• Sound On Sound Music Technology Recording Magazine.
Article by Paul White – Recording the spoken word
• Neumann U87 – Review of a classic Condenser Microphone used for Vocal Recording
• Play by Samuel Beckett Part 1 (on YouTube). See also Samuel Beckett Radio Plays
A few tips to Recording the Voice Over
Source: Getting Started: Recording Voice-Overs at Home. Jeffrey P. Fisher
Bolingbrook, Illinois, USA. ©2003, Jeffrey P. Fisher. All rights reserved.1) To improve the sound of your recordings, get closer to the mic. The farther away you are from it, the more you pick up the room around you and your voice starts to sound thin and distant. Get closer and your voice is more intimate–the prototypical narrator sound.
Another advantage to getting closer is the microphone itself may accentuate the lower frequencies in your voice and that can make you sound more powerful. How close? Put your lips between four and six inches away, about the width of your hand. Don’t talk down into the mic. Instead position it above your nose pointed down at your lips. Also, don’t position the mic dead center of your lips. Move it over to the right slightly, say 20 degrees, off axis. This also leaves a clear view of your script if you have one.
2) Locate your recording area away from noisy equipment, such as computer fans. Put a little distance between the mic and the noise source. Also, avoid salty foods immediately before your recording session. Have some tepid water nearby and apply a little lip balm. These will keep your mouth and lips lubricated. Nibbling on some sliced apples can help overcome dry mouth, too.
3) When you’re ready to record, turn away from the microphone. Take a deep breath. Exhale. Take another deep breath. Open your mouth, turn back to the microphone and begin to speak. This technique eliminates the sharp intake of breath and lip smack that often occurs when starting to speak.
4) Speak clearly and slowly. You can always tighten up your recording during the editing stage. If you make a mistake, go back to the nearest sentence start and continue on again, even if you flub just a word or two. Cutting in a single word or phrase is difficult and doesn’t sound natural.
5) You don’t have to nail everything in one take. Record as many run-throughs as needed and compile the best parts into the final recording. Listen back and evaluate what you did. Is everything there that you need? Does it sound good? Is the level right (not too low; not distorted)? If not, go back and re-record the bits you need, listen back again, and repeat the process until you’re satisfied.
6) After recording and before you begin editing, listen to and delete what’s not needed, such as a throat clear before you started speaking, any chatter between takes, extraneous noises, and so forth. If you did multiple attempts at the script, find the best takes and build your final version from them.
TERMS:
1) The term voice-over refers to a production technique where a disembodied (or non-diegetic) voice is broadcast live or pre-recorded in radio, television, film, theater and/or presentation. The voice-over may be spoken by someone who also appears on-screen in other segments or it may be performed by a specialist voice actor. Voice-over is also commonly referred to as “off camera” commentary. See Wiki entry for Voice Over.
• See also the Wiki entry for Diegesis in Film, Film Sound and Music.
2) The term pop filter or pop shield refers to an anti-pop noise protection filter for microphones, typically used in a recording studio. It serves to reduce popping and hissing sounds in recorded speech and singing. A typical pop filter is composed of one or more layers of acoustically semi-transparent material such as woven nylon stretched over a circular frame, and often includes a clamp and a flexible mounting bracket.
Popping sounds occur particularly in the pronunciation of aspirated plosives (such as the first ‘p’ in the English word “popping”). Hissing sounds or sibilance frequently result from the pronunciation of fricatives such as the ‘sh’ in the English word “seashells”. Pop filters are designed to attenuate the energy of plosives, which otherwise might exceed the design input capacity of the microphone, leading to clipping. See Wiki entry for Pop filter.
• Recording and Playing Back Analog Audio. See: Basic parameters of sound (pdf download)
• Department of Speech, Music and Hearing (TMH), Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden > Microphones and Room Acoustics and Their Influence on Voice Signals (SPL, Sound Pressure Level).