You got your essential voiceover gear, now what?
You need to acoustically treat your room and ensure your recording space has a low noise floor and that your recording space is acoustically treated.
What does this mean?
When you record, you want to ensure your noise floor aka the background noise in your room when you are recording to be as low as possible. In addition, you want to prevent incoming sound and the sound of your voice echoing inside, or sounding hollow from inside your recording space.
Here’s a great 3 minute video explaining noise floor:
Acoustic Treatment for your Recording Space
So, after getting your equipment and identifying the space you want to record in, record something (a 30 second clip). Send it to someone who’s in the voiceover industry. They’ll be easily able to identify if you need to work on treating your recording space.
To save you frustration and headache in trying to figure out what you need to do. I would recommend contact a sound engineer expert for a sound check or home studio consult. Below are some of the most trusted in the in voiceover industry in North America that does offer these services and can give you an idea of what you need.
If you are in Canada, I recommend booking a Home Recording Session under services with On the Mic Training.
Dan Lenard @ Home Voiceover Studio
George @ George the Tech
Frank Verderosa @ Frank Verderosa
For those who are on a budget and want to do it on your own, here are some Do It Yourself (DIY) soundproofing essentials.
D.I.Y Essentials
Select a space in your home to record. Three key criterias to consider:
- Avoid rooms that have sound reflective surfaces like the bathroom and kitchen.
- A quiet space with soft surfaces to dampen the sounds. (i.e. a small bedroom or walk in closet that can isolate you from the sounds).
- A small space as it is easier to acoustically treat.
Below is a list of items that is helpful to create an acoustically treated recording space.
Moving Blankets
You can use this for building your vocal booth constructions, home studios or areas that needs extra sound absorbing materials to control to reduce noise and sound reverberation. If you are Canada based, get them here.
Acoustic panels
These act to absorb sounds. Imagine a black hole, where sound goes in but doesn’t come back out.
It’s recommended for the insulation to be at least 2″ thick and to use Rockwool for the insulation for the best results.
Recently, I’ve found that if you go on Kijiji and search for ‘Acoustic panels’ you can more often than not find people in your local area who builds them for a reasonable price.
However, depends on your space, you may just need Acoustic Foams.
Consult with a sound expert.
DIY Acoustic Panels
DIY Vocal Booth
Connectivity
Since the pandemic, a lot of voiceover projects have moved to home-based studios. This mean connectivity is more critical than ever, as clients need to connect with you to enable them to do remote directed live sessions.
Here are the most popular software tools:
- SourceConnect
- ipDTL
Sometimes Zoom is also an option.
Ensure you have strong WiFi. Some items you may want to consider snagging up to safeguard you from being disconnected.
Photo by: Nivenn Lanos
