Cutting VO’s (voice overs)

If an audio engineer works in mostly music production, then cutting VO’s (voice overs) must surely be a tedious bore right? … Wrong, nothing could be farther from the truth!

Maybe I can’t speak for everyone, but the primary reward for many audio engineers is not monetary (especially in this fractured new economy), it is more about solving the mystery. Specifically, the mystery of how to effectively get your client’s message across to their audience. With only one mic involved, only one performer, then this must be an easy mystery to put to rest. Au contraire … the sheer simplicity of the signal path belies the crucial nature or each component in that path … one poor choice and the client’s message may be lost in unintelligiblity or negated by inappropriate tone.

Here’s the basics …

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice-over

Our ears and minds can accept a wide range of sonic variation amongst musical instruments and sound effects, but we are not nearly as accepting towards vocal tone variation. Give a voice (male or female) an unnatural sonic quality and the ear immediately rebels … whether a frequency imbalance, screwed up dynamics or distortion, the ear/mind identifies such abnormalities as electronic error within fractions of a second. This is only natural; as a species it behooves us to have extreme sensitivity to sounds that are frequently important to us … and what could be more important than communicating with our own kind!

This sensitivity means that mic selection, mic placement, pattern selection, plosives, sibilance, proximity effect, breaths, wheezing, saliva bubbles, clothes rustling, background noise, noise floor, compressor ratio, compressor knee, compressor time constants, limiting, high pass filtering and EQ all become crucial elements… each factor important enough to kill the entire project’s effectiveness.

Here’s a thorough article from the UK’s Sound On Sound …

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun11/articles/voiceover-01.htm

So what does an engineer do, faced with such challenges? Frankly? … either relish them or be miserable. I choose to enjoy each micro decision. After all, when you’ve got the right mic, on the right talent, with a transparent windscreen, with the right preamp, paired with the right compressor (and maybe limiter too), in the right room, with the right bed or nats and careful editing … the results are more than clearly understood speaking, they’re more like communication magic!

Here’s some finer points from a pro …

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/indepth/audio/tips-solutions/voice-over-insight-interview-our-resident-expert-john-pace

Curiously, what constitutes audio magic is slightly different from one VO to another. Even though the guidelines of speech replication are narrow, the artistic boundaries are wide enough to necessitate insight. That is … the time compressed, bandwith narrowed barking of a used car ad is going to sound different from the sublime “voice of God” in a movie trailer, or the relaxed, big-bottom tone of a NPR newscast … but that’s where the engineer, the mere technician, actually becomes an artist in their own right.