Good Audio Guidelines: How do I rate my VO sound quality?

Although working toward “better” sound from our voiceover setup is always a worthy goal, it can be a constantly shifting target. It may stir up nagging reservations about our equipment – whether it’s “pro” enough or capturing our performance accurately.

It’s easy to fall into a cycle of focusing on increasingly smaller audio issues, until we’re well past the point where things matter. That skews our perspective until tiny issues loom as large sonic events. It helps to realize that’s the way we’re wired. Analyzing problems and refining things keeps us alive and allows us to evolve. However, it can also lure us down into fixation.

To regain balance, it may help to reset things. Ask yourself a simple question:

Is this audio “good enough”?

“Enough” is a key qualifier. “Good enough” may be determined by the client or project. The technical demands of an 8 bit phone system file won’t be as stringent as a broadcast television narration. A little bit of general noise might not be noticed in a fully produced streaming spot with music and sound effects, but will likely be distractingly apparent over the course of a 7 hour audiobook. As voice actors we must understand the expectations of our genre and the various subsets.

If we are aware of those expectations, then we can focus on areas to address. That lets us move away from the general angst of not being enough.

Good Audio: What Matters in Our VO Recordings

Breaking things down into the following areas allows us to address specifics. In any new setup, I tend to work through these areas in this specific order:

Noise Floor
How much separation can we achieve between the sounds in our environment and our recorded voice? While there are the immediate interruptions of leaf blowers, motorcycles and delivery truck backup alarms, the main culprit is the steady sound of our space which we have learned to ignore. Computer fans, air conditioners, HVAC systems, and refrigerators all add to the hiss and hum living in our recordings. If we can get a 65 dB difference between those sounds and the peaks of our vocal recordings, that should give us a good buffer to work with. Once that difference gets much less than 50 dB, it’s likely going to be audible in our recordings.

Reflections

For voiceover, it’s hard to have a space that’s too acoustically dead. If you are getting any kind of trailing echo when you speak, it’s going to be very noticeable in your recordings. This is also influenced by how loudly you are performing. Louder means more acoustic energy in your space, which then returns to the microphone as echoes.

Resonance

This is the tendency of any enclosed space to find and reinforce certain frequencies. In any hard-walled structure, there will be wavelengths that fit perfectly in the space. That means that when we hit those “notes” in the room, they’ll tend to sound louder.

Recording Quality

These have more to do with the basic techniques of recording: performance energy, input settings, mic placement in the space, and distance from the microphone. All of these influence each other, so it’s best to work on one at a time.

Challenges of the instrument

By this point, we’ve probably eliminated all the systemic issues and can focus upon the details of mouth noises, sibilance, plosives, and other specific aspects of our vocal mechanics. Since we are the actual instrument, there are a number of physical approaches which may be helpful.

The Result: Does it sound like you?

After all of that, did we achieve what we set out to accomplish? That is, we’re not trying to sound like some ideal of a voice actor. We’re trying to accurately capture how we sound.

Keeping these areas in mind allows us to analyze which particular issue might be negatively impacting our voiceover recordings. Once fixed, we can get back to the acting, and enjoying our time in front of the mic.

This information recently went out directly to my email community.
If you would like to join in to receive those emails the day they publish, please take a moment to share your contact information through this sign up form.
Thank you!