VO Weekly Workflow: Source-Elements Recorder

Source-Elements rolled out their Recorder app recently. I’ll admit that I’m a bit conflicted on it. On the one hand, the refined tools in Twisted Wave continue to support everything necessary to wrangle my voiceover recording challenges.That means I don’t really need a new way to record audio.

On the other hand, wow. I mean, wow. It’s cool. The Source-Elements Recorder is a solid looking way to record high quality audio in your browser. Even more impressive, it appears to work on any platform – including phones and tablets. Recorder can conform the audio for delivery to certain platforms or even add processing according to specific guidelines. It does this without having to download and install anything (though you do need an internet connection to use it).

Did I mention that the Recorder app is free?

How does Source-Elements Recorder work?

Source-Elements Recorder is a browser-resident app accessible through your computer, tablet, or phone. It operates entirely within your web browser – Chrome, Safari, etc. When you go to the Recorder site, the app sets up operations between your device and the recording tool. The audio is recorded locally (i.e. not on some server somewhere) and can easily be saved to your computer. That’s a pretty neat trick by itself. But Recorder does a lot more. There are a lot of details you can explore, but two that caught my attention are the ability to record with a specific Loudness target in mind, and the ability to quickly crop individual takes. Both of these can be achieved without deleting the original raw audio file.

Although Recorder is brought to you from the folks who created Source-Connect, it is not a connection app. To interact in real time with a director, you would need to be connected through another application.

What Recorder lacks

Other than a lightning fast ability to crop a take by highlighting the good bits, or quickly set a “Start” and “Stop” point to snip off the bad, Recorder lacks the ability for any type of audio editing. That means you won’t be using it to insert a missing line in a longer script, and you can’t do any cutting and pasting of sections between takes.

Using Recorder in your studio

In order to use Recorder, you’ll need to have a Source-Elements account to log into the app. There is no charge for this –  you may have set one up to use Source-Nexus Free. If you have not ever set up an account with Source-Elements, that’s just a quick few steps. After logging in, Recorder will create a new recording session.

The developers put a lot of thought into how the audio takes are wrangled. For those who have a Source-Connect license, all of the takes can be collected into a single AAF Session file, including the labels and take information. For those of us behind the microphone, this isn’t terribly important. However, the engineer dealing with your audio after the session will greatly appreciate the simplicity.

There is no need for a paid Source-Connect license to use all other functionality. You can save the audio locally, set Loudness targets for all manner of deliverables, apply light (and not-so-light) processing to the audio as well.

How does this help us?

The usefulness of this tool depends upon the types of projects you work on and the nature of those recording sessions. Primarily, this is a simple and immediate way to quickly record sequential takes and hand them off to a waiting client. A less technically minded talent could maintain a clear structure for their session without having to worry about file naming or other housekeeping. Recorder has clear benefits for those situations, meaning I see audio engineers as being more excited about this than most voice actors will be.

Another possibility is that it might simplify auditioning in some situations. You can “Conform” your audio to appropriate levels for submitting quick takes. However, as noted above, you cannot cut out a cough or flubbed word from the middle of that audio file. Even silencing the header and tail of the audio is currently not a function available in Recorder. Personally, I’d stick with Twisted Wave’s ability to efficiently clean things up and nudge timing where appropriate.

All of which sounds like I’m damning this with faint praise. I’m not. This is a very well rendered tool that solves a specific set of challenges. It’s worth playing around with so that you can reach for it with confidence should you need to do so.

A few more screen captures:

When you go to recorder.source-elements.com, you will be greeted by this splash screen. Simply click on “Continue” to log into or create your Source-Elements account.

Because it is browser-based, you’ll need to provide permission to your microphone. You may also see a second pop-up from the browser itself. Note that the audio is maintained locally at all times until you send it somewhere.

Once you give permission and choose the input device, you can also tune your input levels (this can always be done in real time when recording as well).

Then hit “RECORD”…

Each time you hit record, Recorder creates a discrete take. You can provide preferred naming for your audio and each subsequent take will automatically be numbered.

Posted 6/30/26

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