I realize my first post, although true, was a bit negative in tone. If you know you have to do it yourself here's my take on a few questions.

Communication without a target is talking to the wall. Always talk to your audience. Maintain an intention to connect with every word.

Emotion? What is the subject? The worst thing you can do is express inauthentic emotion or mis-emotion (the wrong emotion at the wrong time). Again, what connects with the audience and engages them with the message? You don't want to seem disconnected to the material, but especially for a novice voice talent, learn to put a limiter on your emotions. Express emotion with inflection, pauses, etc. Not force or extremes of pitch.

Most cheaper condenser mics work well for non-pro voice talent. Without being trained for clarity, the 2k-5k rise in most inexpensive condensers will help out a lot. Wave Hammer can provide a consistency of perceived projection that most non-pros can't deliver.

Hope this helps a bit. Good luck.

Ice,

I am in exactly the same position as you: I am not a professional narrator, but I have had to do narration on several occasions. Like you, I have wanted to create something that sounds relatively professional.

Here are a few things I have learned, along with some direct answers to your questions.

1. Use a mic booth. Years ago "Spot" provided instructions on how to build one. I simplified that even further and simply purchased $20 of acoustic foam and cemented it (using spray contact adhesive) to the inside of a cardboard box. I then put my mic, on a stand, inside the box, and get my head almost into the box and speak. Works great. If I am speaking from a script, I just pin that up in the back.

Here is what mine looks like:



2. Use a pop filter. It can make a big difference, especially since good narration should be done with your mouth relatively close to the mic. Here is the one I use:



3. Just keep talking. Don't worry about making mistakes. Just keep the recording rolling, and start with the sentence before your mistake. It is very, very easy to edit narration, since the background should be nothing more than the constant room ambient noise. Also, do the narration at least 3-4 times. As you begin to feel more comfortable with the material, your voice will relax, and you will probably find that you are talking more naturally, and perhaps with more natural inflections. I have absolutely no acting experience, but I have been rather pleased (my long arms have no problem reaching my back and patting it) by my ability to sound semi-good.

In answer to some of your questions:

What are techniques for getting clarity production/post prod? The microphone is everything. Levels are the next most important item. There are other people in this forum who can better advise you on both of those. I have a $500 mic that I purchased on eBay for about $150. The audio quality is infinitely better than the mic on my $2,000 camcorder. No comparison.

How do you finding the right amount of talking vs not talking? That will depend entirely on your material. I would certainly follow the advice that is often given for PowerPoint presentations, namely do not simply tell the audience what they are already seeing (in PowerPoint, the advice is to not simply read the slides). In other words, the video already is communicating, and the audio should complement, not duplicate the visual information.

As always, less is more (my favorite line).

Do you add emotion or keep it mostly flat? This also depends on the material. If you are narrating a funeral, you don't want to sound manic.

Do you talk to the audience or keep it neutral? I'm not sure what you mean by this. If it is an instructional video, you'd probably want to use the "second person" form of speech, e.g., "you next want to drill a hole 1/3 of the distance from the end of the board ..." For a nature film, you'd perhaps use third person, e.g., "the lion often lurks for twenty minutes, waiting for her chance."

Finally, here is something I found when doing my last narration. I have a somewhat annoying voice, lacking in that traditional narrator's baritone. My solution was to artificially lower my voice, using Vegas' pitch shift (-18 cents), followed by Wave Hammer compression to bring the audio "forward."

Here is the result of my last effort, using those settings. Back in the 1960s, while in high school, some friends of mine produced a Super 8 horror film. Sounds like a cliché, but they really did do this. Just a few months ago, one of them sent the film to me to be digitized and restored, and I couldn't resist the temptation to create a faux "trailer" for their movie. I wrote a silly script, and then did the narration. This was the result:



My goal was to write something semi-comedic by intentionally over-writing the narrator's dialog and also by creating intentionally awkward phrases. I also wanted to capture the sophomoric humor we all had back in high school to make it look like this trailer was produced by a high school student. To no one's surprise, I found this easy to do.

The audio stutter at the end is actually a Vegas bug that I didn't catch until I had already uploaded. Given the nature of the sound, you may think this was intentional, but it was not.

P.S. There is a link to the original movie at the end of the trailer, and you are welcome to watch that. My only contribution to the movie itself, other than the transfer and restoration, was to add the music, and also the foley. The latter was a real learning experience, and I now have tremendous respect for the people who do this for a living. Wow, what a LOT of work!!

LOL. I think the Vegas-induced closing footnote really capped the piece. Just great.

