Making better narration - I'm not Morgan Freeman

Rich Parry wrote on 2/14/2010, 7:10 PM

I posted this on the SF Forum, but thought it helpful if I posted here as well.

I wasn’t born with a voice like Morgan Freeman, but I’d like to sound as best as I can with what I’ve got. I’m making an amateur documentary using Vega Pro 9c for the video editing and Sound Forge Pro for audio editing. I got the VST SPITFISH plug-in to reduce “sibilance”(de-essing) but haven’t used it yet.

Are there things that I can do to a voice narration track to make it sound better. I'm not talking about analyzing every part of the audio track in detail. I looking for some general guidelines. For example, is it standard practice to add “compression” to a narration track? Is it standard practice to add low and/or high pass filters?

In case it matters, I am using the Zoom H4N for recording the audio. I also have a Samson CO1U USB condenser mike.

I am not a professional, I’m just looking for some general ideas for processing the narration track to make it sound better.

Thanks in advance,
Rich

Comments

farss wrote on 2/15/2010, 4:37 AM

Nothing you can do would make Morgan Freeman sound like anything other than Morgan Freeman. Clearly the right voice carries a lot of weight.

My feeble efforts at getting reasonable VOs from lesser talent:

1) Rode NT1A mic in front of Reflexions filter with a popper stopper in front of the mic.
2) Mic below mouth but angled up to point at mouth. This seems to help avoid plossives and sibilence.
3) A very small amount of compression say 2:1, I use Wave Hammer on a bus and use an envelope on the track to 'push' the audio into the compressor. Watch the meters in WH to see if you're just hitting the compressor.
4) I might use a small amount of reverb after the compressor. Not so it sounds like reverb, get the reverb time short, mess around with it, different settings for different voices.

Bob.