The Nth Degree: Avoid Rabbit Holes in the Home VO Studio

When we deliver audio directly to clients, our voiceover reputation is on the line. We naturally want things to sound as good as they possibly can. That’s a good thing.

Since the time I got involved with VO, the expectation of recording quality has only increased. Voice talent have ended up handling many of those technical tasks. When many studios shuttered, or limited access during the pandemic, most voice actors doubled down on their audio quality, invested in better setups, increased acoustic treatment, and created dedicated rooms or booths.

Still, many voice actors would rather just be working behind the mic, instead of struggling to master techniques that used to be solely the realm of an audio engineer. Few of us have the luxury of being able to hand our audio off to an engineer to clean up and edit. With today’s faster turnaround times, the extra time needed for that is not always an option. So we nestle into our comfy chair, pull on our engineer’s cap (optional) and end up having to squeegee clean our inspired performances.

Recently, there have been intriguing improvements in noise and ambience reduction tools such as Waves Clarity Vx, Acon Extract Dialog, and Accentize’s DX Revive, for example. Before that, Izotope’s Mouth DeClick tool (and their original noise reduction plug-ins) had become indispensable in most audio workflows.
If you are recording locally and delivering finished files to clients, then you’ve likely invested in a few of these tools to make things sound better.

However, in the pursuit of “better”, it’s easy to lose perspective and begin chasing “perfect.”

“Perfect” is an ideal. As such, it’s really not achievable. As I try to suggest to other voice actors in my recording classes, “perfect is boring…”

The human brain is a powerful tool. One of its best tricks is the ability to aim our auditory processing. In other words, we can “listen for” certain aspects of our audio. That’s a bit of a two-edged sword. While we become more focused on noticing certain flaws, we lose perspective on whether it matters any longer. 

In other words, we need develop a sense when things are good enough.

I’ve had voice actors send recordings and ask how to fix issues which had already been rendered imperceptible. I simply couldn’t hear the flaws. In many cases, we work longer simply to address smaller issues. It’s a classic instance of diminishing returns. This is just a reminder that shifting focus, taking a break, and even listening back a different way may help to restore a bit of balance to our editing process.

And…recognizing that once you’ve heard a flaw, it’s actually very hard to un-hear it.

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