How to get studio quality voice over audio at home – Acoustic Treatment

Posted on July 3, 2012 by VOgig

One of the most important things to tackle when putting together a home recording studio is the sound quality of your recording booth. It is very likely that you did not build your house around a sound studio encased in two foot thick concrete walls – unless you did, and even you will still need further acoustic treatments! So lets say you are just going to use a quiet storage area in your house like most private home recording studios. The most important addition to your sound booth is acoustic treatments, and here at VOgig.com we use acoustic foam from the Foam Factory! www.foambymail.com

The Foam Factory delivers a really great product at some of best cost per square foot we have seen! They hooked us up with their 2” Pyramid Acoustic Foam in a really cool blue color! Us voice over folks are used to sitting in dark quiet rooms, and staring at charcoal grey walls all day but man it gets boring! The blue acoustic foam (they offer many colors) is really going to make your home studio a great place to work. We treated our 200sf isolation booth with the foam on walls and ceiling, and it makes all the difference! You can check out the data sheet on this particular foam HERE.

Similar acoustic foam from the big name companies will cost you thousands of dollars, but if you are looking for studio quality sound at a great price you want to check out foambymail.com/acoustical-foam-products.html

Over all we give the 2” Pyramid Acoustic Foam from Foam Factory, Inc. a top notch rating! It delivered exactly the amount of sound reduction we were looking for in our isolation studio, and we could not believe the price!


Posted in acoustic treatment, Product Review, Recording Equipment, Recording studio | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Home studio loud feedback attack!

Posted on June 3, 2012 by VOgig

I see a lot of questions about people getting loud feedback coming through the studio monitors during playback or recording. If you are having issues getting loud feedback in the studio it is very likely that your recording booth and your mixing booth are in the same room… or close enough that your mic can pick up the monitor sound.

What is happening? Your studio microphones only job is to capture the sound vibrations passing through it, and reproduce them as a signal that your recording interface can interpret. The recording interface reads this signal, and if your studio monitors are active it will play it back for you to hear. So… if your armed mic is close enough to hear the sound from your studio monitors it will cause some MAJOR feedback as the same signal is bounced back and forth between your input and output.

Home studio loud feedback noise

Solution: Either you need to isolate your recording studio from your mixing studio, or you need to make sure to disarm (mute) your mic when you are ready to kick those studio monitors up! You could always invest in a nice set of headphones too! I use the DT 770 Pro studio headphones by Beyerdynamic.

Posted in How To, Recording Equipment, Recording studio | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Business looking for voiceover or radio ad?

Posted on May 23, 2012 by VOgig

So you are a small or medium business, and lets say you are looking to produce a short radio ad or web clip to advertise your business. You want two things… It needs to be cost effective, and it needs to look and sound professional. Where do you begin?

If you landed here you are on the right track. There are a ton of people out there that will promise an excellent product, but in the end it is going to cost you an arm and a leg! What should these things cost anyway? What do you need to plan for?

To produce a radio or video ad you need these three things:

1: You need to have a well designed script. It should be clear, concise, and straight to the point. What does your business sell, and why would I want it? This may cost you roughly $100 to have someone write for you.

2: You need to have a professional voice actor deliver your audio narration. Yes I know that you want to save money and read it yourself, but EVERYONE listening is too busy thinking “I bet this guy read this himself”. You want the delivery to be realistic, and transparent. VO pros do this for a living, and it shows! Expect to spend about $300 per 400 words for a non union voice actor on a short radio run.

3: Music! It is important to find the right sound for your particular ad. Even if it is only 10 seconds of music behind the narration it makes all the difference to the listener! Again you want your ad to be transparent. Expect to spend under $100 for a music track.

Developing  an ad that has a transparent delivery allows the listener to focus on the ads message, and not spend this valuable time that you have purchased wasted on the listener critiquing a sketchy production. In the end it is all about your business making the most out of your investment, and the only way to do it is to have the professionals do what they do best!

