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blinkeve1826
Jul 26, 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW DEATH
Okay, so, remember this project from the last page?

General Battuta posted:

Hey, voice acting thread! I am here to POST A JOB. I'm coordinating voice work for the popular FreeSpace 2 mod Blue Planet. We shipped the game in 2010, and while it looked pretty great, our script was so enormous that we actually launched without any voice acting. People liked us a lot, and after a lot of fan harassment we're back to tackle the voice work.

Our project blurb :words:

Well, I am now casting it and all open roles are now paid, and all talent will receive IMDb credit. As General Battuta said, he's primarily seeking strong female voiceover talent, but there are a couple of minor male roles still open as well. If you're interested, please submit an audition as per the guidelines on the casting page here: http://www.listentomelanie.com/casting/blueplanetwarinheaven.html Please be sure to include your SA username in the email AND in the subject line so I can easily identify it among the several hundred other auditions I'm getting!

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The Earl of ToeJam
Jan 22, 2012
Didn't realize there was a voice acting thread here! I've been a professional VOA for almost 11 years. Here's my quick reading of Summerset Hills to get things rolling. Feel free to ask me anything about the industry; I'll answer to the best of my knowledge!

The Joe Man
Apr 7, 2007

Flirting With Apathetic Waitresses Since 1984

Funddevi posted:

Didn't realize there was a voice acting thread here! I've been a professional VOA for almost 11 years. Here's my quick reading of Summerset Hills to get things rolling. Feel free to ask me anything about the industry; I'll answer to the best of my knowledge!



Great beats A+ beats

RebBrownies
Aug 16, 2011

Anyone here willing to get a private message from me? I auditioned and was picked to do a voice over but it does contain some personal information that I don't want to broadcast, also this is the first voice over thing I have ever "booked" and I don't know if it is something I should put up on my acting website or if it is bad. :ohdear:

blinkeve1826
Jul 26, 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW DEATH

RebBrownies posted:

Anyone here willing to get a private message from me? I auditioned and was picked to do a voice over but it does contain some personal information that I don't want to broadcast, also this is the first voice over thing I have ever "booked" and I don't know if it is something I should put up on my acting website or if it is bad. :ohdear:

I will often open and forget about PMs but you're welcome to email me (melanie at listentomelanie dot com). Congrats! :)

RebBrownies
Aug 16, 2011

blinkeve1826 posted:

I will often open and forget about PMs but you're welcome to email me (melanie at listentomelanie dot com). Congrats! :)

Thank you so much!!!!! I emailed you! :)

Camo Guitar
Jul 15, 2009

blinkeve1826 posted:

Okay, so, remember this project from the last page?


Well, I am now casting it and all open roles are now paid, and all talent will receive IMDb credit. As General Battuta said, he's primarily seeking strong female voiceover talent, but there are a couple of minor male roles still open as well. If you're interested, please submit an audition as per the guidelines on the casting page here: http://www.listentomelanie.com/casting/blueplanetwarinheaven.html Please be sure to include your SA username in the email AND in the subject line so I can easily identify it among the several hundred other auditions I'm getting!

You're probably knee deep in working out who is possibly doing what at this stage but at a quick glance is there any male role you know you haven't had any applications for yet? Or is it best to voice what we'd like to go for and try our luck? :)

General Battuta
Feb 7, 2011

This is how you communicate with a fellow intelligence: you hurt it, you keep on hurting it, until you can distinguish the posts from the screams.
I think we had several thousand applications, so no, I don't think there's anything that hasn't been applied for yet. And yeah, I believe we're in the 'figure out who to cast' stage now.

blinkeve1826
Jul 26, 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW DEATH

General Battuta posted:

I think we had several thousand applications, so no, I don't think there's anything that hasn't been applied for yet. And yeah, I believe we're in the 'figure out who to cast' stage now.

The final tally is 2,644 submissions on Actors Access (in addition to a select few of my personal connections and a few hundred people within my own extended network to whom I reached out myself), though what that means is that 2,644 people saw the public casting call on Actors Access (along with some agents/managers on the semi-private Breakdown Services [only available to agents and managers]) and responded with a headshot and resume. Some clearly did so indiscriminately, obviously in the process of submitting their headshot and resume for EVERY SINGLE THING LISTED on Actors Access, and some did so having clearly read the breakdowns and identified characters for which they were appropriate. However, after specifying the audition instructions and putting the task of self-recording the auditions in the hands of the talent(s), we "only" received about 520-530ish auditions once, and after weeding out the ones that were anywhere from "terrible" to "good, but not right for any of the available roles", I selected about 140ish for further consideration. That number can expand if we need to consider additional prospects for a specific role, however (but is likely not going to happen for any of the male roles).

