The world of voice acting is undergoing a seismic shift, driven by advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. As AI-generated voices become more sophisticated, traditional voice actors are facing both opportunities and challenges. In this article, we explore the impact of AI on voice acting jobs, the evolving role of human voice artists, and how the industry is adapting to this transformative era.
1. The Rise of AI-Generated Voices
AI-Powered Voice Synthesis
AI-driven voice synthesis has made significant strides in recent years. Companies like OpenAI and Google have developed neural networks capable of generating eerily realistic human-like voices. These AI-generated voices can mimic various accents, tones, and emotions, making them suitable for applications like virtual assistants, audiobooks, and even video game characters.
Cost-Effectiveness and Efficiency
One of the primary reasons for the rise of AI-generated voices is cost-effectiveness. Unlike human voice actors, AI models don’t require breaks, sleep, or compensation. Once trained, they can churn out voice recordings tirelessly, reducing production costs significantly. This efficiency appeals to businesses seeking high-quality voice content without breaking the bank.
2. The Impact on Traditional Voice Actors
Competition and Adaptation
As AI voices gain prominence, traditional voice actors face increased competition. However, rather than being replaced entirely, many voice artists are adapting. They’re diversifying their skill sets, exploring new niches, and collaborating with AI tools to enhance their offerings. Some voice actors even lend their voices to AI models, creating a hybrid approach that combines human artistry with machine precision.
Embracing Change
Voice actors who embrace AI technology can thrive in this evolving landscape. By learning to work alongside AI systems, they can expand their opportunities. For instance, voice actors can specialize in fine-tuning AI-generated scripts, adding emotional nuances, or providing creative input. The key lies in understanding that AI is a tool, not a threat.
3. The Role of Industry Organizations
SAG-AFTRA’s Response
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) recognizes the impact of AI on its members. While advocating for fair compensation and ethical practices, SAG-AFTRA also encourages collaboration. The union acknowledges that AI can enhance productivity and creativity when used judiciously. It aims to strike a balance between protecting voice actors’ rights and embracing technological advancements.
Training and Education
Industry organizations play a crucial role in educating voice actors about AI. Workshops, webinars, and resources help artists understand AI’s potential and equip them with relevant skills. By staying informed, voice actors can navigate the changing landscape and remain valuable contributors to the industry.
4. Conclusion: Harmonizing Human and AI Voices
Coexistence, Not Competition
The future of voice acting lies in harmonizing human and AI voices. Rather than viewing AI as a threat, voice actors can collaborate with these intelligent systems. Together, they can create captivating narratives, elevate user experiences, and shape the audio landscape of tomorrow.
As the curtain rises on this new era, voice actors must embrace change, adapt, and find their unique place in the symphony of human and AI voices.
The world of voiceover narration is undergoing a profound transformation with the advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI). AI technology has reached new heights, enabling it to perform realistic and convincing voiceovers. While this technological advancement brings undeniable benefits, it also poses challenges for voiceover narrators, particularly those in the low-cost segment of the market. In this blog post, we will explore the impact of AI voiceovers and discuss strategies for navigating this evolving landscape.
The Power of AI Voiceovers
AI voiceover technology has made remarkable progress, allowing machines to emulate human voices with remarkable accuracy. By analyzing vast amounts of speech data, AI models can replicate various voice styles, accents, and even mimic the unique qualities of individual voice actors. This breakthrough in technology has significant implications for the voiceover industry.
Threats to Low-Cost Voiceover Narrators
One of the most immediate impacts of AI voiceovers is felt in the low-cost segment of the market. Traditionally, voiceover narrators who charge lower rates have catered to clients with limited budgets or specific needs. However, AI voiceovers offer an alternative that can compete on cost, flexibility, and efficiency. This poses a potential threat to voiceover narrators who primarily rely on these types of projects for income.