Indeed. I loved the punctuation.

I also loved the cardboard box voice booth. Great low budget solution. I'm going to steal that idea and miniaturize it. Add a small plexi window and, voila - the Voice Over Helmet.

That's great John!. Thanks for posting this. Loved the "Vegas bug" at the end.
Tom

+1 for good microphone, pop shield and a sound booth. For a sound booth, I bought 2 inexpensive room dividers from Ikea, a pack of sound absorbing insulation batts and black calico. I encased a few of the insulation batts in calico and then attached them to the "walls" of the room dividers as well as over the dividers to create a ceiling - it's sort of like a small hexagonal room and is very good at mostly eliminating rom noise and room reverb. The little bit of room noise that there is easily removed by noise gate in Sound Forge Pro 11.

I found this guide to VO work some time ago:

http://www.edgestudio.com/pdf/technique-guidebook.pdf

It is a comprehensive guide to VO technique and even goes into marketing oneself as a VO artist.

As atom12 wrote, "...get in front of a mic NOW and start rehearsing ...".

This is really so important as you need to become familiar and comfortable with your own voice as well as developing a consistency in voice tone and volume.. Another important thing is to try to keep the distance from your mouth to the microphone as consistent as possible as the "sound image" differs at different distances (unless it is done deliberately to achieve a specific desired effect).

I record my VO to Sound Forge Pro usually several takes of a paragraph at a time and then clean it up to get rid of clicks, tongue noises etc., and select and combine the best sections of each take. It's easy enough to rerecord a sentence, a phrase or a clause if necessary and edit it into the take. I've even rerecorded a sentence just to replace a specific vowel sound only in the final take because the original vowel sound suffered from vocal fry or some other undesirable audio artifact (which unfortunately are common with my voice). The SF clips are then imported onto the Vegas Pro timeline. The great thing is that SF can be opened direct from the VO clip on the VP timeline to work on the VO take again if necessary.

I've found it a time-consuming and very enjoyable process. Good luck with it.

I am not a good fluent speaker, and may stutter or stumble a bit. When I fluff it, I repeat the passage from the last breath point and carry on, and edit it later. It may help to mark your script in advance where you intend to breathe. You can reduce the length of pauses later if necessary. You can also do splices in the middle of unvoiced stop consonants (/p/, /t/, /k/) if necessary.

Make sure that you move your lips well, and don't let your voice die away during a phrase (keep plenty of breath in reserve). Imagine that your listener is some distance away, and project your voice for that listener.

Dexcon mentioned vocal fry (creaky voice), which females seem more prone to, for some reason. I find it particularly irritating. Try to keep your voice pitch up if that is likely to be a problem.

Hi Guys,
Without in any way boasting, I've been recording my voice for broadcast TV and radio since the early 1980s. Many of the technical tricks are well covered in the posts above, but here's some simple advice:
1. Think about the person you're speaking to. You're not speaking to a microphone, but to an AUDIENCE, ie people. Project yourself to that imaginary audience.
2. Think about the mood you're creating. Is it a serious narration about major health crises, or is it a celebratory piece about people who are doing great things in the community? Choosing the right mood will help you pace the piece properly and set up the way you project your voice.
3. Last but definitely not least, before you start, SMILE. Sounds weird, but it alters the way your face and jaw muscles work and makes a really positive difference to the recordings.
Hope these little tips help!
BTW, one of the best accoustic environments for a voice over is a medium room with a carpeted floor and plaster ceiling, and - wait for it - a wall of books in front of and behind you. I heard this from our great guru Spot some years ago when he was in Melbourne. My office is set up just this way and it works a treat.
David S

I'm not a professional narrator, nor do I olay one on TV, but I have done a good bit of public speaking. Here is what I try to remember when giving a formal presentation:

Smile. Be sincere. People can hear this in your voice.

Pronunciation. Good pronunciation is neither excessively precise so as to draw attention to itself, nor excessively sloppy. Do you trail off at the end of sentences? Make statements using a questioning tone? Drop the "g" and the "d" on words such as the word "going" and the word "and," respectively.

Grammar. A script will help you here. Seek help with grammar if you need it.

Prepare. Know your material even if you are using a script. Your confidence will show in your voice.

Those are the high points.

How about you pick your favorite narrators, male and female, and watch some documentaries and try to determine why you like them? Morgan Freeman, Sigourmey Weaver, David Attenborough . . . Perhaps there are qualities you can emulate (not imitate).

Most important, have fun and be proud you can narrate in three languages!

