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Voice Over Home Recording: Wins and Woes




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Why do I say wins and woes?


If you're able to set up an effective home recording studio, you have the potential to be a successful voice actor. So that's a win.


Learning how to build a home recording studio and doing all the troubleshooting, purchasing, repurchasing, reinvesting, upgrading, educating, well, that could potentially be a woe.


With that in mind, here are some basics about how to turn your home recording woes into wins.


1. Work With An Audio Engineering Professional

There are a bunch of audio engineering professionals who specialize in working with folks like you and me who are just trying to record out of our home as a voice actor.


Keep in mind that nobody auditions in person anymore. COVID wiped that out. It has been over four years since I have done an in-person audition and I live in Midtown Manhattan.


When voice seekers are listening to your auditions, they're not just listening to your performance, they're listening to your home recording quality because if it's not any good, they're not gonna book you.


2. Figure Out Your Home Recording Environment

What kind of home do you live in? Do you have space to just purchase a $5 ,000 recording booth and have it get shipped in and assembled, and then you just step in and start recording? Do you have the money for that? Do you have the space for that? Can your floors bear the weight of that? And if you can't or won't do that for whatever reason, then you need to get creative.


I use the front closet here at my apartment, here in Manhattan, acoustically treated.


3. Acoustical treatment


Do you need Auralex foam? Do you need sound blankets? Do you need to construct PVS pipes to create the environment for you to acoustically treat?


4. Microphone Selection


In this Ask Me Anything video, George "The Tech" Whittam says that microphones are very specific to the vocal quality of the voice actor and the environment in which they are recording.


So for example, this Sennheiser 416 that I'm speaking into, this works great for me. It works great for me based on my vocal quality, but also there are ambulances and fire trucks and police cars and jackhammers and protests and all kinds of interesting things going on outside my window here in Manhattan.


The Sennheiser 416 has a very tight field, which means a lot of extraneous sound doesn't get into this microphone, that works well for me. That may not work well for you.


5. Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) Selection


I use Adobe Audition Creative Cloud 2024. I've been using it since Adobe Audition was Adobe Sound Booth, I think in 2006. It's pretty much the only DAW I've ever worked with. If you are already familiar with Pro Tools from a previous life or career or hobby, then use Pro Tools. You can use Ocen or Reaper too, but most people start out with Audacity.


And here is the affiliate link so you can get a discount for working with George The Tech! https://georgethe.tech/vos


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Tom Dheere

Through VO Strategist, Tom's provided voiceover business & marketing coaching since 2011. He's also a voice actor with over 25 years of experience who has narrated just about every type of voice over you can think of. When not voicing or talking about voicing, Tom produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.



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