Increased Competition and Market Saturation
As AI voiceovers become more accessible and widely used, the market for traditional voiceover narrators may become increasingly saturated. Clients, seeking affordable alternatives, may turn to AI-generated voiceovers, reducing demand for human voice actors. The ease of access to AI voiceover tools may also lead to increased competition from individuals and businesses that leverage this technology, further challenging voiceover narrators to differentiate themselves.
Maintaining a Competitive Edge:
While the rise of AI voiceovers presents challenges, there are strategies that voiceover narrators can employ to adapt and maintain a competitive edge:
Embrace Your Unique Skills: Focus on the aspects that set human narrators apart from AI-generated voices. Highlight your ability to infuse emotion, interpret scripts, and deliver a personalized touch that connects with the audience on a deeper level.
Specialize in Niche Markets: Cater to clients who require industry-specific knowledge or a distinct vocal style. By positioning yourself as an expert in a particular niche, you can offer added value that AI voiceovers might struggle to replicate.
Cultivate Client Relationships: Build strong relationships with your existing clients by providing exceptional service, quick turnaround times, and personalized attention. Nurturing these connections can lead to repeat business and referrals, helping you secure a loyal client base.
Diversify Your Skill Set: Consider expanding your services beyond traditional voiceovers. Explore opportunities in related fields such as podcast hosting, audio editing, or audiobook production. By diversifying your skill set, you can offer a broader range of services that AI voiceovers cannot replicate.
Adapt and Collaborate: Embrace AI technology as a tool rather than viewing it as a threat. Explore collaborations where you can work alongside AI-generated voices, leveraging the strengths of both to create unique and compelling content.
Conclusion
The rise of AI voiceovers undoubtedly presents challenges to low-cost voiceover narrators. However, by recognizing the distinct qualities that human narrators bring to the table and adopting a proactive mindset, voiceover professionals can navigate this changing landscape successfully. By embracing their unique skills, specializing in niche markets, cultivating client relationships, diversifying their skill set, and adapting to new collaborations, voiceover narrators can carve out their place in this evolving industry.
What do you do if you have to make a recording while away from your pristine home studio, your condenser mic, your recording device, and your perfectly setup DAW?
I was recently faced with this dilemma. Here is what I did. But first, here is why it happened.
Audition Approved, Manuscript Delayed
First I should briefly explain how I got into this situation. Obviously it would be better to avoid it completely, right? I mean, plan your work, work your plan, and get things finished prior to a vacation.
Sometimes life is more complicated than that. Way back on 30 June 2022, I accepted an offer on ACX to produce an Audiobook. Shortly thereafter, the Rights Holder (RH hereafter) contacted me to say they were in the process of updating the manuscript to reflect recent changes in the law. They said it wouldn’t be more than a week or two delay before they could send me the updated script.
No problem, I thought. While completing other VO projects, I patiently waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
By the time end of July rolled around, I was planning a multi-week road trip throughout August which would take me over 3500km away from my home studio. In the back of my mind I thought, “Murphy’s Law says the RH will have the manuscript ready to go while I am away, when I won’t be able to record.”
Sure enough, on 10 August, the RH messaged me on ACX saying the manuscript has been uploaded and my work could commence. Since I was mostly offline (vacation, anyone?) I didn’t see the messages right away. By 13 August, the RH sent another ACX message asking me what was going on.
Honesty Is the Best Policy
I apologetically replied the RH and advised them I was travelling and that it would be at least two (or more) weeks before I could start work on their audiobook. I said that if they wanted to reassign the contract to another producer I understand, no hard feelings. The RH said they would prefer to leave the contract with me and they were happy to wait for me to get back into the studio.
I Didn’t Want to Wait
I wanted to knock this off my To-Do list, and I wanted to get paid ASAP. Vacation travelling to meet friends and family is great, but I really like recording. I missed working. So I setup for a high-quality, remote, on-the-road, away-from-home audiobook recording. Here is how I did it, and how it turned out.
Step One: Recording Environment
First things first: I had to create a sonically acceptable recording booth at a friend’s house. Recording environment is the most important thing, more than microphone or interface or DAW. See my blog post about the importance of your recording space.