That being said:

Camo Guitar posted:

You're probably knee deep in working out who is possibly doing what at this stage but at a quick glance is there any male role you know you haven't had any applications for yet? Or is it best to voice what we'd like to go for and try our luck? :)

If you think you can really NAIL one/some of the characters and bring something REALLY interesting to it/them, then I would like to hear it. Please follow all of the guidelines on the casting info page specifically and include your SA username in the subject line. I will happily accept goon submissions (or any submissions, honestly) of this caliber until we are fully cast. Otherwise, for the male characters for sure we have more than enough submissions from which to choose, and really need to nail down our female characters.

WarpedNaba
Feb 8, 2012

Being social makes me swell!
I would've loved to work on that myself, personally. Freespace 2 was loving amazing and it deserves better than rusting away while Interplay fucks itself.

blinkeve1826
Jul 26, 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW DEATH

WarpedNaba posted:

I would've loved to work on that myself, personally. Freespace 2 was loving amazing and it deserves better than rusting away while Interplay fucks itself.

blinkeve1826 posted:

If you think you can really NAIL one/some of the characters and bring something REALLY interesting to it/them, then I would like to hear it. Please follow all of the guidelines on the casting info page specifically and include your SA username in the subject line. I will happily accept goon submissions (or any submissions, honestly) of this caliber until we are fully cast.

?

WarpedNaba
Feb 8, 2012

Being social makes me swell!
I'm afraid I don't really fit for anything you're asking to the point of nailing it. Especially if you believe you're well sorted for male roles.

The Joe Man
Apr 7, 2007

Flirting With Apathetic Waitresses Since 1984
SUCCESS

weirdsauce
Apr 25, 2010
Once again I'm mustering the courage to overcome my reticence and shyness and want to build a VO portfolio. While I don't know that I'm skilled enough to be a VO actor, I believe I have a good, sonorous (mellifluous even), voice that would be very good for announcements, narrations and readings.

But as I look at some of the scripts I've been writing (I want to build a portfolio of both original and other people's copy), and listen to what i've recorded, it feels a bit empty.

Solution? Musics. But where? There are a lot of creative commons music out there and none of them seem to be what I'm looking for.

So other VO folk, what do you use for background music? Similarly, if I'm doing an amateur piece to promote myself, can I apply Fair Use to sound clips in my portfolio?

Also, I searched for this answer but didn't find anything. Please direct me to these answers if they've been answered elsewhere.

Cubemario
Apr 3, 2009
What would really help is for you to give us a sample. I can't speak for everyone in the thread, but I won't bite. Your stuff could feel empty for other reasons. I'm of the opinion that if a read can't stand on its own, then there's something wrong with the performance. This is especially true of audiobooks which often include nothing but the reader's voice.

As far as Fair Use, that is a nebulous thing, and nobody really knows what it means. It seems to constantly vary, so it's best to avoid entirely.

While VO/VA are often used like they're the same thing, they really aren't. VO is typically reserved for audiobooks, announcements, some narrations, and commercial work in general. VA is playing a character in something, and is a lot like acting in theatre, or being on camera, but with just the microphone. Both areas bleed into each other, which is why they are often spoke of as the same thing, but I think for conversations like these, having a distinction is helpful.

It's best to avoid putting anything legally dangerous in anything you send to someone. You don't know what may happen, and there are people who will frown upon it, especially among certain circles.

As far as having a "good" voice goes, forget it. This is a highly subjective thing, and is commonly misunderstood when people look to get into the biz. Please refer to my post on the previous page for more information. In addition, a voice like David Attenborough's or Barry White's is not something everyone needs, and is by no means the benchmark. In commercial work especially, casters are often looking for the guy next-door, not the deep and bombastic voices.

You are also making a huge newbie mistake. You don't look to get work this early into it, you are far too green, and there are scores of people who will be better than you. This is the time to practice, not go out promoting yourself and apply for auditions. Getting into this business is long-term and requires planning. Going out and promoting yourself now can prematurely kill everything your working towards, and make it incredibly hard to get any future work. First impressions are everything.

Another important fact is that the "business" is you. Being a VO/VA is in reality, a self-employed and self-ran business. There is no place where you go to get employment, it's all contracted work. You are essentially fired after you finish your work.

If you are just seeing this as a hobby, that's perfectly fine, but don't expect to land any work while being a hobbyist, or even part-time. This kind of industry doesn't really accomodate hobbyists, the jobs (especially the best ones) are given to people who go full-time.

