Audio Recording

This is a beginner’s tutorial in making a voice over demo at home. I received an inquiry from an actor interested in creating his own voice over demo at home. Below are the details:

Hey, I found your site, and your recording tips are very helpful. I am also using Adobe Audition CS3 for PC. I use a laptop, and set up a small home studio. I am trying to record and mix my own demo cd and am having trouble mixing it to a professional quality. I have a few questions which I would love your help on, or maybe you’ve answered them and can direct me to the right link. 1) How do you get your voice to be the center of attention even with music and sound effects in the background?2) How do you move sound around to different speakers, to give it that 3d surround sound effect?
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Preparation of Voice over Demo Production:

First, you need recording software that is capable of creating a multi-track recording. You already have Adobe Audition CS3 so this won’t be problem. For other users that cannot afford this one, you can have Audacity which is free. The next step is the preparation of your voice over script. Then plan your voice over demo production. The most important part of this plan is how you would arrange your demo. For most demos, you might want to add a music background or sound effects so that your demo would sound as exciting and professional as possible. If you are not creating your background music/sound effects, make sure you secure a license from the copyright owner.

Recording your Voice over Tracks

1.) Launch your recording software and configure your sound device to record at 24 bit/ 96Khz sample rate, mono.
2.) Go to your recording software multi-track space and create a new project. Start recording your background music on the first track. Things to avoid:
a.) Avoid clipping the tracks while recording. Clipping means that the recorded signal hits above 0dB and will become red on your indicator.
b.) Avoid putting effects in recording. Effects are applied during mixing.
c.) Your wave should not exceed 0dB or else it is clipping.
d.) Record in mono 24 bit/96Khz.
3.) Then record your voice, read the script take note on the things to avoid based on the previous list.

Mixing your Voice over Demo for Best Results

“How do you get your voice to be the center of attention even with music and sound effects in the background”? The answer is to implement the following techniques during mixing:

a.) Panning
b.) EQ

Let’s illustrate how you will pan and apply EQ. Since you only record one track for your background music, you need to duplicate that and put it on the second track. Pan the original background track at +50(right) and the other at -50(left). The human voice should be panned in the center (Pan0). Then apply EQ. Below is the frequency spectrum of the audio.

This means that the background musical effects is dominant in the bass region <200Hz while the voice over is rich in 200 to 1000Hz frequencies. To increase clarity of the voice:

Cut -6dB on background music at 600Hz, Q= 1.0
Boost +3dB on voice over at 600Hz, Q=1.0
Low shelf filter at 200Hz on voice (filter bass frequencies on human voice because this won’t contribute significantly to the clarity)

Experiment on the amount of dB and Q to get the best results. What you are doing basically is cutting holes in the audio spectrum for the background musical effects where human voice should sit in. Aside from EQ, you can as well experiment with reverb, etc. But don’t put reverb on voice so that it would sound “upfront” in the mix. Finally adjust the levels of the track (faders) so that it sounds balanced. Use your ears to judge to assess quality. This is how the Adobe Audition multi-track would look like after the above settings are applied:

Mix down and Finalizing your Voice Over

You can then mix down the track. Normalize the results to 0dB to maximize volume. Use Voxengo R8brain to convert the 24-bit/96Khz audio to 16 bit/44.1Khz WAV. Finally use LAME MP3 encoder in Adobe Audition to convert 16 bit/44.1Khz wav to mp3 for distribution of your demo. Below are some voice over demo created using the above processes(not a real human voice over actors!):

Voice-over sample 1:

Voice-over sample 2:

Regarding your last question: How do you move sound around to different speakers, to give it that 3d surround sound effect? Adobe Audition does support multi-channel mixing that creates the 3D surround sound. You can read this guide as a start. I will write a detailed tutorial on this one soon.