But how could I create a pristine recording environment away from home? A walk-in closet is often recommended as a good “starter VO booth”, but the friend I was staying with did not have a walk-in closet in his tiny 1950s bungalow.
Aside: I briefly considered renting recording space at a professional recoding location, but the cost was prohibitive.
The goal is to create an environment which eliminates the reverberation and slap-back echos that are always present in an untreated room. To stop the echoes and reverb, I built a “couch cushion fort” into which I could setup my microphone and and lean myself in. Using the cushions from my friend’s couch, three cushions formed the left, right, and back “walls” of the fort. A fourth cushion was placed on top. These cushions were assembled on the coffee table, with a few small throw cushions on the floor for me to sit on. A heavy blanket was draped over the top cushion, which I pulled down behind myself when I was seated on the floor and in recording position, sealing myself in and surrounding me with sound reflection stopping material. My iPad (displaying the manuscript PDF) sat in front of me inside the fort, and the mic (more on this in a minute) sat slightly off to the side, to avoid plosives, just a couple of inches from my mouth. This simple setup worked very well, and eliminated the echo and reverb room sounds.
Couch cushion fort: a temporary recording booth setup. Hot and uncomfortable, but it works!
There are some downsides to this setup: it quickly gets hot under that blanket, and it is not a very comfortable position to be in for extended periods of time. Good thing this was a temporary solution!
Step 2: Background Noise Level
Now that I had my ersatz recording booth, the next thing to check was background noise level. The cushion fort is for sound treatment, not external sound abatement. Eliminating any offensive external sounds would have to be handled by me at their source.
This setup was in my friend’s basement, which is usually a good starting location, since you are partially buried in the ground which prevents street noise from entering the space.
Since I was on a quiet cul-de-sac, traffic noise would not be an issue, even though there were small basement windows, facing the street, just two meters away from the cushion fort. So far, so good.
At the far end of the room was a mini-fridge for soft drinks. My initial test recordings did not pickup the fridge compressor sound, but I didn’t take any chances: while I was recording I unplugged the fridge. (Pro Tip: make test recordings before you commit to reading for hours!!!)
The other potentially problematic background sound was the central air conditioning. The HVAC blower was in the basement, just one room over; a heavy cinderblock wall separated my makeshift recording space from the utility room. Remember: for sound abatement, mass is your friend. A heavy brick wall will be more effective than a light stud-and-drywall partition. Thanks to that heavy wall, I could not hear the HVAC blower motor directly, but my mic was picking up the sound of the air blowing out the vent directly over my head.
The solution was simple, but uncomfortable: turn off the AC while recording.
Step Three: Microphone
I did not anticipate having to record while travelling, so I did not have a good mic with me. I even forgot to bring my lavalier mic, since I wasn’t planning on making any videos. Even if I had planned to record, carrying my delicate Rode NT-1A mic would just be nerve-wracking. I wouldn’t ever want to travel with that delicate flower.
Since I am the type of person that likes to solve problems completely the first time, I decided I needed a travel mic (or more correctly, a complete portable recording setup with microphone, interface, DAW, etc.). With a portable travel setup I will always be able to respond to future client requests, even when away from my studio. This should be part of my professional equipment.
But which mic should I purchase? Obviously I wanted one that “sounds good with my voice”. That’s a given. What else?
rugged, to take the rigours of travel without damage (presumably a dynamic, not condenser type)
knowing that my recording environment might not be perfect, a less sensitive mic would be better; less sensitive would mean less likely to pickup unwanted room noise, external noise, etc. (again, a dynamic mic is indicated)
USB or XLR? (depends on whether recording directly into laptop via USB, or into an interface like Zoom U-22 or Zoom H6 recorder which accepts XLR)
Based on the first two criterion, a dynamic mic was clearly indicated. But the USB vs. XLR question was a bit more tricky. I’ve found my fellow recording nerds and booth junkies generally dismiss USB microphones as being inferior to traditional XLR mics, and I believe this is often true (don’t get me started on the low quality of the very popular Yeti mics). After doing a bit of homework I found that there are actually some very good quality USB mics (either dynamic or condenser style) now available.