When you get to the point where you are absolutely confident and completely measure up to the best out there, AND have have reached a peak in your skill-level, that's when you spend a nice chunk of change on making a demo reel and go out there promoting yourself. Of course, I am only talking about professional stuff. Different story if it's just small stuff, and you should be doing those. As the thread pointed out, doing things for friends and family is a good idea and may lead to nice small opportunities.

As far as music goes, I've gotten most everything I need from this site https://www.freemusicarchive.org

There's plenty of great and useful stuff there, it just requires a lot of intense searching.

Another thing you need to be doing is RESEARCH. Can't emphasize that enough, you need to start listening to audiobooks and narration and everything you can get your hands on. You gotta listen to how the pros do it and take whatever you can learn from them. You also need to take advantage of the resources in the OP, such as http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/

This podcast largely focuses on VA itself, but is still completely applicable to VO. While there are differences between the two, they both require the same set of skills. Listen to every episode of this podcast, it's an extremely valuable resource, which I've learned much from.

I hope this helped, let me know if you have any other questions.

titties
May 10, 2012

They're like two suicide notes stuffed into a glitter bra

weirdsauce posted:

Once again I'm mustering the courage to overcome my reticence and shyness and want to build a VO portfolio. While I don't know that I'm skilled enough to be a VO actor, I believe I have a good, sonorous (mellifluous even), voice that would be very good for announcements, narrations and readings.

But as I look at some of the scripts I've been writing (I want to build a portfolio of both original and other people's copy), and listen to what i've recorded, it feels a bit empty.

Solution? Musics. But where? There are a lot of creative commons music out there and none of them seem to be what I'm looking for.

So other VO folk, what do you use for background music? Similarly, if I'm doing an amateur piece to promote myself, can I apply Fair Use to sound clips in my portfolio?

Also, I searched for this answer but didn't find anything. Please direct me to these answers if they've been answered elsewhere.

I asked this about a year ago as I was preparing for a VO project that I was working on:

blinkeve1826 posted:

If you were hired directly by the client and there aren't any middlemen/steps in between you and the client through which your recordings pass, then it's most likely the case that you're expected to handle all post-production (music, sound effects, editing, mixing, etc.) as well, as the client is expecting a finished product from you. However, if you're recording dry audio to send to them to work with, that's something a production team/facility/person should handle.

That being said, Kevin Macleod is now your new best friend. His website (http://www.incompetech.com) is one of the single best resources out there for royalty-free music that's actually good. AND it's free*. I know I've heard pieces VERY similar in style to the one you used in the demo, so poke around there for a bit and see what you find. Look for pieces labeled "uplifting" and/or "bright"; I think the first in particular will yield results that are close to the sound you want.

*He does ask for licensing fees and/or donations depending on the project/piece(s)/usage, which you should be eagerly sending him because the resource he is providing for creative professionals is definitely worth at LEAST what he asks.

In addition to this and some other great effortposts, Melanie / blinkeve1826 holds classes and does consultations and training. As I mentioned, I was preparing for some spots that I had written myself and that might have been voiced in studio. I booked a session with Melanie after her post, and she was attentive and encouraging. In a very short span of time she was able to show me that I could do things that were beyond my usual approach and delivery, and she was great about coaxing me out of any shyness I might have felt.

While I'm not someone who is normally shy, I am self-conscious about my VO work and I probably felt a lot of the things you do about reading and recording (especially in front of people). She was great about helping me feel comfortable with both expanding my range and performing in front of others. If you'd like to contact her, you can find her website at listentomelanie.com or you can probably catch her in the thread or something.

Also requesting a sample along with the poster above. Just putting something out here for us to listen to can feel pretty liberating, and you'll probably get some great feedback.

weirdsauce
Apr 25, 2010
Cubemario, this is something i churned out a bit ago. It's just a quick demonstration of my voice.

Ishamael
Feb 18, 2004

You don't have to love me, but you will respect me.

weirdsauce posted:

Cubemario, this is something i churned out a bit ago. It's just a quick demonstration of my voice.

You have a very nice tone, with some practice I can definitely see you getting plenty of work. And you have a nice natural delivery, if you work on your enunciation and pacing you will be most of the way there.

For music, if you can't find any free tracks you like, you can invest $40 per track and get some tracks from premiumbeat.com. You really only need a few tracks to use as backing for your demo reel.

EDIT: Do I detect an accent there? There are a couple non-neutral vowel sounds but I can't quite place you.

EDIT 2: It's the word "tonight" and "lights" that sounds southeastern, I think. Carolinas?

