Category Archives: Voice Talents

Voiceover tips, blog posts, discussions, resources for voiceover talents

Red Book Specs for Voiceovers

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Some clients want “red book specs” and dry recordings (just your voice; no music or sound effects). Red book specs are standard for CD quality audio files: 2 channel, 44k, 16 bit. Although you can record good audio at red book specs, you can generally record cleaner audio at 24 bit and then adjust the sampling to the client’s specifications.

The Internet is full of resources for quick definitions among other things. When in doubt, I click over to Wikipedia, an ever-growing wiki site full of articles on everything. It’s community operated and created through online collaboration. Like everything we encounter on the Internet, wiki articles have to be evaluated, not taken as gospel; but I’ve found it to be a reliable resource for most searches I’ve run over there.

Wikipedia has this article on the Red Book audio standard. Short and sweet. If you don’t find it on Wiki, there’s always Google.

Vocoder Effect In Adobe Audition 1.5

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A vocoder basically makes a musical instrument or sound effect talk like you (or mimic whatever you use to modulate the carrier wav, your voice). Adobe Audition 1.5, my favorite editing program, comes with a vocoder in the multitrack section under effects. Here’s a vocoder video tutorial by Jason Levine. It’s part of the excellent Total Training DVD for Adobe Audition 1.5. I definitely recommend that training DVD which I think is still available on eBay. Jason uses the vocoder for the great intro clip that loads when you first launch Adobe Audition’s multitrack feature.

Anyway, here is a vocoder sample mp3 file I produced.

[audio: http://nikkisaco.com/audio/vocoder.mp3]

You’ll hear the original clips and the vocoded effect using a guitar loop. One portion has a dry voice recording saying “voice over services”. I enhanced that with the vocoded version of the same phrase on a separate track. I also added a cello wav file that I love. (The cello is probably my favorite instrument; so much emotion.) Then, I added a vocoded phrase I created with the cello as the modulating track. Very interesting sounds. I love to play with this stuff.

Your Production Music Library

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Building up a production music library is a good idea if you routinely provide full voice production services, mixing voice, music and maybe some sound effects. You can get a good start to your royalty-free production music library by visiting Lazertrax.Com. They have a 14- CD collection with a variety of tempos, and they provide a buyout license. There are some services that provide pay-as-you-go (needle drop) licenses which can be cheaper but are going to slow you down in production (if you have to stop to purchase). It’s definitely nice to have a few CDs with music you’re most likely to use for the work you do. The Music Bakery and Flying Hands Royalty Free Music have stunning music and you can buy by the clip, which I have from time to time. Really, I love their stuff though they’re a bit pricier. Definitely review their licensing. But Lazertrax is great and I use them for a lot of on-holds. They aren’t loop mixes. You don’t want that for the price CD buyouts will generally run you (varies).

That’s not to say loops are bad. They can be boring and repetitive unless you find someone who really knows how to put them together or you learn yourself. If you have Adobe Audition (I have 1.5), you can put loops together and really come up with nice compositions. You’ll also be happy to know it comes with a loop library (“Adobe Loopology“). The loops work great with Audition’s multitrack system.

A loop is basically just a clip of music that can be looped (clever name) so that you can drag it out on the multitrack for as long as you need the sound to repeat. In Audition you can also change the key and tempo. As you can imagine, with this kind of functionality, you can create tons of music beds (if you have the time to put them together) and avoid ever having to buy any production music CDs and licenses. If you know even a little music theory, this method may work best for you; but you don’t need to know music. A good ear can be enough. You can make literally all your background music from these loops. Adobe offers many categories. If you have Audition, you’ll definitely want to get the Total Training DVD for Adobe Audition 1.5 which is taught (very well) by Jason Levine, the guy who did most if not all their loops.

The other great thing you can do with these loops is create some interesting audio for imaging. Here is a audio clip I threw together just playing around. It also contains a vocoder of me saying “serious beauty.” I love vocoding.

The Lazertrax collection is really decent, but definitely listen to some clips from The Music Bakery. You’ll notice you get full orchestration, not computer-generated midi sounds. There’s software out there, like Finale 2006, that comes with a virtual orchestra, The Garritan Orchestra. I bought that and it was BIG bucks; but the sound is unbelievable. I can play the violin without ever picking up a bow. Again, if you know music theory, Adobe’s Loopology collection and Finale may work better for you. And with Finale, you can create compositions you can turn around and sell to other voiceover talent for their music beds. Not bad.