Regards,

Kimberly

Thanks, John. I enjoyed your trailer, especially the narration.

Kit

"Yawn alot"

You could always Ask Morgan Freeman for some valuable tips:








My favorite narrator is David Attenborough, he can narrate anything and make it look interesting.





VMP

Inflection, pacing, engagement - I think those 3 things make a huge different. You have to sound like you care about what you are narrating to draw people into the story. Documentaries can be very dry if you lack the three items above.

As far as executing a good recording, I've used two types of setups. An H1 in a recording box works great - cheap and efficient, easy to eliminate background sounds with noise reduction. (H2's pick up a lot more background so I only use that for music group recordings).

Another great mic to use are the Sennheiser lavalier mics - I have a decent one that is over 5+ years old. I clip it on about 10 " below my mouth and just speak clearly. It has great warm in the recording and I record it without any "protection" like a sound box or padded walls. It have very little if any background and great tonal quality.

Finally, when recording I just leave the recorder on - capture everything. If I screw up a line, just re-record that line again (and again) until I like the inflection and flow of the line. The beauty of our NLE is that it is easy to scrap the junk and keep the good stuff with splits and cuts.

Here a documentary I made using the H1 for recording:


This short teaser was recorded on the Sennheiser lavalier mic without a box:


Different but both work pretty well.

Mike

Wow. I can't believe how much information you guys gave me in just a few days. More than I would find elsewhere in weeks. First, thank you each so much. I have read each comment carefully and even taken some notes. This forum blows all others out of the water.

Good stuff all the way around. I am gonn try to build a sound booth as pictured above. What a great idea! I've only ever seen that foam sold at very high prices at GC, i'll have to keep my eyes open for some cheaper stuff. Atom... No negativity felt, just reality. I know it's not easy and only can hope that if I practice like crazy and work super hard, I'll get close to something at least decent.

I yook the advice and went and started recording yesterday. And will keep doing so every few days for about a month until I cut finals. Already can learn so much from just analyzing. Guess I'll be yawning a bunch too.

Mike nice job on these two vids. Voice sounds very pleasent. I have an H1 but think I'll get better sound with my Korg. It's a Korg MR2 that I won. I think it retailed at about $500. That or a friend of mine has a Blue Bird vocal mic ($199?) I was going to compare against as well.

Again, won't mention all of your comments, but do really appreciate them. Some really solid stuff!

Thanks so much everyone... Off to work for me.

Joshua

One final comment.

If you are recording in several sessions, make sure you make a break at the end of a section. Even professional speakers may not speak at exactly the same rhythm or intonation after a break.

If you're building a small vocal-only booth, if the Auralex type acoustic material is above your budget, the 2" foam mattress pads (egg-crate type, not smooth)available at WalMart can do the job in a pinch. They'll give you enough sound absorption for lower volume work, like dialog. Not good with louder singing or instruments.

needless to say, an interesting script averagely delivered would be preferable to a badly written one delivered even by a pro...

this is just an extension of the fact that people will still watch vhs quality material if it interests them.

A post final comment :)

I find that a bedroom with blankets on the bed, curtains and a carpeted floor is sufficiently damped acoustically and quiet to not need any other treatment with a close microphone.

Any absorbent material will have most effect at frequencies where its thickness is 1/4 wavelength or more, so watch out that you don't end up with a booming bass sound (unless you want that effect!).

You don't want the voice to sound too dead either. If you recorded outside or in an anechoic chamber, for instance, you may have to add some reverberation to give it "life".

Quote: "They'll give you enough sound absorption for lower volume work, like dialog. Not good with louder singing or instruments."

I don't think the sound volume is relevant. You want a shorter reverb. time for speech than music, that is all.

I too want to thank you all for the great tips posted here. It would have helped make my first narration of how to create a line w/ the mask tool not sound like c*r*a*p. I listen to my self in that video and I sound like a stuttering retard. (;

I cant figure out how guys like JohnnyRoy makes his narration sound so fluent while he's doing his tutorials. I can barely concentrate on what I'm doing on the screen much less talk at the same time... LOL!

"I don't think the sound volume is relevant. You want a shorter reverb. time for speech than music, that is all."

Shorter reverb time is quite true, but the reason a bedroom or even a packed clothes closet can give an acceptable V.O. sound is because with typical mic placement the ratio of direct to reflected sound of spoken word is very high to begin with. You don't notice as much the frequencies that aren't being absorbed with inferior materials . As the volume increases you generally will need higher quality absorption, and, ideally, a bigger treated room to control buildup of undesirable reflections.