Ishamael fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Apr 16, 2014

weirdsauce
Apr 25, 2010

Ishamael posted:

EDIT: Do I detect an accent there? There are a couple non-neutral vowel sounds but I can't quite place you.

EDIT 2: It's the word "tonight" and "lights" that sounds southeastern, I think. Carolinas?

There's no accent; none that i know of at least. From a very early age, i was ashamed of how Texans were portrayed and especially their accents as portrayed on the television machine. I grew up deliberately avoiding any twang whatsoever. The irony is that i enjoy hearing it when i go back to Texas (I expatriated to the Pacific NW 11 years ago)and there is nothing more seductive to me than a woman with a Georgia accent. Thick as butter and as sweet as honey.

Thank you for the feedback. And you're right- I definitely need coaching.

The Joe Man
Apr 7, 2007

Flirting With Apathetic Waitresses Since 1984

Added to OP because hot drat

WarpedNaba
Feb 8, 2012

Being social makes me swell!
A fair thing to note is that you can always land small gigs here on SA. I've done voicework for mods, kickstarter narrations, LPs and such. Be a good goon and do it for peanuts if you're into it for a hobby.

It's good exposure work, and most goons are happy to at least stop their accountant complaining by gifting you a game or two via steam as payment.

titties
May 10, 2012

They're like two suicide notes stuffed into a glitter bra

Speaking of goon projects that you don't get paid for, where's JossiRossi? I thought we were doing a radio play last year.

Cubemario
Apr 3, 2009

weirdsauce posted:

Cubemario, this is something i churned out a bit ago. It's just a quick demonstration of my voice.

I wanted to wait until I wasn't incredibly tired like I was yesterday. Now that I'm actually alert, I'll give my thoughts.

You have some good natural skills going for you. I guess I don't have to say a lot the obvious stuff. The big stuff will just be resolved through a lot of practice.

As far as what your voice is and isn't suited for, I cannot say. It's really something that requires a lot of time to find out. I wish I could be more specific, but there's only so much I can get from a short sample.

The Joe Man posted:

Added to OP because hot drat

Glad you liked my post, I'm pretty hesitant to even post here because I'm not a pro myself, and have a long way to go. I've had some bad experiences when I'm outspoken on this site, so that's also why I've lurked for months on this thread. Most of the advice I gave out was just stuff I learned from professionals online, and a little from my own experience. I'm still in the early phases as well. Learning to enunciate better, work the mic better, and most important of all, read out loud.

I find that when I read things out loud on mic, I make a lot of mistakes. So I don't really want to step outside my bounds when I'm still doing things like that.

There's an odd method for practice that I often use, because I find I don't have enough interesting or funny things to read out loud. I also like to make projects, because it keeps me motivated and I can establish clear goals that way. It may or may not help some of you, but it's certainly helped me. That is reading fanfiction out loud, on the mic.

While there may be people out there who'd have objections, there's numerous reasons why it's helped me.

1. It's fun (at least for me). I think this is the most important part of getting better at anything, if you're not having fun, then it's a chore, and you are bound to not give it your best.

2. It's flexible. You get to drop into multiple genres and settings, allowing you to experiment with many different things. Some of them are also extremely long and some are incredibly short. In addition, there's practically an infinite amount of it, so you never run out of material you can use.

3. It's hilarious, and something you could easily share with others, even your friends and family, or goons!

4. It teaches you to analyze text better, and gets your critical thinking skills to work. By and large, these are mostly terribly written (some worse than others) and it gives you a challenge. How can you make it sound as good and professional as possible? Remember, as someone in VA/VO it's your job to make whatever your reading jump off the page and resonate with the listener. According to anyone in the biz, you are going to get bad copy that you will have to read. Being already used to reading bad copy and making it work the best way you can, can only be helpful.

So overall I'd encourage people looking for more practice, and perhaps want to switch things up a bit, to give this a try. I will add though, that you probably won't get anything out of it unless you approach the reads professionally. Treat whatever fanfiction you choose to read as if it were a radio play, an audiobook, or whatever you want to call it. Pretend it's a masterpiece, don't add in your own thoughts, don't chuckle, extra points if you read spelling errors verbatim. You may be surprised by what you may get out of it.

As for myself, I have a Youtube channel that features theatrical/audiobook style reads of fanfiction I've been working on. I won't post it here though, unless it's okay.

Cubemario fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Apr 17, 2014

The Joe Man
Apr 7, 2007

Flirting With Apathetic Waitresses Since 1984

Cubemario posted:

Glad you liked my post, I'm pretty hesitant to even post here because I'm not a pro myself, and have a long way to go.