Deciding which mic to buy, and which interface to select (USB vs XLR) sent me into a rabbit hole of watching YouTube reviews for the better part of a day.
Obviously, if I chose an XLR mic, then I’d have to also purchase an XLR-to-USB interface, since I didn’t bring my Zoom H6 on this trip. More importantly, going with XLR would mean my travel gear setup would have to include that interface, and the associated cables. I prefer to “travel light” and “keep it simple”, so was leaning toward a mic which has USB output directly.
After much “research” and hand-wringing (OK, let’s be honest, research is too strong a word; I didn’t get any NSERC grants, didn’t perform statistical analysis comparing test groupx against a control group), I purchased the Shure MV7.
It is has both a standard XLR interface (so it can be used in my home studio with my Zoom U-22 interface, my Zoom H6 recorder, or any other XLR-to-USB interface), and also a USB interface (so it can directly connect to a laptop, iPad, or iPhone, without the added expense and complexity of an intermediate USB interface. Put another way: the XLR-to-USB interface is built into this mic. It is a rugged dynamic mic and according to some reviewers, had a sound quality similar to its big brother, the popular and legendary Shure SM7B. It checked all the boxes: dynamic mic (not condenser mic); USB output (with XLR a bonus I wasn’t expecting but might need one day); overall excellent sound quality.
To mount it in my ersatz booth, I purchased a 3/8″ to 1/4″-20 adapter, which let me mount it to the mini camera tripods I had with me on this trip. So I didn’t have to buy a mic stand for it.
Step Four: Recording Platform
At my home studio, I record onto a Zoom H6. That is, my Rode NT-1A is directly connected to one of the XLR inputs on the Zoom H6, and the H6 provides the phantom power the condenser NT-A1 requires. This keeps the booth simple and foolproof: power up the Zoom H6, press the big beefy RECORD button, and… BOOM… I’m recording. No laptop to keep updated with OS patches and DAW software patches; no crashes to deal with, etc. When I’m finished a recording session, I just pop out the SD card and take it to my production DAW to import and edit the files. My process works flawlessly for me, every time.
I can’t (easily) do “punch and roll” recording with this setup, but I don’t want to. Let me explain why.
I am both the performer and the recording engineer. Doing a “punch-in” takes my mind out of performance mode, and into recording engineer mode. There is a cost associated with this type of context switching, and I want to stay in performance mode in the booth. Like I said: I press record on the Zoom H6 and it’s showtime, every time, without fail, without delay.
When I flub a line, I mark it with a dog trainer clicker which puts a big obvious spike on the waveform and is super easy to see in the DAW, making it simple to find and chop out the error.
Fans of “punch and roll” say that it saves them time, but I’ll bet it doesn’t save much, if any, compared to “click/mark and continue”. With punch and roll, you still have to pause your recording, move the recording head back to the desired location, listen to the playback cue, get your eyes onto the correct portion of the script, and get your performance voice ready to seamlessly pick up at the right spot. And hit the record button at precisely the correct time.
I’ve done punch-and-roll with a sound engineer, and in that context it works well. For my solo recording process, not so much. [For more info about why to not use punch and roll, see this blog post by Lance Blair.]
So, my SOP recording process uses an XLR condenser mic directly connected to a high quality dedicated recorder, the Zoom H6. But like I said, I didn’t bring my Zoom H6 on this trip. Luckily, I had two other devices with me that could be used to record, assuming I can work out the interface: my iPad Air and my MacBook Air.
I chose to use my iPad exclusively for script presentation (which is my usual process) and connected the Shure MV7 directly to the MacBook Air, using the USB output from the mic. The MacBook was running my preferred DAW, Reaper, configured and optimized just the way I like it, for narration editing. Fortunately I recently mirrored my customized Reaper setup, from my Windows production PC, to my MacBook, so I was ready to get to work in a familiar environment. The only difference was I would be both recording and editing in Reaper, rather than simply importing files and before editing.
