I get a few emails in response to my blogs and asking for more information on voice over work and tools. Recently, I received this email from Robert in Rhode Island,which I include here with his permission:

Dear Nikki,
I’m trying to get started in the voiceover biz. I love your helpful approach,I’ve learned a lot from reading about your DAW.

 

I recently bought a Samson C01U microphone,which plugs directly into the computer. It came with a CD from Cakewalk,a ‘SONAR LE’ DAW.

 

The thing is, I’m not particularly computer-savvy;I do ok for an old dude (I’m 58),but this thing seems geared to people who already know how to operate a recording studio…

 

so,my question is: is the Adobe Audition you recommend that user-unfriendly too,for a novice? Do I need to just suck it up and spend six months figuring this thing out?

 

Thanks Nikki,

Here’s my reply:

Hi Robert. You can only help yourself by getting as familiar as you can with your gear and software. There’s no downside there and there are tons of online resources which will help you speed up the learning curve. I definitely recommend video/audio tutorials to learn software. There’s a great site run by Apex Web Media which I recommend to many people wanting to learn different computer programs: The link will take you to the Cakewalk tutorial page, but they have a lot of training titles.You might see other training that would benefit you if you’re not super computer savvy. Apex also has a more affordable $30 a month online training course; but if you click on the titles, you’ll see that all their intro Chapters are free demos, and you can learn a lot just from running those.

 

Two other great resources are the VoiceOverSavvy.Com forum and also Emusician.Com, which posts some of the most helpful articles in the VO and music industry. I subscribe to the magazine, but you get great stuff (and no recycling) right from the web site. Check out their section on audio editing software.

 

My love of Audition has more to do with my comfort level; it’s what I’m familiar with — and I mean years of use (from when it was Cool Edit). Sonar will do the job and it’s software you already have but my experience with it is very limited. I know there are many voice producers who use it.

 

Good luck,
Nikki

I want to add that, despite my experience with Adobe Audition 1.5, last year I purchased the Total Training tutorial DVD for Audition 1.5 and learned so much more, including the fact that Audition has a vocoder feature in its multitrack section, very cool. There are obviously good and bad video tutorials out there, but I’m not convinced you can learn any software or computer program as effectively simply from reading a book; it helps to see the interface and applications during instruction.

Controlling the acoustics in your studio isn’t about recording in a vacuum; it’s about creating an environment in which you can produce predictable sound. In other words, when my client plays my recorded voice at her location, she should hear close to the same sound that came out of my monitors on playback.

The space I record in is close to where I want it, but I recently read this terrific article from Mix Online, The Taming of the Room. It’s not Shakespeare, but definitely a good read.

For those of you interested in a Mac but not eager to give up Adobe Audition (which has no Mac version), take a look at Parallels Desktop for Mac, which allows you to install a virtual machine (like another computer) running Windows OS on your Mac. I previously loaded and tested the beta of VMWare for Mac (Fusion), but sound cuts off. It’s infrequent but I developed trust issues. VMWare is still good software, free, and works solidly on Windows servers. However, they have some work yet to do for their Mac OS version. They’ll get there.

Parallels is already there. I loaded it and created my virtual machine running WinXP SP2 and all my high end software and it works incredibly well. Parallels Desktop version 3150 also has a feature they call Coherence which puts the icons for your active Windows programs directly on the Mac dock. Parallels also has no problem networking with the other computers in my home nor in sharing folders between the host Mac OS and the guest WinXP.

Through the shared folders, you can map a drive so that files you create or edit in Audition are saved directly to the host Mac (on the same hard drive) for FTP transfers, email, CD burning.

Windows also loads incredibly fast in a virtual machine environment; and of course, all the hardware is detected: sound card, usb, cd, ethernet card.

So far, so good. Whew!