While those of us who do this regularily already know the information you posted, it was a very good summary of realistic expectations for a newcomer.

So, keep posting :)

JossiRossi
Jul 28, 2008

A little EQ, a touch of reverb, slap on some compression and there. That'll get your dickbutt jiggling.

titties posted:

Speaking of goon projects that you don't get paid for, where's JossiRossi? I thought we were doing a radio play last year.

Still here! Had a fair bit going on to distract me lately. I'm still totally willing to edit a project down and help organize but we do need a script. I'd love to do an original story but I'm really not all the strong a writer/adapter.

But if we can nail down a script for say a half hour finished audio piece I can handle the editing.

blinkeve1826
Jul 26, 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW DEATH

JossiRossi posted:

Still here! Had a fair bit going on to distract me lately. I'm still totally willing to edit a project down and help organize but we do need a script. I'd love to do an original story but I'm really not all the strong a writer/adapter.

But if we can nail down a script for say a half hour finished audio piece I can handle the editing.

Arurhguhugh this sounds awesome. I would potentially be down.

titties posted:

In addition to this and some other great effortposts, Melanie / blinkeve1826 holds classes and does consultations and training. As I mentioned, I was preparing for some spots that I had written myself and that might have been voiced in studio. I booked a session with Melanie after her post, and she was attentive and encouraging. In a very short span of time she was able to show me that I could do things that were beyond my usual approach and delivery, and she was great about coaxing me out of any shyness I might have felt.

While I'm not someone who is normally shy, I am self-conscious about my VO work and I probably felt a lot of the things you do about reading and recording (especially in front of people). She was great about helping me feel comfortable with both expanding my range and performing in front of others. If you'd like to contact her, you can find her website at listentomelanie.com or you can probably catch her in the thread or something.

Wow, thank you so much for the kind words. Weirdsauce, if you are looking for private training, I'd be happy to talk with you further--shoot me an email (melanie at listentomelanie dot com). You have a lovely voice, but we will need to train you out of sitting in that vocal fry!! There's SO much more you can do with what you've got!

For those of you who are in the NYC area, I'm actually teaching two free voiceover classes tomorrow in NYC to promote my upcoming weekly Voiceover Sampler Class starting on Monday, May 5th, which I've recently improved to include pretty much anything one could want in a voiceover class and it's going to be amazing. I'm also teaching two free voiceover classes next Wednesday, the 23rd, to promote my next round of my Audio Production for Voiceovers class starting on Wednesday, May 7th, and my next animation VO class with Darren Dunstan, casting director at 4K Media (Yu-Gi-Oh and more), is on the 28th, and has four spots left.

WarpedNaba
Feb 8, 2012

Being social makes me swell!

JossiRossi posted:

Still here! Had a fair bit going on to distract me lately. I'm still totally willing to edit a project down and help organize but we do need a script. I'd love to do an original story but I'm really not all the strong a writer/adapter.

But if we can nail down a script for say a half hour finished audio piece I can handle the editing.

Count me considering to lend support, if needed.

weirdsauce
Apr 25, 2010
I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge and thank Cubemario, Titties and Melanie / blinkeve1826 for each of your input (especially Cubemario).

In other news, my setup is very basic- a Snowball microphone and Audacity. Today while dinking in Audacity, i put the microphone about an inch from my mouth instead of the usual 8 to 11 inches. The difference was... significant. I'll share some results once i have something worth sharing.

Again, thank you for your time, your honesty and your input.

Lord Waffle Beard
Dec 7, 2013

CaptainYesterday posted:

It turns out I make a bad Ric Flair!



In the same vein, heres my try at Degeneration X

Cubemario
Apr 3, 2009
One thing the OP doesn't really touch much on, is EQ and compression, and overall just "audio processing". I'm still looking around on the internet about this, but does anyone know of any good guides out there? I'm not really sure how you go about using all this stuff.

titties
May 10, 2012

They're like two suicide notes stuffed into a glitter bra

Cubemario posted:

One thing the OP doesn't really touch much on, is EQ and compression, and overall just "audio processing". I'm still looking around on the internet about this, but does anyone know of any good guides out there? I'm not really sure how you go about using all this stuff.

From the OP:

JossiRossi posted:

Note: Holy poo poo. Just burned my food writing this. I did not plan to spend like 20 minutes here. Most of this is off of memory, so anyone who bothers reading this and finds problems let me know and I'll fix it.

***************************
When you are trying to edit or fix audio remember that there is no magic "make x stop" function. I highly recommend you learn what the tools you are attempting to use actually do.

