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How to set up your remote VoiceOver Studio.

Advice for voiceover artists.

 

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In short, you'll need:

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• A large diaphragm condenser mic.

• An audio interface.

• A pop shield.

• An XLR cable.

• A boom arm to hold your mic.

• A modern Mac or PC with Google Chrome.

        THE SOFTWARE WE USE DOES NOT WORK ON WIFI, SO - 

• A WIRED internet connection​

• An acoustically dead space.

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Microphone

 

 You need a large diaphragm condenser microphone. There are lots, and they can cost fortunes,

but a simple choice is a Rode NT1a. These cost around £200 but can be found 

for less if you hunt around, and include a pop shield and a cradle to attach it to your mic stand.

The main advantage that the Rode has over other inexpensive mics it that it’s quiet – lots of

cheap Chinese mics on Amazon sound good but have low-level hiss in the background.

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The Rode NT1a comes in a bundle with a pop filter and a cradle to hold it, but you’ll need

an XLR cable to connect it to the interface, plus a boom arm to connect it to your table.​​​

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 If you want to buy a better mic, there’s no real point until you have the budget for

an industry standard mic like the Neumann TLM 102, but there’s no disadvantage to using the Rode

when you’re starting out– it’s a great mic.

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Audio Interface

 

A simple choice for a long time has been the Focusrite Solo – there are dozens

of similar audio interfaces on the market, but the Solo is tried and tested. This connects

to your computer with a USB cable. Remember to press the 48V button on the front - 
this provides power for the microphone.

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Note on USB Mics

 

These are essentially a mic and an audio interface built into one (e.g. the Rode NT USB) and are useful for Zoom conversations, but are below the standard required for professional work. Also, podcast mics (e.g. the Blue Yeti) are designed to record audio so that it sounds good on phones and tablets (where people mostly listen to podcasts) and aren’t suitable for voiceover. Similarly, broadcast mics (e.g. the Shure SM7) are designed to sound good when used in radio stations and live transmission, but that isn’t what we need when we record VO.

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Pop shield

 

 It’s easy to make a loud popping noise when you say the letter P into a mic, so we use pop filters

 to stop that happening. A pop shield is nothing more than a piece of nylon material stretched over a

thin frame that goes between your mouth and your mic. Here’s one.

 

 

Computer

 

Any modern computer that runs the latest version of Google Chrome will be fine, as long as:

 

• You can connect an ethernet cable from it to your router – more on this later.

• The computer's fan noise can’t be heard on the microphone.

 

Macs make everything easier for audio. You can buy a used M1 Mac Mini for £350 on Amazon that will be more than you’ll ever need. 

 

 

Router cable

 

This is the most important thing that you that can do to make sessions work smoothly, and is

worth explaining in detail, but fundamentally, the software you use to connect to the studio

(SessionLinkPro, Source Connect, Cleanfeed etc.) DOES NOT WORK ON WIFI.

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Engineers use a variety of apps to connect to you–SessionLinkPro, iPDTL, Cleanfeed, Source Connect Now/Nexus–and they’re effectively all the same. The engineer will send you a link which you’ll open in Google Chrome where you’ll normally enter your name, then choose your audio interface from a menu. They all use software within Google Chrome that is essentially what Google developed when it made Google Hangouts, an app like Skype that was designed for people chatting online. It was made for conversation, not high-quality audio recording. If your internet speed fluctuates (which it does constantly when connected on Wi-Fi) then it will degrade the quality of the audio slightly to keep the conversation consistent.

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This is great if you’re calling into a radio station for a news interview, but a disaster for VO sessions, as we may not notice that the quality has dropped. This becomes a huge problem, as commercials have to be reviewed before they’re put on TV or radio, and if the reviewer finds Wi-Fi glitches they’ll simply fail the commercial. The clients are obviously going to be unhappy if their ad can’t go on TV tomorrow, so –

 

YOU NEED TO CONNECT YOUR COMPUTER TO YOUR ROUTER WITH AN ETHERNET CABLE.

 

Any Cat 6 or Cat 7 cable will do – here’s one. It’s flat, too, so it can be hidden against skirting boards.

 

This has nothing to do with internet speeds, and everything to do with interference from phones, tablets, smart speakers, laptops, and countless other electrical devices inside and outside your house. If you consider that Netflix recommends a 15MB connection to watch streaming 4K video, you’ll see that having a 500MB Virgin fibre connection is irrelevant to what we’re discussing.    

