Tuesday VO Tech Tip: Three Studio Thoughts

As I mentioned in last week’s post, when we’re working in our home voiceover studio, we can get fixated on the “right” answer. However, the more time we spend dealing with audio and the recording our performances, the easier it is to see that our tools lend themselves to a variety of solutions. As my very first woodshop teacher once opined, “There’s really never any one way to do any one thing…”

That reasoning is why I’m a proponent of learning skills in the studio, rather than relying upon a recipe or set of rigid steps. With a map, we can always make sense of the surroundings and terrain. Here are three ideas which for one reason or another have popped up repeatedly in the last month or so. Since that’s kind of the universe’s way of trying to make a point, I thought I’d share them this week.

VO Studio Thought #1: Protect your hearing

In order to make things sound better, we have to hear what’s going on in our recordings. Our hearing lets us respond to direction from coaches, mentors, and producers. There’s been a lot of good research in recent decades pointing out that while high volume noise can absolutely impact our hearing, so can much lower volumes if they are constantly present.

It’s easy to continually nudge the volume up on our headphones as we listen for detail in the recordings. Pay attention to this seemingly trivial action. You may find that at the end of an editing session the volume might be 20-30% higher. Resting your hearing is helpful. I will often unplug my headphones or turn the volume all the way down while doing other tasks, just to reduce the daily load on my hearing.

VO Studio Thought #2: Record conservatively

These days, few voice actors have ever actually recorded onto physical tape systems. So, I find it odd that some people still tout high raw recording levels. There’s just no benefit to doing so. However, I still encounter new narrators and voice actors who end up with distortions in their raw audio because they go above 0 dB Peaks when capturing their performance at the microphone.

Some were told that simply using a 32 bit float file type in their recording software would mean they don’t need to worry about setting proper input levels. That is false. While 32 bit floating point recording can work that way, it requires specific hardware that very few people own. (If that level of recording nerdiness appeals to you, I have posted information about 32 bit floating point tech here and here).

For what we do, simply setting conservative levels with Peaks in the -18 to -12 dB range and using a 24 bit WAV format will let us make things “competitively / appropriately loud” later in our workflow. Most good recording software lets us easily confirm those levels, and newer tools like the Scarlett 2i2 Gen 4 audio interface provide an automated tool to set initial gain. Conservative and consistent levels on the raw means you can use consistent processing workflows. 

VO Studio Thought #3: Move away from the mic

We all want to sound “present” on the mic. But the more time spent in our own setup, the more we can fall prey to the lure of the proximity effect. The closer we move toward most microphones, the more those microphones emphasize the lower tonalities of our voice. While this can be used effectively for certain types of reads, once we start to hear those new dulcet tones, they can act like the Sirens in the Odyssey, pulling us ever closer to the capsule of our microphone. There be dangers.

As we get closer to our mics, they start hearing all the clattery, clicky sounds we produce along with our tone. Close mic positions can also increase sibilance response. And that slight bit of “Barry White” tone when we’re five inches away can become a murky acoustic soup at three inches. The problem is that we probably only moved a couple millimeters closer every day for the last month, with the minor daily difference being unnoticeable as we’re drawn ever closer by the siren song of deeper texture.

It’s helpful to just check in with yourself from time to time. Do you have a specific mark for your positioning within your booth? Have you recorded some basic reference audio with your current setup? Both of those can be used to confirm that we still sound the way we think we do.

Have you tested your studio’s audio quality to make sure it meets professional standards? For a free review of your vocal recordings, please use the upload tool on my Audio Review page.

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