Gating: Gating is a tool that "opens/closes" your audio. You can do full gating where when open the sound flows through fine and when closed no sound exists at all. Removing fan noise with gating is not removing fan noise, it is just lowering the volume to nothing once the overall volume reaches a set level. You can also do partial gating which just lowers the volume further upon reaching a particular level, but not fully removing it.

Compressing: Compressing can do a lot of things depending on how it is used. You have several variables with compressing and frankly I still struggle with keeping my head wrapped around it. The basics are that you are setting a thresh hold, for instance -20 dB FS (deci-Bells Full Scale, which runs from 0 to -infinity). When the volume increases above -20 dB the compressor kicks in. It will attenuate the volume based on a set ratio. 1:3 is a common starting place, 1:10 is hitting it pretty hard. So all sound's above -20 dB will be essentially cut down to one third. This allows you to raise the overall volume up to a higher level.

Compressors are used to make subtle sound qualities become audible. Normally in your voice only the loudest parts are heard. Here you can make the louder parts quieter, and the quiet parts louder all focused around that thresh hold. So when you compress you level out the louder parts and bring everything else up to compensate for the lost dBs.

Equalizers: You didn't mention them but they are valuable as well. Let's say you hear a high pitched whine wither from poor equipment, or room noise, or any number of reasons and want to remove it. If you can analyze the audio to see the frequency patterns or can use a Real Time plugin (which I don't believe audacity has unfortunately) you can attempt to find the offending noise. If you get a graphic visualization of the frequencies it'd be on the high end and probably not much else around it. Take not of this frequency.

You then open of the equalizer. There are two kinds. Graphic EQ and Linear EQ. Graphic EQ is typically used in physical equipment and it's inclusion into the digital age is a bit anachronistic but to each their own. Linear EQ will present you with a straight line. In Audacity you can then effect this line by adding new points to the line. DO NOT GO CRAZY WITH YOUR EQ. It's an easy way to gently caress things up. Only use it if you know what you want to accomplish. Don't go in and say "I want to make my voice BIG" and then start drawing all over.

In the example given you'd go in and make a new point on the line right before and right after the high pitched whiney noise. Then on the whiney noise you draw and drag a new point down lowering the volume at that section. This is hyper simplified and the actual complexities of hoe Equalizers work is well beyond my ability to explain, but for basic purposes you are now cutting that particular frequency range out. Try not to remove it entirely. It is always best to cut as lightly and as little as you can manage as it will have unexpected and really negative effects if you cut too much or too wide a range. But feel free to experiment. You can take a look at Audacity's built in examples and hear how it changes things to get an initial feel for how it works.

Why did I just talk about EQ so much? You wanted to remove fan noise. Fan's often put out low end noise over a very broad frequency range. As such removing the fan noise with EQ will most likely remove the same frequencies as your vocal range.

Signal Flow: This is not so much a tool as a mental map of what you are doing. It typically goes like this.

Source -> Microphone -> Pre-Amp -> Tape (recording) -> Monitors (speakers) or Headphones

Knowing how each of these steps affects your recording is vital. The source includes your voice in this case, but also the room you are in. As you emit sounds they bounce around the room and echo. I once has a room where if I snapped my fingers I could hear the sound bouncing for a full 5 or more seconds. Needless to say my mic picked those resounding frequencies up. Rooms also respond to particular frequencies. You know how a guitar is hollow to allow sounds to build up and be reflected back out increasing volume and giving the guitar certain sound properties? Your room works the same way. Your source is also fans, street noise, ect.

The Microphone will have certain pickup patterns and frequency ranges. Your manual will state this information and should give you some graphs as well. Read this. In fact read the whole manual. I'm a tried and true "no manual" guy, but gently caress if I don't try to memorize my microphone info. The mic will affect a lot of things and knowing the pickup pattern will help a lot. Many mics pick up sound from in front of and directly behind the mic very well, so placing the mic close to a wall is a bad idea as it will pick up vocal reflections.

Pre Amplifiers are what bring the signal power up to usable levels. It takes your existing signal and amplifies it. Pretty simple. Except they hate you. A poor pre-amp will introduce noise and static, or will also amplify actual interference. I have some good equipment that is very finicky to use thanks to noisy pre-amps. There's also something about microphone impedance and pre-amps but I'm not smart enough on that one to be honest.

