VO Weekly Workflow: Recording On The Road

There seems to be an annual uptick of interest in travel-friendly recording gear each spring. That makes sense – narrators are heading to the Audiobook Publishers conference in New York City, voice actors of all stripes consider trekking to major voiceover conventions like VO Atlanta, and families start to plan vacations (which might not include lashing a StudioBricks booth to the roof of the car).

Whatever your plans, it helps to keep in mind that recording anywhere outside of your home setup can be an incredibly challenging task. There are specific gear items and software tools that can help. Before we get to that, I think it can be beneficial to ask a few questions:

Question 1 – Do you really need to be recording anything?

As self-employed creatives, we have limited amounts of energy in our lives. In the compounding cycle of developing clients and responding to opportunities, we can forget that stepping away and recharging will usually pay much bigger dividends than doubling down in response to immediate needs. If we continue to stretch the elastic, sooner or later, it will simply give out. Stepping away for a short period lets us come back to our auditions with renewed focus and vigor.

Many years ago, I found out quite by accident that contacting key clients a couple weeks before a vacation had a positive business effect. The most common response was “Before you go, here’s something to record…” which provided a nice little pre-break bonus. Granted, if you are the promo voice for a major network, that can be a bit of a different equation. But, that is why those gigs pay what they pay. Most of us don’t have that particular problem.

Question 2 – What are your recording delivery requirements?

If you are primarily submitting auditions or “one-off” deliverables, that means the audio needs to sound usable. However, certain clients or longer form projects
demand the recordings match prior work. Matching your home setup audio is VO Black Belt level stuff. Obtaining that level of consistency takes planning, comparison to reference audio, and a good understanding of your processing tools to dial things in on the fly when recording in unknown conditions.

While it may feel good to get a few more audiobook chapters done while traveling. It’s likely you’ll end up spending way more time in the mastering stage back at home, massaging that audio to sound the same as the work done in your main setup.

Question 3 – How are you traveling and how much stuff do you want to bring with you?

Even though you may be getting a break, acoustics don’t take the day off. A microphone and interface may be fairly compact, but the treatment panels in your booth probably won’t fit in your carry on bag. Remember all the steps it took to get your space sounding good? On the road, you are back at square one – dealing with environmental noise, resonances, and reflections within your space. Voice actors sharing photos of ironing boards and comforters, luggage racks and pillow forts, and all manner of ad-hoc solutions populate the social feeds during VO conventions. We become curiously good at sensing the weight of found fabric that will damp our space.

if you are driving and have space for it, transporting a portable acoustic setup like a Tribooth or a VOMO can be a good solution. Both of those offer decent treatment and pack down into relatively small sized bundles. Most importantly, they cover the voice actor on all sides, creating a consistent recording environment. Make sure to test things beforehand, taking the time to capture audio samples in that space and compare to your main setup, if applicable.

Next week, I’ll talk through what specific gear makes the cut for me. 

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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