Tips for Recording Voiceovers

Voiceovers are an important part of many different productions. If your production could benefit from the use of voiceovers, a well recorded track will add heaps of production value to your video. Good documentary voice overs can easily and personably relay information to the viewer. They can sometimes even rescue shaky footage because of the professionalism they add. There are a few things to think about though before you start recording.

Where to Record Voiceovers

If you don't have access to a voiceover booth or sound studio, you might have to improvise.

• A quiet room Choose one with as few hard surfaces as possible as these reflect sound and increase echo. Try also to avoid rooms with noisy cooling fans. After you have chosen your room, make a test recording. If there is excessive echo or noise on the track, try laying matresses against or hanging blankets over hard walls or in front of cooling fans.
• The Cabin of a Car This may sound odd at first, but the cabins of cars can be an ideal place to record voiceovers. They are designed to block out outside sound and they have lots of soft upholstery which absorbs sound and stops echos.

How to Record Voiceovers

There are a few methods of capturing the speech of your voice over artist.

• Dynamic microphone If you have a good dynamic microphone, you can either plug this straight into your computer or run it through a mixer first and then into a computer so that you can equalise the voice. I have had success using an XLR to 3.5 mm adaptor which allows me to connect a balanced microphone into any soundcard (or video camera). Once connected to your computer, you can record the signal with any number of audio editing packages including the excellent, free Audactiy or professional packages such as Avid Pro Tools or Adobe Audition.
• Your Camera's Microphone You can use the microphone on your camera to record straight on to your recording media. The recording will be of a higher quality if you have a shotgun mic on your camera. Once recorded, the voiceover can be captured into your edit suite just as you would any other piece of footage. Using your camera to record the audio signal is probably a good idea if you chose to use a car as your sound booth and don't hava a laptop.

Remember to keep a constant distance between the artist's mouth and the microphone so that the volume of the track is easy to work with. After you have your track in the computer, you should normalise it. This means that the computer will amplify the audio until the loudest peak is just below the maximum level. Then all that's left to do is to drop it into your editing program.

Posted by Andrew at 5:20 pm, Thursday 24th April, 2008
Permalink: http://productions.andrewgentle.com/tutorials/tips_for_recording_voiceovers/

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