HOW TO RECORD
VOICEOV ERS
AT HOME?
Many of us want to record voiceovers
at your home studio setup but fail
to achieve that professional studio-
like quality. Well, what is it that we
are lacking? The two most common
problems that we might face are that
the room we are recording might not
be acoustically treated or the usage
of incorrect microphone positioning
and placement. While it might not
be possible for everyone to afford an
expensive studio environment, these
steps will help improve your
voiceover recordings.
There is a widespread myth that only
condenser mics are used to record
voiceovers which is far from the
truth. Dynamic mics are an excellent
solution especially if the space you are
recording in is not treated. Dynamic
microphones will reject most of the
noise from the back as they have a
cardiod polar pick-up pattern. Using a
pop filter and recording a little closer
will give you a natural low sound due
to the proximity effect. Setting the
gain to about -15 to -10dB through your
audio interface, you can easily get an
impressive result in your home studio.
Make sure that place the mic in the
centre of the room and not on the
corners. If affordable, acoustically
treating the room will make a world
of difference. Placing bass traps in the
corners will help you reduce the bass
build-up in the corners. Putting up
absorption panels on the walls directly
in the front and back of the mic will
help you get rid of the reflections.
Placing enough panels at the right
spots in the room will help you achieve
a much tighter sounding environment.
STEPS TO GET A GREAT RESULT IN YOUR
VOICEOVER RECORDING:
1. Create a Mono Audio Track in your DAW and make sure that your mic gain
is set to a comfortable so that the signal is not too hot.
2. Applying an HPF around 100Hz will help you roll off the bottom end and
remove the low room rumble. Increase the Gain around 5-6KHz to increase the
brightness, this will help in bringing out the brightness.
3. Insert a compressor with a threshold of -18db to -24 dB with moderate attack
and release with the ratio set to 2:1 or 3:1 on the vocals. But check to see that you
have the gain Reduction meter showing only about -3db to -6db of gain reduction
because over-compressing the vocals will make it sound too squashed. If you
want the voice to sound thicker you can insert another compressor after the
first one. This is called serial compression. You should keep in mind, that
you should make all your judgements by ear and based o