As a former post audio engineer and self recorded singer/composer I’ve discovered, and have been fortunate to get great advice from my peers and mentors, a few recording and editing shortcuts to SAVE lots of time.

I use ProTools on a Mac which I believe, having sold Macs and Audio software in the early days (late 80’s early 90”s), is a most RELIABLE and EASY platform to work with.

Here’s my set-up:

- Mac IBook G4
- Rhode NT100 mic (we tested 5 side by side – this one came in a close 2nd to the Neumann U-87 for MY particular voice)
- MBox
- Vocal booth (good one)

Not much eh?
My outboard gear, compressors, Lxps, mixers, crazy cables etc are in boxes! Go figure…I need the computer IN the booth!

Here’s the thing: a MAC laptop is SILENT, so you can have it WITH YOU in the booth.

Here’s the second thing:
• I learned this from fabulous voice talent-guru Paul Boucher: set your eq/de-sser/compresser/limiter settings in an AUXILLIARY track then bus into the actual recording track. This way you record with your desired settings right to the final track, no need to bounce in real time. BRILLIANT!….well…unless you mp3 directly from Protools (you can cheat this by “Duplicating” the track and mp3ing from ITunes)

Point form:

Set up:

1) Decide weather you want to work in AIF or WAV. ***Note: No client nor human, unless a super engineer, can hear more than 16/44, which is CD QUALITY. Don’t mess with 24/48. And if a client’s engineer asks for this, well, agree and understand that they either have a very very specific reason, OR the engineer is right out of school and trying to impress/be fresh ;-)
2) Create an AUX track in MONO: INPUT from input 1 or 2, then OUTPUT via BUS 1
3) Mono Audio Track: Input is BUS 1, output is your main Analog out

In your AUX track set up your FX in this order: EQ, DeEsser, Compressor, and Limiter (to then boost the effected signal IF needed)

You should, at this point, be recording to the TRACK.

*note, don’t be too heavy on any of these, you are simply seeking to normalize, get rid of any concentrated frequency clusters, or “colours” in your voice. I only EQ a bit – I thoroughly researched my mic and sampled back to back with 4 others with my engineer hubby for extra ears! Ps: get extra pro ears if you can or send to someone who can judge – keeping in mind Mp3s are low quality audio formats.

Here’s another thing:

I hire an engineer to edit/clean up the RAW tracks because I’m too busy as a VO to do this any more. I make sure that if I stumble, I “pick up” from an editable spot. For me, having edited mountains of dialogue, including my own, it is at the last clean edit spot- could even be at a natural break in a sentence, a comma, after the colon.

Then I COPY the entire finished body of audio and PASTE it further on down the track (or “Duplicate” under the Edit window) THEN “DUPLICATE” (under the AudioSuite Window – Other Menu) that track. Reason for this is that when your computer may become a bit full, to whatever degree, there is latency in starting and stopping the recoding. This way you have the original multiple takes intact and can Duplicate into one file, the copy, while retaining all segments just in case you need them in future.

Tips on editing if you don’t wish to pay an engineer to do the dirty work:

After completion of your recording, go back to the beginning and listen through while noting and EDITING some of the following:
- breaths
- ticky, smacky noises
- Plosives – popping P’s and in French R’s

1) As you listen through, “MARK” (in PtoTools this is in “Memory locations window) your PLOSIVES –as you will come back to those.
2) Deal with your ticks and breaths. Breaths, well, I “Gain” in Audio suite, mine down by 17-19 db, depending on the day. NOTE that at the top of a paragraph, I cut the breath.
***DO NOT CUT ALL THE BREATHS, this will make the entire narration feel unnatural and actually make the listener, your client and their client, NERVOUS as they NEED TO her that you are breathing!!!! This was tested by Paul Boucher and Synch Spot.

3) As you listen through, you may notice “tick” sounds, in ProTools, you can select the “SPEAKER” Icon called “Scrub” and mooooove/scroll ATTENTIVELY back and forth over the suspect area back and forth until you nail down the exact spot
***NOTE Make sure you have “Edit Insertion Follows Scub/Shuttle” selected in the Setup – Preference-Operation window. This ensures when you release the mouse at the precise spot, your curser will remain there.

4) Select the “DRAW” icon and draw out the spikes, you’ll come to know what they look like with experience

Now to PLOSIVES.

Well since you marked them, you can simply click on them one by one in succession in the Memory Locations Window (from the Window menu) and fix them!

Here a reallllllly good way to deal with popping ps and rrrs:

1) Select the “Plosive” area – now don’t be discouraged by this, simply choose the area over which the culprit begins and ends. You may need to zoom in to find the point which crosses the “0 Line”. At the very least you can cross fade over the “boundaries or end points” of these regions you’ve selected
2) select the 1 band EQII from your Audio Suite window, (EQ3 is a pain to use trust me) or any 1Band EQ from other programs
3) then select the “HIPASS” icon which is the first one displayed line an “L” with the short side dangling downward (so180 degrees rotation to right) and long side shooting to the right
4) set the frequency to 100 HZ. Note that this may vary according to how far up the frequency range your voice may travel. I toggle b/w 80-120 (from Ps to French Rs). Men may need to do so at 140Hz to be safe….you will find out.
5) Then click “process”.

By having your “Preroll” set to 0.00.800, in your “transport” window, you will be able to do this more rapidly because you ALWAYS have to listen back to your edit – not only the entire finished narration.

THEN!!!!! “Duplicate” from the Audiosuite-Other” menu or Bounce out the entire body of audio.

*****ALWAYS listen back through the ENTIRE work. 1 mistake can cause you embarrassment or other!


So what does this lead to?

HIRE AND ENGINEER to edit your narrations IF YOU CAN.

I did my own mixing out of stubbornness for the first 1.5 years of VO career, because I thought “well, I know this stuff inside and out and can do it myself, to my specs!”.

But I got sooooo busy with Voice that Engineer Wayne is now my Saviour.
This allows me time to go from audition 2 audition, from session 2 session, and to deal with Valuable promotion (next article), invoicing and bookkeeping with my bookkeeper, and make more $$$$ OK and studio different desired areas of Voice works like Animation…


I am full time at this so I can REALLY attest to this success.

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Liane de Lotbinière web: lianesvoice.com
bilingual voice talent + singer
voice bookings / voix hors champ: Noelle Jenkinson (416) 363-7450 x105
singing bookings / chant: Liane de Lotbinière (416) 690-1105 or / ou Noelle
on camera: Nancy Brown (416) 363-7450 x 102