HOW TO PODCAST October 2020: How to Create Quality Voice-overs
At Volume, we’ve become pros at producing remote-recorded podcasts during all the different stages of lockdown and social distancing that punctuated 2020. Along the way, we have learned two very important things:
- It is difficult to get high-quality recordings of guests or participants if you have to record them from home over Zoom or some other online app.
- If the guest recording is low-quality, the only thing that can save the show is if the host voice-over is crystal clear, crisp, and high-quality by contrast!
The host or narrator’s recording definitely makes or breaks a podcast. It is the one thing listeners expect to be flawless, and the one thing they pick up on immediately if it is poorly done.
Here are 3 tips for getting quality voice-overs for your show:
1. Record a rough-take early on
Doing a rough recording of your host or narrator’s voice-over using a phone gives you something to work with while you start editing your episode’s first cut. You will quickly hear where you might need to change the script, add content, or shift your intonations to help the voice-over fit seamlessly with other material you are using. You need to make sure that the voice-over script is on-point before you spend the time and/or money on doing a proper studio-grade voice-over recording.
Reading the script out loud for a rough-take will also force you to get in some crucial practice. The more you practice your script, the more natural you will sound. After all, you want to come across as if you are speaking to the listener, not as if you are reading to them from a borrowed library book.
2. Use the right equipment
Bad audio is difficult to clean up, even with the most advanced audio-editing software. You can reduce noise and reverb in a recording to some extent, but a lot of it gets baked into the soundwaves upon initial recording. So make sure you have the right equipment, and you are recording in a sound-proof booth, studio, or small isolated space in your house (even a closet filled with clothes can help!).
Our weapons of choice for great audio are the Rode NT1-A Condenser Microphone, Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface, and our cozy sound-booth at Volume’s office in downtown Johannesburg.
3. Create audio consistency
Make sure your recording sounds the same at the start of the episode as it does towards the end. You can do a couple of things to help create this kind of consistency:
- Before stepping in front of the mic, do some warm-up exercises. Why not read your script out loud one more time?
- Have a glass of water at hand to make sure you don’t dry out in the middle of your recording session or start to sound wheezy by the time you sign-off.
- Take a break when you start to sound tired (or replace that glass of water with an energy drink!). If you start sounding sleepy your audience will drift off too.
- Make sure to maintain a consistent distance from the microphone the whole time.
A bad voice-over can sink the best show, and a good voice-over can make your podcast shine! It will remind your listeners that, despite unavoidably glitchy guest recordings, you are in fact a high-quality podcast producer.
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