. In most professional voice acting contexts, you won’t be doing this yourself anyway; if you’re submitting audio for someone else’s mix, the last thing they want is for you to do any of this editing yourself.
As for noise removal, that’s a solution to a problem that any serious voice actor should do their best to eliminate before the recording process. It’s best to record in an environment with as little echo or outside noise, such as fans, air conditioners, and even computer hum, as possible. If you do this, noise reduction won’t even be necessary. If, for whatever reason, that’s not an option, save the noise reduction for the person editing your audio. Unless you are doing all the editing yourself, it’s always best to supply as close to the original recording as possible.
Now, if you are editing your own audio, such as for a personal project, you can use, and in fact may even need, normalization and noise removal. But be cautious, as excessive noise removal can sound artificial and generally wreck your recording quality if you overdo it. I would not recommend it, even for something personal, except as an absolute last resort.
Let me begin by thanking Covarr for his detailed and thoughtful response. I agree with his explanation whole heartedly.
Noise Removal is absolutely a tool of last resort. Ideally you should be recording in an environment that is acoustically treated. There is a noise reduction plug-in that I use from Izotope called RX that helps with removing the hum of air conditioners, fans, or other steady state noises in the background. However, it cannot help with sudden noises like doors closing, planes flying over or car horns. It also can’t help very well with reducing echo or reverb. You’ve just got to create a good sound recording environment for yourself Software can’t compensate for recording in an echoey or noisy environment.
While -12db is fine if you never raise your voice, the moment you start yelling and screaming, you’ll blow through that 12db really quickly. Sometimes my levels are as low as -20db or -22db to give myself enough headroom. As long as you’re recording at 24bits and your environment is quiet acoustically, lower levels shouldn’t be a problem.
Hope that helps!
Wonderful information, thank you! Question: my .wav files sound rich, full, and “thick” on my PC, but sound tinny, thin and hollow on a mac. Sent one file for anaudition and was told the sound quality was weak, but when i listen to it on the pc it sounds great (and thats not my bias).
Thanks for your question Annette. The sound of your file is probably not affected by your operating system (Windows vs. Mac), but rather due to the hardware on your computers. Are you listening to the file on the same set of headphones and/or speakers on both computers? Are you using the same program to play the file on both computers? You may not be biased, but are you actually comparing apples to apples and using the same playback technology on both computers? A .wav file is a .wav file. The 1s and 0s in the file do not change just because you copy it from a Mac to a PC or vice versa. There must be something different in the playback hardware between your Mac and PC or some difference in your playback software that make the file sound different on each computer.