ENVIRONMENT

The single best thing you can do to improve the quality of your voiceovers is to prepare the appropriate environment:

1. Make it QUIET:
   1. To start off with, turn off everything electronic that you can. This includes, fans, A/C, TVs, computers, etc. This includes items in nearby rooms (you’d be surprised how much a microphone can pick up).
   2. If you can’t turn something off (like a refrigerator, for example), then get as far away from it as possible. In an office building, listen for heat or A/C kicking on and off and try to record when they aren’t running.
   3. Close all windows and doors. Birds chirping and wind rustling through trees can be easily picked up by your microphone.
   4. If you’re in an office environment, try to go into a quiet office and record when as few people as possible are around (like during lunchtime).
   5. OPTIONAL: If you really want to go all out, hang blankets around you. They will absorb echos.
2. Be aware of your surroundings: This goes hand-in-hand with the first point. We are so used to blocking out everyday noises, that we often don’t hear things that are really obvious. For example, if a garbage truck is backing up outside the building you’re in you probably won’t even notice the beeping that their backup alarm makes. But if you listen for these noises, you’ll be able to hear them and can make adjustments (like waiting until the garbage truck is gone) before recording.

DELIVERY

Now let’s talk about some tips when doing the voiceover:

1. Distance: Keep your recording device about 6 inches from your mouth.
2. Plosives: In voiceovers there are these things called “plosives”. These are little bursts of air that come out of your mouth when you saying certain things. The most common of these is caused when saying the letter “p”. These explosions of air cause distortions that really can’t be fixed. People typically resolve this issue by using a “pop screen” or “pop filter”. If you have one of those, please use it. If not, you can try and go without, but new recordings may be required if there are plosives. If you want to avoid that, and you don’t have a pop screen, then consider holding a pen or pencil vertically directly in front of your mouth (not quite touching your lips). It may seem goofy, but this method is as effective as a pop screen.
3. Get a noise print for the room: When you first start recording, stand perfectly still and don’t make a sound for 10 seconds. If you are holding the recording device in your hand (like a phone) consider setting it down before doing the 10 seconds. I cannot express enough how important it is to get this 10 seconds of quiet. It enables me to get a “noise print” of the ambient noise in the room which I can then usually remove, making for a cleaner recording.
4. Talk naturally: Try not to be intimidated by what you are doing. Voiceovers are fun!! Just be yourself and you’ll do great! Some people even find it helpful to have another person in the room so that they can pretend they are talking to that person and not really recording themselves.
5. Smile!: Yes… People can hear your smile, so unless your voiceover is for a funeral home, make sure you try to smile.
6. Don’t worry about messing up: Everybody flubs lines! EVERYBODY! So don’t worry about it if it happens to you (it will). If you mess up what you are saying just stop, take a breath or two, go back to the beginning of the sentence you were reading, and start over. Do NOT start over in the middle of a sentence (this will mess up your inflections) do NOT forget to take a breath before starting the sentence over (this will almost certainly cause you to talk too fast), and do NOT stop recording (this just creates a nightmare of way too many files). And again, do NOT worry about mistakes. You may make the same mistake 10 times before you finally get it right. This happens to everyone! If it happens to you, do NOT get frustrated. Just take longer breaks or your viewers may hear the frustration in your voice.
7. Embrace editing: As mentioned, mistakes happen. But that’s what editing is for! If you don’t like how you say a line, just skip a beat and say it again. The editor can then pick which one they feel sounds the best.

A FEW MORE THINGS

Here are a few last nuggets of wisdom for you:

1. Time of day: Try not to record in the first few hours after waking up in the morning. Your voice does change during this time as it wakes itself up. Also, don’t record after a long day. Listeners will be able to hear the fatigue in your voice.
2. Stay hydrated: Drinking lots of water slowly through the morning before your recording will help your voice. It will also remove something called “mouth noise” which are tiny pops that can be captured by a microphone. And don’t guzzle water right before recording. This is as bad as not being hydrated at all.
3. Green apples: This may sound super weird, but if you aren’t properly hydrated and you want to avoid “mouth noise”, just take a bite of a green apple every few minutes as you record. This will magically remove all mouth noise.

That does it! I hope you found these “best practices” helpful. And if you feel overwhelmed… Please don’t. The above information is just there to help guide you to the best possible recording.