 

VOs often tell me that they’ll record a back up, which is useful in some situations, but doesn’t help here.

There will be hundreds of edits and drop-ins in a live session, plus it’s common to compile a final take from earlier and later takes, so matching the glitchy audio in the studio with an hour-long audio file sent from a VO at the end of a session would take forever – the engineer might have to listen to the entire recording you’ve sent to find a single line.

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The only other version is called Source Connect Standard, which is an app that you install on your computer, not an app that runs within Google Chrome. This suffers the same problems with Wi-Fi, but a new version is imminent that will hopefully solve the issues mentioned above.

 

If your computer doesn’t have an ethernet port (the latest Macs don’t have one) then you need an

adapter. Look at the connections on the side of your laptop or on the back of your desktop, and if

there’s a hole for an ethernet cable, you’re ready to go. If not, you’ll have to buy an adapter,

depending on what sort of USB you have on your computer. One on this page will work on your computer. 

 

If you have an audio interface, an ethernet adapter and a few more USB devices that you

need to connect to your computer for VO sessions, then unplugging everything when

you want to take your laptop with you when  you leave your house is a hassle, so a

good idea is to find a USB hub. These are most use for laptops with only one or two

USB C ports (shaped like the pic to the right). 

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Connect your USB devices, your audio interface, your ethernet cable (the hub linked

above has an ethernet port so you won’t need a separate adapter) your external monitor cable

(if you have one) and laptop power supply to one of these, and then plug a single cable into your

laptop. Unplug it when you need to take your laptop somewhere, then plug it back in when

you return and everything will be ready to go. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Acoustic treatment​​

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Ideally, all VOs would have a proper voiceover booth, but with some effort you can make a decent recording space at home.

 

During the pandemic, the VO industry had to make do with what people had, and it was common to read in industry columns that a blanket over your head would kill the reflections in your room. Though this worked in some cases, it caused huge problems once the pandemic was over because new VOs were under the impression that that was all that was required. 

 

Draping heavy blankets around you can work, but consistency is also important. If the client wants  to record pickups, or wants to record another commercial for the same campaign, then it will be difficult to make your space sound exactly the same for the following sessions.

 

If you don’t have a booth, then the simplest way to make your recordings sound good is to sit with

your back to an open wardrobe full of clothes, with coats or blankets hanging on the inside of the

open doors. Throw a duvet over the top of the doors and the mic is now pointing into a completely

dead space – it’s important to realise that the acoustic treatment must be behind you, not behind

the microphone. 

 

Another method is to put acoustic panels in the corner of a room, and one above you on the ceiling –

the ceiling is the most reflective part of a room - and sit with your back to  to the corner.

Fibreglass acoustic panels absorb huge amounts of reflections and are much better than the

foam acoustic tiles you often see in home studios, which only affect high frequencies.

This video shows how effective panels are. 

 

One thing worth mentioning is that 'reflexion filters' like the pic on the right won’t do much

to stop reflections from bouncing into the front of the mic. Their purpose is to stop reflections from

going into the back of a mic, and they do nothing to stop  the sound bouncing off your

walls into front of the mic, where most of the sound is picked up - they should not be the 

only acoustic treatment you have..

Foam ball devices such as the Kaotica Eyeball do little to kill reflections either – the mic

is still pointing into an open space.

 

The gear mentioned above will be everything you need, but should you decide to upgrade,

you might consider making a permanent booth in your house. These are a  significant

investment, but give you a consistent, professional sound.  Examples of permanent  structures

are the WhisperRoom or Session Booth that cost thousands, or the Voctent Booth  will give

you similar consistent results but can be dismantled. All booths have the same dimensions,

so make sure you find a template online. If you build one with non-standard dimensions  you’ll

compromise the sound.

 

There are also booths like this one that you put on the table in front of you and you sit inside it with your mic. Many people use these, but I’ve found that they give you an overly bassy, closed-in sound that’s difficult to match with other recorded voices, so I wouldn’t recommend them unless you’re using it while travelling.

 

If you’ve got a lot of money to spend, then consider these:

 

Neumann TLM 102 microphone

Rode PSA1 boom arm

Whisper Room

Apple iMac

 

With a quiet space, the right gear and a little effort, you can make a great sounding VO recording space at home.

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