Finally recording, some similar issues to pre-amps, but in our case it's all digital. Ah, almost forgot. Here's where we go from analog to digital. An Analog to Digital converter is needed, this is typically unseen, but happens and should be considered. This is where Hz comes in. This is your sampling time. 48K Hz. 48 thousand times a second your nice and neat sound "waves" (they actually wave up and down, like on an oscilloscope. That's what is pouring out of your mic and pre-amp) your nice analog electrical waves are slashed up 48 thousand times a second and then looked at. Technically you no longer have a wave but many points of varying electrical strength. Also for note 48k Hz is typically for TV and Movies. It is when it will be integrated to video. 44.1K Hz is for music.

Then finally speakers/headphones. The output will be colored by your equipments ability to replicate the signal being sent. If your signal was Analog your speakers basically move in and out smoothly following the waves of your captured sound. When a sound is loud and fast your speakers move in and out really far very quickly. Quiet and low, the drums of the speakers move in and out a little bit and comparatively slowly. This will agitate and force the air to move as it would if the sound was being created by the actual source i.e. your voice. We don't have waves after A to D conversion though. We have a series of sustained force at 48 thousand times a second. So the speaker will bump out to it's location and hold until the next sample and then jump to the new level. This happens so fast though we have absolutely no idea. The human mind can not perceive individual acts at 48k a second, so we perceive it as a flowing sound.

NOW! You are thinking about flow. Good.

Effect flow is equally important. You need to combine all of this. What does the tool ACTUALLY do. How will that effect what my next tool does?

In your case you compressed a sound, thus making the overall recording louder. Most all of it. Then you attempted to Gate. Gating works best when there are clear differences in the levels of sounds. You destroyed that with the compressor.

If you Gate first, you remove (or lessen) intermittent fan noise, but then later compressing can bring this right back unless you make sure it is set not to.

I personally EQ once to remove bad sounds. Such as a low rumbling or high pitched whine. This cleans the recording slightly for the next tools. I would then use the Gate to close when the levels drop below my speaking voice. This means that ideally when you Compress, you are only raising the overall volume of the spoken parts. Then if you feel the need to alter your voice(and please for the love of god don't) try to boost some frequencies with a final EQ pass. But seriously, just don't.

FINALLY

Tools, no matter how good, intuitive, or stupid proof will never, ever replace the most valuable thing a vocal artist or recording engineer can have and that is an acoustically clean work space.

Alternately, if you are near Boston you can just pay me to worry about all this poo poo for you.

More from JossiRossi:

JossiRossi posted:

You have to be really careful with noise removal. It's not a silver bullet even with a good clean chunk of your noise.

This is a total guess at how it works, but what appears to happen is you analyze the sound section. You get frequencies and intensity. So how it sounds and how loud. Then when you remove the targeted sounds from the whole recording, the ideal is that you have now mathematically removed just the "noise".

But, your recording probably has static and frequencies from all across the range, which have been picked up into the noise profile. So the more "fan" noise you try to remove the more you are affecting portions of your recording you DON'T want to.

So yes you can use the noise removal tool if you are very careful, but you are going to negatively affect your initial recording. It all goes back to my gigantic rant, specifically when I talk signal flow. You are affecting the entire recording (and any time you put your audio through a tool, plugin, or physical gear you affect EVERYTHING. Putting your audio through a tool with all the settings off or on zero will still change it.


If you're ever around, buy me a beer and we can call it even. I was having more fun writing stuff I remembered off the cuff than worrying about food anyway. I'll even record you if you feel up to it. My studio is ghetto as hell but I love getting to put it to use on things other than myself.

Cubemario
Apr 3, 2009
All of that are just terminologies or advice and saying "This is what this does" not a "this is how you use it". I'm looking more for a straight up guide that tells me how this stuff works.

Don't get me wrong, that info is useful, but it doesn't tell me how to use all the controls, what those controls do, and how these things work.

I guess I'm looking for some major nerdy stuff that goes real in-depth.

Cubemario fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Apr 23, 2014

titties
May 10, 2012

They're like two suicide notes stuffed into a glitter bra

There aren't really hard-and-fast rules for this. Your equipment, setup, room quality, and approach are all factors that are going to help determine what sort of editing and audio treatments you're going to need. There have been a ton of times where I recorded something, and after listening to it again I decided that something needed to be re-read. Even though it had only been a few minutes since my last read and none of my settings were changed, I would still wind up with recordings that had noticeably different properties than the ones I had done just before.

