I was talking to my buddy, the other Steve. He posts here as Ghede. He's been involved in a project for a long time now recording Native American storytellers. I've done some VO stuff here as well. And, to my mind, VO work does not get the appreciation it should. So, I'm going to start this thread as a teaching tool for all of us to share insights into VO.

Here's an interesting take on a Sennheiser mic used in VO...

http://www.coreyburton.com/sennheiser.html

Hmm, i may have found my perfect mic.

I think one issue I'd like to discuss is on the production end of things.

I was in one play in college. I was the bad guy in Heaven Can Wait. Anyhow, I learned a little bit about making the performance fit the medium. One day, the director takes me aside and says, "Steve, you're a good actor but this is THE STAGE." He told me that on the stage you need to play it the way you think it should be played and then turn up the action by two to five times. It's sort of like the inverse of recording distorted electric guitar. I'll get the guitar to sound how I want it as a guitarist and then I'll usually cut the distortion to half. For some reason, in audio, less is more when it comes to distortion.

Dialog is very, very interesting. For example, you can have dialog where the final product will be audio only. For this end product, I've sort of found dialog to be like acting on the stage. You need more emotion, more dynamic, more inflection. The performance generally needs the performance plus something else. Not everyone can give good direction to get a good performance out the talent. I've found people are freakiest when it comes to their faces or their voices. So, you got to find a way to get the performance without getting someone very angry with you. And, you got to be careful. Too much emotion, dynamic, inflection or whatever it is you're trying to get extra can lead to the final product being campy.

The few times I've gotten to work with great voice talent I've not had to really do any performance coaching. It's more of an engineering gig.

I would agree that the emotion tends to get lost if you don't over eggagerate to some extent. Some people do it naturally so it's not an issue with them.

I do not have any formal acting training but have done stage work in high school and college. This slight over emphasis is something I have had to learn on my own. I have found that simply moving my mouth more than normal helps tremendously as a starting point. Most people speak while moving their mouth as little as possible. Really rounding out the words with your mouth and tongue may be just the push the dialog needs to translate over the faceless VO medium.


Jason A.

Ty Ford is a VO guy, and I recall there being some good stuff on his site. Hopefully he'll pitch in.

Speaking of VO, this is, IMO, one of the funniest damn things ever:

http://www.pirate.ca/spot_of_the_week/arch...e_Comedian.html

Bear

I attend quite a few poetry readings and it amazes me how bad most of the 'performers' are at it. They seem embarrassed to let the emotion out. I tend to see spoken word performance as akin to singing. Approaching it as such works pretty well for me.

This subject is timely for me, as I have a friend who wants to record some of her poetry. May try my own while I'm at it, so anything I might learn is all to the good.

i had a girlfriend who was a poet and a dj. i went with her to poetry readings and watched her in the studio on the air and when doing vo.

she made sure to get plenty of rest every night. she drank lots of water. and, she worked out on aerobic machines. she also practiced diction.

she had a sexy voice and she had a body built for sin unlike a lot of radio people.

damn, i miss her.

she could also sing beautifully in her own way but always seemed to be way off the beat. it was her one flaw.

We all could learn a lot from stand up comedians, they're a rare breed in that they appear to be talking to you AND comfortable in their skin at the same time.

War

There are a variety of factors here Oz. For Ghede's purposes I would think that a conversational tone would be the most effective. But for spots, bumps, etc. The copy or desired effect steers the direction of the delivery.

As for broadcast it all depends, and you have me thinking agaian. I worked at one station where they wanted you to smile when you spoke. You can here people smile when they speak. It's perkier, and completely un-sullen. "Here's Fairies Wear Boots by Black Sabbath" we would chirp!

I am gonna think on this for a while. Thanks.

Smiling while introducing "Fairies Wear Boots"...strange!

War

Yup....And you gotta believe me. I seen 'em there with my own 2 eyes.

I know you saw what you saw, and tell me no lies.

All right now.

War

being good in vo is hard work just like being good on piano, etc. my ex spent a lot of time with her craft when not in front of the mike. she walked in and made it look so easy.

amateur vo person = amateur garage band = a lot of time getting it to tape = bring on the edit time

Boy that wraps it up with a nice bow.

Yes, there are several documents on my site about V/O. I teach a course in narration as part of the AFTRA/SAG Conservatory courses in the Washington/Baltimore local. I also teach V/O one-on one. Um, I guess that's because I've been doing V/O for a really long time...(none of your business!)

I have demos up there In case you want to hear how I do things myself. Last gig I took, the producer says, "Um, well we're plannning on a two hour session."

I had him email me the script. Looked at it and thought, "2 hours!? What the crap does he have in mind! It shouldn't take anywhere near that amount of time."

So it takes me 35 minutes. He says, "Wow, you ripped right throught that script! And the way you did it, the edits will be really easy."

I said, "Yup, that's what I do." Save record and edit time (and time is money) and the talent fee, which is pegged to the amount of time it takes the talent to record.

Lately I've been doing narration, recording it here with the client listening in over the phone or via an audio session with iCHAT. Very cool. No long distance.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Wow, I had no idea that the standard was a shotgun. I always thought that VO used the same sorts of mics that were used in broadcasting (RE20, SM7,...)

I'm a complete amateur, but personally, I wouldn't use a shotgun on anything where the pickup pattern wasn't absolutely necessary. My shotgun has its purpose, but all in all it sounds pretty bad. Of course it was probably a lot cheaper than that Sennheiser, so maybe that makes my situation worse.

The last time I did ADR, which is the closest I've ever come to spoken word type stuff, I used my CAD M177, and it seemed to work out ok given that it was pretty much either that or an SM57. I hope to have some similar opportunities in the future so I can try out my EV 635A for that purpose.

the sennheiser and the neumann u87 might be the two most common microphones used in the studio for vo. there will be a quiz later so write all this down.

in radio in the usa, the two most common mics i see are the re20 and sm7.

i know that in germany that they like the pauly superscreens for popfilters for radio.



at national public radio, they like neumann.

There is no standard mic for professional V/O. Every studio I go into has something different. Further, it's the mic and preamp combination that determine the sound. Some mics are more sensitive to preamps they are connected to.

A TLM 103 and AKG C414 sound prettty nasty through a Focusrite Red two channnel preamp. Put 'em through a GML, Neve and they sound quite nice.

I produced a dialog radio spot yesterday and we used both my Schoeps cmc641 mics. The studio in which I worked had a 414 into a API and a TLM 103 into a Aphex 207.

I tried the 414/API combo and found it a bit spitty. The Schoeps/API and Schoeps/APhex match was quite good.

Regards,

Ty Ford