Complete checklist for high-quality Voice-Over

Author

Master Editor
July 10, 2024

You must complete a checklist to produce high-quality voice-overs for audiobooks, voice acting jobs, YouTube or social media content, courses, or training.

I am providing that checklist in this post. If you do not know about a topic, I listed below, you should:

  1. Either, Google it or watch YouTube videos, and/or

  2. Take any* online courses on that topic (I explained at the bottom why any course will work ).

The Checklist:

  1. You have an external microphone.

  2. You know the polar pattern of your microphone and can take advantage of it.

  3. Your recording room is quiet, or you get quiet enough passage of time during recording.

  4. You have set up your recording room so that minimal white noise enters the recording.

  5. Your recording level is around -15 dB to -6 dB.

  6. You can understand if your recording has room echo or sound reflection.

  7. You have softened your recording space.

  8. You can use Normalize and Compressors audio effects to reach the desired output level.

  9. You understand the difference between the Peak and RMS levels of a recording.

  10. You can export the audio as MP3 or WAV, meeting the requirements of the given instructions.

  11. You understand what is a mouth click.

  12. You can spot and delete breaths from the waveform.

  13. You know which plugins can remove mouth click and how much of it.

  14. You know what a sibilance is.

  15. You can create a new track on your DAW.

  16. You can record a new track while other tracks are open in your DAW.

  17. You understand what a dead silence is.

  18. You know about ACX requirements.

  19. You understand what distortion is.

  20. You know what is clipping.

  21. You know what is plosive.

  22. You know some talking techniques to avoid plosive.

  23. You understand what a proximity effect is.

  24. By looking at the waveform, you can identify if it is a mono or stereo track.

In the future, this document will have detailed guidelines for each point. In the meantime, you can check my courses and tools for Audacity & Adobe Audition: https://shop.master-editor.com

* Why any course will work, even that is not from ME

Usually, you would expect me to make promises with my courses, but why am I saying that other courses will also work?

First of all, anyone making a course would have some skill that you are seeking for. Maybe their teaching style does not align with yours. Hence, you do not see its full value.

However, there is a bigger problem than that. Only 3% of course takers complete a course they enroll in. It is not a made-up statistic; it is reported by Udemy, the largest course seller on the earth.

These statistics also hold for my courses (a bit better, 7-10%). Interestingly, those who completed my courses expressed deep satisfaction. They could see its full value and sometimes praised it more than I would ever expect.

So, if you are enrolled in a course, complete it, and you will find many interesting things to learn. If not, enroll in any course you would like.

If you want to explore courses from Master Editor, please visit my shop: https://shop.master-editor.com

Feel free to contact me for suggestions on which course or tool will align with your goal.