Creating a professional voice over project on your own can be achieved using computer programs and tools. This will allow you to save on the cost of hiring a videographer or a production team. You just need to hire talents and have a script and you are all set to record.
However, you need to prepare extensively for your recording. Preparation is key to make your whole project seamless. Below are some tips you can use in preparation for recording a quality piece.
1. Test your equipments. Having your talents on standby waiting for a faulty equipment setup to be fixed will cost you time and even money if you book them by the hour. Make sure you get the right equipment for the job and test them well ahead of production day, says Jay Rose, the author of “Producing Great Sound for Digital Video”. You have to go as far as testing them hours before your actual production to make sure your project goes without a hitch.
2. Test a room for echoes. You can find out if a room creates an echo effect by doing some test records in it. Close all doors, windows and check all your equipments to eliminate or at least minimize echoes.
3. Consider using background music. In a professional voiceover, there should not be any noise between the narrator and the listener. You want to create an audio space that sounds as if the narrator is having a face-to-face conversation with the audience. If you have a lot of ‘white noise’, consider adding background music.
4. Search for your room’s recording sweet spot. Find the one position of your microphone in the room that will produce the best recording. There’s no actual system for doing this and you might spend some time in moving your mic around the room. Just remember that you don’t ever want to produce an empty or strained sounding record ever.
5. Don’t stress on ambient noises. A lot of things produce ambient noises and most them are out of our control. Ambient noises, e.g. outside traffic and chatter, don’t always go through your microphone. However, consider having a high-pass filter on your mic for a cleaner recording when these noises are gravely affecting your project.
6. Turn off fans and blowers. This will be an issue if you’re recording in a cramped room. Turn off computers, air conditioners and other devices with fans as these affect the air turbulence of a room. It does not mean you can’t use them, just turn them off when the mics are on.
You should also be able to monitor the recording throughout the production cycle using a pair of headphones. Take advantage of playback functions in a different room to make sure that everything is going smoothly; this will reduce the need to do another ‘take’ and can also help you address any problems with the audio quality right away.


