The best voice over can only be done with 3rd Party Plugins - Voice Over Series - Part 3

It does not matter which audio editing software you use. The best voice comes out with 3rd party plugins.

The less experience you have in audio editing, the more strange the above statement will sound.

You may wonder why your audio editing software will not give you the best voice. If 3rd plugins are the best, why do people pay for software or DAW?

It is important to know the answer, or you may feel lost or frustrated with overwhelming choices.

In the first post of the voice-over series, I discussed the best audio editing software.

If you have not read it yet, You should go through that post. You will know the thought process of finding the best software. 

At the beginning of the audio editing journey, people choose software based on ease of use and cost. 

As time progresses, you have to look for stability and integration with 3rd party plugins. 

The more serious voice-over you do, the more the stability matters. 

If software crashes in the middle of a paid work, you will feel too irritated.

That’s why everyone is not using Audacity. 

It is free, and almost any kind of voice-over work is possible with Audacity, or there is a workaround to make Audacity work.

But for stability and integration with 3rd party, people lean to paid software. 

This post is about integration with 3rd party plugins and why that is important.

Let’s see some common reasons to use 3rd party plugins:

• Noise Reduction

• Mouth Clicks

• De Esser

• De-Reverb

• EQ

• Compressor

The first four reasons on the above list make some sense to you. You may be wondering what the EQ and Compressor are doing there.

Any audio editing software already has those 2 effects. Then why do people use 3rd party plugins for EQ & Compressor?

The answer is not so simple, but it is crucial to understand. 

If you do not know about me, I worked as a software engineer for over 15 years before becoming a voice-over producer.

I will talk a bit from a software engineering perspective. It may look a bit technical, but please bear with me.

You will realize why you need 3rd party plugins even though you are using pretty good audio editing software.

Let’s think about noise reduction at the moment. Every software program has some sort of noise reduction support.

Some software even has several effects for different types of noise (i.e., Adobe Audition).

Before discussing how good or bad those effects are, let’s consider the main purpose of software like Audacity or Adobe Audition.

This software's primary purpose is to allow you to record your voice or instrument and edit and process those recordings.

The software is an interface between the audio data and your computer. 

The software has tools, buttons, or configurations to modify the audio data. 

It has to ensure that the computer can understand your modifications. 

It also has to ensure that this communication always works 100%. 

Otherwise, that DAW is of no use. In short, software like Audacity or Adobe Audition is the middleman between you and audio data.

But if you think of plugins or effects, they work on top of this system. An effect or plugin modifies the audio data and hands it back to the editing software.

So, any plugin and audio effect is the middleman between you and the software (i.e. Audacity, Adobe Audition, etc.)

A plugin or effect modifies the data and hands it back to the software. A plugin doesn’t have to think about communicating with the computer system.

And that makes a big difference in the software development of a DAW and a plugin.

All these discussions mean the development of a DAW, and plugins concentrate on separate areas.

In other words, the software and plugin development teams have different responsibilities.

If I summarize the above talks, a DAW company can not concentrate on the plugins first. They focus on the software architecture so that it runs on your computer smoothly.

And here come the Plugin development companies. You may have heard big names like iZotope RX, Waves, Acon Digital, FabFilter, and many more.

These companies only focus on the plugin sides and extensively research plugin development.

So when such a company develops a noise reduction or any other plugin, they only focus on those features.

For example, the 2 best noise reduction plugins on the current market are Waves Clarity Vx and Supertone Clear. 

They have extensively researched different noise types and used neural network technologies to train data with AI.

So they work better than the default plugins in a DAW. The plugins in a DAW may not have been improved over the years.

It’s down to which company is conducting extensive research on the problem, using more advanced technologies, and matching your voice type.

Not all plugins work the same on every type of voice. 

For example, if you are searching for a better mouth-click solution, you have to explore the current options.

For example, you can choose to use iZotope RX or Acon Digital. However, you must experiment to see which one works best for your voice.

Every voice is different, and you have to find out which plugin works best for you.

I guess now you have a better understanding of why 3rd party plugins work better for many audio issues.

I also added EQ and Compressor to the list of reasons to use third-party plugins. The EQ and compressor do not fall into the noise reduction or De-Click categories.

However, not all EQ and compressor effects are the same. They have differences in their implementation Algorithm. 

So, different EQ plugins and compressor effects produce different kinds of sound. 

To become a professional voice-over artist, you may need to leverage such features of EQ and Compressor. In a later post, I will discuss those.

Let me end this post by suggesting some plugins to explore. 

• Waves Clarity Vx (noise reduction)

• SuperTone Clear (noise reduction)

• Waves MV2 (Comrpessor)

• Waves F6 (EQ)

• iZotope RX (multi-purpose)

• Acon Digital (multi-purpose)

• FabFilter Pro Q3 (EQ)

I am not suggesting that you must have to use these. I am just asking to explore those. All the above plugins offer trials without credit cards.

Not every plugin is necessary for you, and it will not make your problem disappear automatically.

I can give an example. One of my clients bought the iZotope RX Advanced suite ($1199 at the time) to remove one of his audio issues.

His issue was strong reverb in his recordings. Do you know what the best solution is to reduce unbearable sound reflection? 

Blankets! 

If you hang some blankets around you, the reverb will be reduced significantly.

Expensive software does not mean it can solve any type of issue. 

You have to know how to use them properly. You have to check if it can solve your particular problem.

Another issue can arise, particularly for Audacity Users. Audacity may not support some 3rd Party plugins.

In that case, you have to export the audio into another software for processing with the plugin.

It is a workaround for regular Audacity users who are not willing to switch.

On My YouTube channel, I post videos about the plugins, but those videos perform poorly. 

Because it is about paid plugins, and many people are not ready yet for those.

So, I decided to make those videos exclusive for those who will use or benefit from it.

If you are into professional audio using plugins, I suggest you become an exclusive member of Patreon.

I will publish some exclusive tutorials there from time to time.

»> Click here to become an Exclusive Member (only $7/mo, cancel anytime)

In the next post, I discussed the 2 most important effects of professional voice-over.