VO Mindset: Strong, Simple Connections – Tuesday Tech Tip

When I begin working with a new voiceover audio client, or begin teaching a class of new voice actors how to record themselves, certain steps can seem extremely basic. Practices like turning down all your inputs and outputs before turning off phantom power, or confirming position and distance from the microphone might feel at first to be overly meticulous.

However, one of the key ideas I always share with new clients, or VO recording students in my classes, is that while each individual step in the recording chain is generally simple, by the time you string everything together, you end up with a complex process. 

Distorted audio arises from a discrete set of conditions. Buzzing or glitching occurs for another set of reasons. In each case, you check for different causes. Keeping that in mind can help solve issues faster.

The cause/effect nature of an audio chain has a strong parallel to other parts of our creative practice.

The simplest of things tend to knock us off our stride. Most systems have a single point of failure – if one thing doesn’t work right, everything in the process stops. For example, a potential client offers a great opportunity but provides no audition script. They ask “…could you just send a sample from something similar?” Then a cold realization: you never cleaned up that bit of audio which would work as a perfect example. Maybe it’s in your sent auditions folder, the flash drive in your bag, or in the saved audio stored from a coaching session. Do you have the time to locate it? Could it be cleaned up? Can you get all that done before your other deadlines of the day begin to loom?

Or maybe you have audio labeled and ready to go, but listen back and suddenly choose to send nothing. You feel that performance isn’t “Perfect.”

Not having a sample ready is the result of avoiding the dull, unglamorous work: going back through performance notes to expand upon them, trying to distill deeper patterns, or consistently reviewing auditions looking for blindspots and tendencies. 

The second case – thinking that it needs to be vaguely “better” – seems to be a particularly dangerous trap. 

As we get better, we raise our expectations. What we did last year, last week, or even yesterday will likely not be as good as we hope to be tomorrow. Wanting improvement is a healthy thing, but it should not prevent us from putting the work out there today. 

Solve the things you can today. Get it out the door. 

If it fails, that’s also good thing. It refines your focus. It provides an opportunity to figure out the cause.

Each iteration makes the entire chain stronger. The whole system becomes more robust. We get better at getting better. 

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.