How to Produce Voice Over’s that don’t suck part IV: Editing and Post Production
Before we get started though, I’d like to write a small disclaimer. Audio engineering is far more art than science and the way that I present some of my “solutions” here will not work for everyone nor for every situation. There is a great deal of experimentation involved for both the novice and professional alike. Also, technology differences (different software, hardware, etc.) in your setup will affect the choices and tools you use. Finally, I’m assuming some basic knowledge of how these programs work and instead going to focus on sort of a “tips and tricks” approach. That being said — let’s get started!Here we go! — Volume Automation
At this point, we’ve assumed that you’ve recorded some VO (Voice Over) and at this point just need to massage the sound a bit as to make it more pleasing to the ear. For your entertainment, I’ve included part of a voice over from Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa
Not “bad”, but it could use a little work. In fact, it actually had a little work done as far as levels. Are concerned before I bounced this clip for you to hear. Chiefly, I used some volume automation to lower the harshness of some of the constants that this actor performed. A lot of audio engineering is taking a great performance that has just a few issues and “saving it”. This was one of those times. You can see in the screen shot below some of the automation that was inserted. (The yellow line across the large waveform).
It should also be worth pointing out from the image above, that the way the entire session was constructed was purposeful. There were around 25 VO’s in WTVA that all had similar background fx and music. So, to construct the session, I created a track for each VO that was going to be recorded and then laid in the background fx and music on seperate tracks. In this way, without opening and closing a new project every time, I could record one VO after another. When it comes time to bounce the track to a stereo file, I simply “solo” the music/fx and the VO I’m bouncing and the rest of the VO is muted.