Oh, and since I didn’t have my clicker, I snapped my fingers to mark errors. Not as easy to see on the waveform as the clicker, but better than nothing.
An Investment In My Future
The Shure MV7 cost me about as much as I’m going to make from the audiobook that necessitated its purchase. So why did I even bother?
I view this as an investment in my future. Consider this: I purchased all my studio equipment, and built my sonically clean recording booth, long before I made any money in VO. That investment is paying off. As a professional, having the ability to record while travelling will add an extra dimension to my value proposition. It will pay dividends in the long run. Furthermore, having a robust, high quality travel mic opens up the possibility for new projects, outside the studio.
Finished Product: Sample
Here is a snippet from the final production, all recorded in a couch cushion ersatz booth, in a friend’s basement, while on a road trip. What do you think? Can you tell I’m not in my usual studio location? I think I can tell a very slight tonal difference, mostly (perhaps entirely?) due to the use of a different microphone. Slight tonality difference aside, all of the measurable metrics meet or exceed ACX requirements (sound floor, average level, peak level).
Working just an couple of hours per day, I completed the 3h 42m on the first day of September.
ContentID felt that a recording that I had made, using my own voice, and in my own studio, matched Penguin Random House’s audiobook.
Update
Penguin Random House has released their copyright claim. I’m genuinely pleased and surprised the system worked in a fair and correct manner. Thank you, Penguin Random House, for dealing with this matter with both fairness and alacrity.
As part of my constant and never-ending improvement, I recorded the audiobook “The Call of the Wild”. This book was originally published in 1903 and recently it became a “Public Domain” work. I wanted to refine both my performative skills and also my technical workflow, and since there is no better teacher than “doing” I dove into this audiobook project.
“The Call of the Wild” – Chapter VI – The Sounding of the Call — Recorded by Peter Mosier, December 21, 2021
I deliberately chose a Public Domain text, in the hopes of avoiding any issues with copyright. What I did not count on was the possibility that by the end of the project, my production would be so good that it would be incorrectly flagged by YouTube’s ContentID system. ContentID felt that a recording that I had made, using my own voice, and in my own studio, matched Penguin Random House’s audiobook.
To be clear: the ContentID flagged about nine minutes (from 9:31 to 18:38) of my recording as a match to Penguin Random House’s audiobook.
This is both gratifying and frustrating.
Gratifying because it means by the end of this project, my production, from performance to sound quality, was good enough to fool the ContentID system into thinking it was actually a professional production from a best-in-class producer.
Frustrating because it means that now I have to wait up to 30 days for Penguin Random House to respond to my dispute. And yes, I did dispute it! This is my recording of a Public Domain work, therefore this is my copyright, not theirs.
But this will be quickly resolved via the YT dispute process, right?
Quick? Probably not.
Resolved? Probably not correctly.
You see, at this point in the process, YT is not even involved. They simply forward my dispute to claimant (Penguin Random House) and wait up to 30 days for their reply. So no matter what, it probably won’t be quick. If there is no response from claimant in 30 days, then I am the presumptive winner of the dispute and the block will be removed from this video.
If Penguin Random House decides — wrongly — that somehow my recording of a Public Domain novel violates their audiobook production’s copyright, they will simply respond (within 30 days) “No, we disagree with your dispute”. If that happens, YT will accept their answer as correct, and my recording will remain unpublished on YouTube. My word against theirs, and they will always be assumed to be correct in that situation.
If that happens, the only recourse for me is legal action — in other words, there is, realistically, nothing I can do in that case. I’m not going to hire a $600/hour Intellectual Property lawyer to fight Penguin Random House’s inhouse legal counsel over my audiobook recording of a Public Domain novel. Sure, I’m on the legally correct side of this, but the system is broken. And not just at YouTube: copyright as a whole is in need of improvement, globally. See Tom Scott’s deep dive on the broken copyright system, of which YouTube is only one part of a larger, broken whole.
