6 min read
How to record voice over for video: a home studio setup that works
A closet, a phone lav or a USB mic. Any of them can work if you control the room and the distance.
Voice over is one of the few audio tasks you can do well without leaving your home. It is also one of the most unforgiving. Every room reflection, mouth click and breath burst is magnified when there is no picture to distract the listener. The good news is that a decent voice over needs almost no money. It needs a quiet space and a little discipline.
Choose the room before the microphone
A cheap microphone in a well-damped room beats an expensive microphone in a reflective room. Look for a small space with lots of soft surfaces: a closet full of clothes, a corner behind a curtain, or a bathroom with the shower curtain drawn. Hard parallel walls are what create echo, and echo is what makes voice over sound like a recording.
Distance and angle matter more than the mic price
Place the microphone six to twelve inches from your mouth, slightly off axis so you are not breathing directly into the capsule. Pop filters and foam windscreens reduce plosives and spit. If you have neither, angle the mic forty-five degrees above or below your mouth and speak across it.
Set conservative levels
Voice over has quiet moments and loud moments. Set levels so your loudest delivery peaks at minus 12 dBFS. This leaves room for laughs, emphasis and surprises. Do not ride the gain while recording. Record at a fixed level and adjust later.
Use a script and mark it up
Print the script or display it on a screen below the camera line so your mouth stays at the same distance from the mic. Mark breaths, pauses and emphasis before you press record. Nothing kills a take faster than realising halfway through that you emphasised the wrong word.
Edit with restraint
Cut out long breaths, mouth clicks and obvious mistakes, but leave natural breaths and rhythm. Over-edited voice over sounds robotic. A short fade at the head and tail of each clip keeps the recording from popping in and out.
Export to the project standard
Most video projects expect 48 kHz, 24 bit mono WAV. If you recorded at a different rate, convert before importing. The sample rate converter on this site handles the conversion locally and keeps the bit depth intact.