VO Studio Sparkle: A Little Practical Magic – Voiceover Studio Tech Tip

There’s a quote from Arthur C. Clarke which regularly comes to mind when working in the studio – “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That idea has given me solace when things aren’t working quite right on a given day: perhaps the internet was simply angry. 

It also helps to maintain perspective on how deeply one might want to dive down the VO studio tech rabbit hole. There’’s always a balance. While it can be fun to tinker around under the hood, there’s a point where rummaging around in the tiny parts becomes the whole point. If you are afraid to drive away from your house without a full tool kit and a few spare parts, I’d argue that the balance may have shifted in a way that is not truly helpful. 

The important step is to choose a path

Over the past decade of working with other voice actors, I’ve seen a wide variety of approaches. Some clients just want things to work every time and never want to know the “why.” Others want to know the deep details of each part of the process. Most work somewhere in the middle, learning enough to understand, but not afraid to hand off things here and there to the elvish magic that lives within our gear. 

One of my studio guidelines is to not watch my computer think. Any time I can set it to work, methodically fixing things on its own, provides a gift of time and focus back to me. Effect Presets, Macros, and Batch Processes all let the computer do the things it does well. I can move on to the things worth focusing upon, which often includes simply getting out of the booth and walking my dogs. 

A key characteristic for  a professional is the ability to replicate results. Hitting ACX delivery spec shouldn’t be a completely new task each time. Once we hone the practice, we don’t need to reinvent anything for next time. We can simply trust the elves to do their thing while we do ours. 

Invoking a dash of practical magic lets us continue to evolve our other skills. If we get the basics right, that becomes a reasonable option.

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