Listen to my recording of “The Call of the Wild” – Chapter VI – The Sounding of the Call
Pay special attention from 9:31 to 18:38, because that portion, in particular, is claimed by ContentID to match the production from the big boys at Penquin Random House. I would like to provide an A-B comparison between my recording and PRH’s, but (a) I don’t have a copy of the PRH recording; and (b) although publishing that portion may be “Fair Use” or “Fair Dealing”, I don’t need to add any more erroneous copyright headaches caused by an over zealous and biased copyright system.
“The Call of the Wild” – Chapter VI – The Sounding of the Call — Recorded by Peter Mosier, December 21, 2021
The business of VO is like most other businesses, in that it is multi-faceted. That is, you are providing a product (or service), which must be marketed/sold within your potential marketplace, and the necessary business administration systems (bookkeeping, accounts payable, accounts receivable) must be in place to keep the business running smoothly.
When you are just starting out, it can be overwhelming. An independent VO provider, like myself, wears all of the business hats. You are the featured artist, you are the recording engineer, you are the studio designer, you are the bookkeeper, you are the business systems selection committee, you are the customer service department, you are the social media director, the sales and marketing director, the operations manager… whew!
Obviously, over time you will have to learn to switch roles quickly and smoothly. Having a weekly plan is, for me, a necessary tool to both reduce the cognitive waste associated with context switching and also ensure that I don’t overlook one of my important business roles. It is easy to get caught up recording in the booth, or producing, and neglect aspects like marketing or billing. Until you run out of work, or money, or both!
But what aspect of the VO business is most important at the start? In my opinion: product (audio) quality. By this I do not mean the quality of your performance, although that is obviously very important. I mean the quality of the sound file you produce. Is it Lo-Fi? Are there noticeable, or perhaps, subtle room echoes? Can we hear a distant rumble or hum? Is it too soft, or too loud (clipping)?
Ask yourself: would you rather listen to an audiobook with an “OK performance” narrator and pristine audio, or a “world class performance” with quality so poor it sounds like it was recorded over POTS telephone line? I suspect most people will choose the higher quality every time.
The coveted Neumann U87 <drool> (Do you really have CA$4000 to spend?)
If that is true, then there is no point in starting your marketing campaign if you have poor quality audio. If you manage to establish a potential customer relationship, you will be known as the ‘bad audio’ guy/gal! Even if your quality improves greatly over time, you now have your ‘bad audio quality’ reputation working against you.
Therefore, first things first: work on your audio product quality!
Does this mean go out on day one and buy that wallet crushing Neumann U87? NO!
In fact, that will likely cause more audio quality problems. How so? Well, I’ll bet that most audio product quality problems encountered by new VO entrepreneurs are caused by their recording booth, or lack thereof. If you are recording in a bad (noisy, reflective, etc.) environment, a great microphone will do a great job of capturing all those problems!
“OK, PeMo, you are saying I must go out, on day one, and buy a professional Whisper Room?” NO! (Although, if you have the money to spend, it is not a bad thing to do; but do you really have several thousand dollars to start?)
The venerated Whisper Room <drool> (Do you really have CA$5000-$8000 to spend?)
What I am saying is you have to get your recording environment optimized.
“But PeMo, what about the production processing chain optimization?” you ask. My response: if your recording is bad, because of bad recording environment, your are wasting your time trying to ‘fix it in post’. Garbage in, garbage out.
When I started out, I custom built my recording booth. Even before that, I spent time auditing the ambient sound at various locations so that my booth would be placed in the best location I have available.
So, before you start spending your precious business capital on mics, pre-amps, audio interfaces, computers, DAW software, or DAW plug-ins, spend your even more precious time working on your recording booth/environment.
I’ve been a fan of Arnold since the mid 1980s, when I was a skinny teen and thirty-something Arnold was successfully changing careers from bodybuilding (in which he was best in the word, many times over) to movie star leading man (in which he became Hollywood’s highest paid actor up to that time).
