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Equipping Your Home Voiceover Studio
By Peter Drew (Acting Magazine
Contributor)
To make a living, voice over talents
used to have to physically go to
gigs recorded in commercial
production facilities. Now, gigs can
come to them-in home studios and
through the Internet. But for many
voice over talents, newbie and old
pro alike, outfitting a home studio
is technically baffling. So, how do
you make that spare bedroom or
corner of your studio apartment (no
pun intended) into a functional
voice over facility, with decent
acoustics and the appropriate
equipment? Let's take a look at the
basics involved in setting up a home
voiceover studio.
Selecting your studio space
A studio of any size or recording
purpose starts with the space in
which it will be located. Isolation
from outside sounds is important. If
you live in a studio or one-bedroom
apartment, then try to locate your
"studio" in a corner as far from the
door to the hallway and away from
windows. Also, a closet can work
well as a recording booth. Set up
your recording equipment just
outside the closet and your
microphone inside the closet.
If you live in a two-plus bedroom unit or a
single-family home and can dedicate
an entire room to your studio, then
you'll have more options available
for controlling the acoustics of the
space. You'll want to make sure the
room doesn't sound too "echoey" or
"hollow." Treating these problems
can be as simple as putting some
overstuffed furniture in the room,
along with a rug and some drapes
over the windows. Have a lot of old
clothes sitting in an attic or
basement? You can use them to create
a recording "booth" around your mic.
Fill three or four rolling clothes
racks with clothes and then position
them on the sides and back of your
mic position.
Of course, you can use professional acoustic materials
to control sound reflections. You'll
find an excellent primer on
acoustical treatment-in plain
English-at
Auralex. Check out these
acoustical treatment production
companies, too:
HSF Acoustics;
Silent Source.com;
Vocalbooth.com;
Whisper Room.
Selecting your equipment
Once you have your studio space
selected, you'll need to properly
equip it in order to deliver pro
quality voiceovers to clients. With
the latest in digital recording
technology and reasonably priced pro
microphones, you could spend as
little as $1000 for a very basic,
yet serviceable, home voiceover
studio. That's assuming you have a
decent computer sound card and
speakers. The list is quite short:
$200-$250 for a microphone. $40 for
a mic pop filter to prevent
"popping" your Ps, Bs, and Ts. $45
for a mic stand. $200-$250 for a USB
or Firewire digital recording
interface. $65 for shareware
recording software. $45 for
headphones. $40 for cables. $100 for
sundries. Bare bones, but it will
work.
Plug your microphone cable into the digital recording
interface, which is a little box
that amplifies and processes the
signal from the mic. Plug the
interface into your computer's sound
card. Plug your headphones into the
interface. Load the
recording/editing software. A couple
of adjustments to volume in and out
and you're ready to record. Voice
the copy. Clean it up with an edit
or two. Then convert it the
voiceover sound file to an .mp3
file, attach it to an email, and
send it off to the client via the
Internet. To learn more about the
equipment listed above, search the
web or visit online pro audio
dealers. A few good ones are:
Full Compass;
Sweetwater;
B&H Pro Audio;
Boynton Pro Audio;
BSW.
This simple studio set up is serviceable, but it has
its limits. If a client wants to
direct you via the phone, then
you'll have to either hold the phone
to your ear while you record, or get
a hands-free headset. You could also
buy a gizmo call a phone hybrid that
allows you to speak through your mic
down the phone line to your client
as you listen to the client's
direction through your headphones.
Learning more
As with any investment, you'll need
to research the equipment you'll
need for your studio, and how to
install and use it. See if you can
locate a voice talent in your area
that may let you visit his or her
studio. Visit
Mix Magazine or
EQ Magazine and check their
archives for articles on home
studios. Local production houses may
be willing to make suggestions, but,
remember, by setting up your own
studio, you're indicating to clients
that they can cut out the production
house by working directly with you.
That may not sit well with some
production house owners, because the
home voiceover explosion has had a
detrimental impact on many
commercial recording facilities.
That's a basic home voiceover studio in a nutshell. If
you can operate a home stereo and
have experience in front of a
computer screen, then you can put
together and operate a home
voiceover studio. With a little
practice recording and editing, and
some promotion of your home studio,
you can quickly recover the cost of
your studio and add to begin to add
to your bottom line. Happy voicing!
©
Peter Drew, 2005
Peter Drew, a freelance
voice-over talent and
copywriter/producer with decades of
experience, is heard on radio and
television stations, corporate
presentations, web sites, and
messages-on-hold across America and
countries around the world. To send
an email regarding this article,
please visit Peter Drew Voiceovers
at
http://www.peterdrewvo.com.
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