How much voice editing can help you win a voice-over job - Voice Over Series - Part 2

Voice Over Series

Author

Master Editor
October 12, 2024

To win voice-over jobs, your editing has to be perfect. No exception.

You must realize and execute that. Otherwise, you are heading in the wrong direction regarding having a voice-over career.

In the last post, I discussed the best software for voice-over editing. But software can not do things on its own.

You have to know how to use it and learn to get the most out of it.

If you explore the menus of any software, it is too much. You will feel like you will never get the hang of it.

Well, you don’t need to know all the software menus to get a perfect voiceover. 

For voice-over jobs, you will work closely with other people. You have to have enough knowledge to understand other people’s language.

The “other people“ are those in charge of evaluating your work and ultimately deciding if they should give you the job.

For example, you may be asked, “Give me an audio file raw“ or “The noise floor of your recording should be below -60 dB“.

Sometimes, the requirements will be a bit complex, like “Give me a stereo recording with the left channel raw and right channel normalized to -3 dB without any other effects“.

It may sound very technical, but there are some basic instructions to follow in your software.

Sometimes, you may not get such technical directions, but something will be asked about subjectively.

For example, “I want a voice-over that will sound rich or deep. “ 

“I want something with crisp-sounding audio. “

When getting a subjective requirement, you have to know how to do it technically. 

You can do all such things when you know your software well and some audio basics.

In this post, I will give you a list of things you have to know for voice-over editing. 

I will tell you a bit later how you can learn those things, let’s see the list first:

  1. How to record properly (knowing to press the record button is not enough)

  2. Difference between a mono and stereo recording channel

  3. How to convert between mono and stereo

  4. How to remove white noise so that audio quality remains the same 

  5. What are the perfect compressor settings for voice-over

  6. How to remove breaths

  7. How to remove mouth clicks

  8. How to remove lip smacks

  9. How to remove mouth crackle

  10. How to reduce Sibilance

  11. How to reduce Plosives

  12. How to re-record a small part of the audio

  13. How to add music on top of voice-over with fade in and out

  14. How to reduce whistly sound

  15. How to reduce nasal tone

  16. How to avoid dead silence in the recording

  17. How to change tone using an EQ curve

  18. Which effects are a must for a voice-over

  19. Which 3rd party plugins are best for de-click and de-noise

  20. How to export audio properly

  21. How to create headroom for safe processing

  22. What to do with abnormal high peaks

  23. Which issues can not be removed in post-processing or with software

  24. On which websites you must have voice over demo

  25. How frequently should you make a voice-over demo

It is quite a long list, but you need to know the answers to these for voice-over success.

Now let me guide you on how to learn all the above things well. There are 3 ways you can learn those things.

  1. Learn from free content: Everything you need to learn is available online. You have to commit to learn and practice. If you want to go in a completely free route, here is my advice.

  • Read at least 2 online articles on a topic

  • Watch at least 2 YouTube videos on a topic

  • Practice at least 2 times for a topic.

Why everything at least 2 times? Because free content may not be up to the mark. Something can be missing in 1 content, so consuming at least 2 pieces of content will give you a clearer perspective.

Learning from free content takes time, but it works. How much time it will take depends on your commitment and the quality of the materials you find.

  1. Online Courses: Online courses are faster than free content. Because all the necessary materials are kept in one place. Anyone making an online course will have something important to teach you.

Of course, not all online courses have the same quality, but it is a faster way than free content. You will also have a less chance to go into the wrong direction.

I have some courses and tools, but I am not giving the links in this post. You can email me if you want to know which of my courses is suitable for you.

My main goal in this post is to illustrate the things you need to do, so I will not directly promote my courses. You should take courses from someone whose teaching style is suitable for you.

  1. Consulting: Some experts offer 1-1 or group consulting. It can be a faster way to learn things. It is a bit expensive route, but works better than any of the previous methods.
    If free content or courses are not taking you to the desired skill, you can try this. Like courses, many experts offer such consulting services.
    I have such a service called Premium Consulting. If you want to know more about premium consulting:
    » Click this link to learn more about Premium Consulting

Whatever path you choose, free or paid, you have to keep the above 25 points in the list. 

The primary requirement of voice-over is that it has to sound good. I have discussed the sound better do’s and don’ts in the Sound Better Series.

Make sure you read all the articles of the Sound Better Series so that this Voice Over Series makes sense.

In the next part of this Voice Over Series, I will discuss the importance of 3rd party plugins and what are some excellent 3rd party plugins.