On a business trip to Graz, Austria in November 2017, I was within striking distance of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Museum, in Thal, just outside Graz. A short city-to-countryside cab ride later, I was standing outside the very house that Arnold lived in, from childhood until he left Austria to go conquer America.
Open since 2011, the home had been carefully converted into a Museum of Arnold’s life and career. More correctly, careers: bodybuilding champ, movie star, Governor of California.
Arnold: Mr. OlympiaArnold: T-800 Terminator, Conan, Commando, Predator Killer, etc.Arnold: California Governor
At one point in the tour, there was a video display showing “Arnold’s 6 Rules for Success”. I shamefacedly admit, I was not familiar with these prior to this, despite my fandom and respect for Arnold.
Arnold’s 6 Rules For Success
Arnold’s 6 Rules are:
1. Trust Yourself 2. Break Some Rules 3. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail 4. Ignore the Naysayers 5. Work Like Hell 6. Give Something Back
There are plenty of these rules for success around; it seems every life coach wanna-be has their own. It would be silly for me to claim that Arnold’s rules are the best or ultimate success rules. No doubt, I find these special, in large part, due to my longtime admiration of Arnold.
I’m also familiar with the logical error “survivorship bias” when it comes to this type of thing, as there are other factors at play. In particular, Arnold possessed the genetic potential for bodybuilding that many people don’t, and no amount of effort will overcome your ultimate genetic potential, in any field of human endeavour. For example: you can train everyday at hockey, and you will improve and find your own level of “personal best”. You may even get to the professional NHL level, but you probably won’t ever be as good as Gretzky — unless, of course, you have the genetic potential for hockey greatness that rivals Gretzky’s.
“Luck” is also a factor in achieving success. However, “LUCK occurs when PREPARATION meats OPPORTUNITY”. You cannot get lucky if you are not prepared. And you’ll never experience “luck” if you don’t go out and hunt those opportunities.
So get prepared, start hunting, and push yourself to find your own personal best, no matter what you do!
Note: this is not exactly the same video I saw at the Arnold Museum, but it is close enough. Enjoy!
One of my previous posts contained a link to a Youtube video (produced by Waves, maker of many DAW plug-ins). That was a great overview, but if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, checkout the Wikipedia page on this subject: Dynamic Range Compression (on Wikipedia).
There are dozens of charts and graphs in this article, like this one.
Credit: Wikipedia
At a glance, it explains the difference between “downward compression” (knocking down the loud bits) and “upward compression” (raising up the quiet bits).
I have been tweaking some Fx chains in my DAW of choice (Reaper). To facilitate comparing them, I made this video. Using the same original recording, the audio switches between the three different Fx chains.
What do you think? Which do you prefer, and why?
In case you are wondering:
“B” is based on this free “broadcast chain” available at the Reaper Stash
“W” is based on paid plug-ins I purchased from Waves.com
You can jump to 6:10 in the video to get straight to the details on each Fx chain.
The video details the specific audio processing steps involved in creating three different FX chains for improving voice recordings. Each FX chain includes noise reduction, EQ adjustments, compression, and limiting to enhance the audio quality. The comparison of the FX chains demonstrates varying results in terms of audio clarity and tonal balance. The discussion highlights the importance of selecting appropriate plugins, adjusting settings, and understanding the impact of each processing step on the final audio output
There are many videos on YouTube explaining audio compression. But this one is quick and includes helpful graphics, in addition to audio samples, to drive home the point.
If you are new to mastering and thought that a compressor was part of a refrigerator (yes, a compressor is part of a fridge but that’s a different type of compressor altogether), this is a good place to start. The vocal example presented is singing, not VO narration, but this is still a good explainer video for VO newbies looking to understand exactly what audio compression is and why it is important and useful.
The video refers to a particular Waves product Renaissance Compressor but the concepts presented apply generally to audio compression using any Compressor plug-in and with any (Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software.
Transparency Disclaimer: I have not been paid by Waves for this video recommendation. There are no affiliate links on this page. I have no agreement or relationship with Waves for promotion of their products. I have purchased and use some Waves audio FX plug-in tools.