While finding a guide that gives you the exact procedures, settings, and levels that you're going to need for your exact recording situation is probably not going to happen, here are some tutorials from Youtube to help familiarize you with how to use some of the settings and effects in Audacity, which I am going to assume you are using:

Amplification, compression, & Normalization

Standard compressor explained

Dyson compressor, mixing files

How to get a professional sounding mix

Cubemario
Apr 3, 2009
I actually use Audition, but thanks for that info, they are pretty much the same functions. I guess it's all just really subjective. Going by those videos though, it wouldn't seem like there's much I need to do on my recordings. Most of my volume comes in really consistent already. In fact, the main problem I'm running into is reducing or eliminating mouth clicks. Which has sparked many conversations already through a quick google search.

It seems that the true and tried way to deal with them, is preferably during the recording, and apparently an experienced VA has good enough diction that prevents these from being a major problem. Would this be the proper consensus? This mouth clicking is especially a problem with my recordings because I use an MD421-II (dynamic mic) and obviously need close proximity due to the pickup pattern. I prefer dynamic because I have an incredibly unclean acoustic area (my bedroom) and I live in a house with noisy people. So condensers are not something I'll return to any time soon. I just wish I could get the clicking heavily reduced during recording, because it takes me a lot of time to edit it out, and I'm probably not doing a very good job of it (due to ignorance with audition).

I've tried stuff like "don't consume dairy" and "use granny smith apples". The dairy thing has certainly helped, but is not a full solution. Granny smiths are a very short term fix for me, and don't do a lot to mitigate it.

Would love the thread's thoughts, thanks for all the great help so far.

blinkeve1826
Jul 26, 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW DEATH
I'm like 98.3% sure that your issue is hydration. You need to stay properly hydrated regularly--not just during, or even right before, a recording. This is a lesson I have learned (and still learn) the hard way sooooo many times. Eight glasses of water a day becomes a lot more realistic when you realize that's only 2-3 bottles of water and you're, you know, taking constantly. Have a glass of water at a MINIMIM half an hour before you start recording, but that'll only work if you're consistently hydrated anyway so your body is already accustomed to it and 1) your mouth/throat will be appropriately lubricated, and 2) you'll be used to it so you won't have to deal with a sudden...bladder adjustment.

Cubemario
Apr 3, 2009
Sounds great, thanks! I should drink more water, and get myself accustomed to that level of consumption. I most certainly am not drinking eight glasses worth a day.

blinkeve1826
Jul 26, 2005

WELCOME TO THE NEW DEATH
:siren:Please read this and let me pay you money to write things:siren:

As most of you know by now, I teach voiceover classes, and I need some new commercial voiceover copy for my students to use. I have a number of commercial spots I've written myself and royalty-free scripts that I've been using, but I and my students are getting sick of them. What I need is mostly :30 second commercials of varying types, for a variety of voice types and age ranges (though primarily 20s-30s male and female actors), perhaps with some :10 and :15-second tags thrown in there. They do need to emulate the sheer variety of commercials that currently air--comedic, dramatic, self-aware, talking animals, casual language, serious subject matter, restaurants, stores, products, etc. with a slight bias towards comedic copy. However, as long as they sound like real, current commercials, you have a LOT of freedom as to their actual content. (I can send you some samples if you'd like.) Please shoot me an email at melanie(at)listentomelanie(dot)com with your info, including at least your proposed pay rate and samples. (Also include both your real name and your SA username so I know who you are!) Would love to have this done within the next few days!

Edit: I mainly need commercial copy right now, but we could certainly also use more copy of other types. I would love to find excerpts from already-existing works of the following types whose creators would like to hear them brought to life by my students:
-Animation (from the amateur-ist flash animation to student films to anything with a character who speaks, really)
-Video games (from the amateur-ist RPG Maker games to iOS apps to full-fledged releases)
-Comics (We just need characters and accompanying dialogue, basically, since in pre-lay animation voiceover you don't see the fully-animated work when you're recording anyway)
-Books or other written works (Fiction, non-fiction, narratives, novels, comedy, mystery, romance, short stories, finished or not--basically, anything that could be turned into an audiobook

blinkeve1826 fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Apr 28, 2014

titties
May 10, 2012

They're like two suicide notes stuffed into a glitter bra

blinkeve1826 posted:

write a thing

I've carefully drafted an e-mail and sent it to you see how good i write

Endless Trash
Aug 12, 2007


Has anyone in the LA area ever taken classes at The VoiceCaster in Burbank?

I received a pretty glowing recommendation from a coworker and gave the site a read through and it sounds interesting but I'm wondering if it's one of those places that takes your money and sends you out with a false sense of preparedness as routinely warned against in this thread.

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Camo Guitar
Jul 15, 2009

blinkeve1826 posted:

:siren:Please read this and let me pay you money to write things:siren:

Email sent :)

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