VO Weekly Workflow: Diagnosis is in the Details

When digging into the details of any audio issue, terminology matters a lot.  Trying to describe what we’re hearing can be tricky. The specific words we choose may not precisely relate the necessary information.

Just describing the basics can be tricky. “Noise” in a recording can mean a lot of things. General random background noise differs from the specific crackles or pops that might be created by failing gear. The ever-present low frequency rumbles that emerge in most home recordings are quite different than hums or buzzes that might indicate motors or electrical interference sneaking up into the vocal range.

When we start talking about how things sound, it can get pretty squirrelly. I’m not saying that your recordings sound like squirrels, chipmunks, or any adorable woodland creatures. It’s that we are trying to use fairly imperfect language to describe something that relies upon one individual’s perception. Sometimes I’ve used the phrase “woofy” when trying to relate a bit too much low frequency content and have received polite chuckles and blank stares from other voice actors. Clearly a phrase that made so much sense to me didn’t necessarily translate to someone else’s experience.

In other cases, a simple tonal grunt or gesture confirms we understood exactly the imperfection that we had noticed. Communication is funny that way…

It’s helpful to keep that in mind when encountering advice out on various platforms. A number of common words often get used in less accurate ways. In a recent discussion, well-meaning individuals kept describing results as “boxy” when the actual issues related mostly to reflections caused by lack of proper treatment. While “boxiness” is a way of describing a particular type of comb filtering related to trapped waveforms cancelling out specific frequencies in a recording, it wasn’t the main issue in that case. It was just a poorly treated room that echoed. “Live” or “reverberant” would have more accurately described the problem.

Of course, when I write things like that, it feels like I’m being overly pedantic. But analyzing and describing the primary issues helps us to prioritize what to address first.

When VO’s have asked for help in creating extensive processing to sound better, rather than dialing in mic placement and room treatment to make the raw audio as good as it can be. Most are amazed at how much better things can sound before we even reach for those polishing tools.

Posted 7/7/26

If you have found this resource helpful or inspiring, please feel free to share or link to this resource using one of the buttons below. If you would like to receive these weekly posts directly to your email, you can sign up here.

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.