Need a professional voiceover for your project? Just shoot us an email, and we will be happy to give you a free quote! Email: Admin@VOgig.com

Posted in How To, Voice Over | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

VOgig video 01 poem read

Posted on May 20, 2012 by VOgig

I finally decided to start recording some video about Voiceover, and the VO gig business. This is a short intro clip of Mike Voss reading a poem by William Ernest Henley. It is probably one of the most badass poems ever written so I thought I would start with something motivational. More to come! Stay tuned!

Posted in Vogig Video, Voice Over | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

When it rains it pours! Bring on the VO work!

Posted on April 12, 2012 by VOgig

So after a long time of putting my feelers out there and peddling around my demo to voice over teavarious locations to land possible voiceover gigs it happened… the dreaded double day delivery! Two large VO projects due on the same night. No problem for most people if their projects both land on the same night, but for the voice over talent you cant just slam back another gallon of coffee to deliver the product. You have to save that voice!

So what can you do to help clear your voice for voice over work on those long gigs? I have really found that a tea called “Throat Coat” works wonders! There is no caffeine involved so you don’t have to worry about constricting your vocal chords, and a nice warm drink with a bit of honey always seems to do the trick! These little things can save you a lot of time and trouble on retakes in the studio!

Posted in Recording Equipment, Recording studio, Voice Over | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Does a quiet place drive you crazy?

Posted on April 4, 2012 by VOgig

I just read an article about “the quietest place on earth” – the most incredible sound isolation booth you’ve ever seen located in south Minneapolis at Orfield Labs. I would absolutely love the opportunity to record a voice over gig in this anechoic chamber! At 99.99 percent sound absorption you can supposedly hear the sound of your own lungs vibrating from breathing. I didn’t even realize that my lungs were making sound! I was under the impression that it was a relatively silent operation, but come to think of it I don’t think about breathing much at all…

You are now manually breathing.

So I am sure that it is creepy to be marooned in this black hole of vibrations, but I would like to publicly accept the challenge to sit alone in this room for however long it takes (over 45min) to break shatter the record! As a voiceover professional I have spent many long hours in isolation studios of all shapes and sizes allover the country – I have trained for this.

Posted in Recording studio, Voice Over | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Has anyone ever told you that you have a great radio voice?

Posted on March 31, 2012 by VOgig

I have heard this exact thing from countless people. You should be on TV! or on the radio! or a motivational speaker! These all sound like they would be really cool… don’t they? But the thing that they don’t tell you is just how the hell you are going to do any of this cool new stuff with your great voice.

Like I said people told me all the time that I had a great voice, but probably just like you I thanked them and went on with my life. The reason I finally made it into the voice over business was the one time I happened to hear the same line “You have a great radio voice” from someone that could actually do something for me! You will hear this story a thousand times in two flavors: either “the right place at the right time” or “knowing the right people”. Ever working VO talent has a discovery story!

John and Danielle from Image Control Media Chicago were both those things for me. They just happned to know a local producer that was looking for a new male voiceover actor, and they asked me to record a quick sample in my home recording studio. The producer liked it, and offered me the gig on the spot! I couldn’t believe it!! I was so thrilled to start actually making money as a voice over professional! The best part is that once you have done one professional voiceover gig the next one is right around the corner… but its not going to come knocking on your door – you’re going to have to fight for it!

Posted in Recording studio, Voice Over | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Studio recording session at Comfortzone Audio!

Posted on March 26, 2012 by VOgig

I got a chance to hit a local professional recording studio (http://comfortzoneaudio.com/) this week to work on one of my original Acoustic songs called “This is My Life”. It has been a long time since I worked on my music, and I am so happy with how this first session turned out. The owner John Mackniskas was professional the whole way through, and the studio he has is fantastic. Hopefully I will have a completed track after one or two more sessions, and I can start on the video to accompany the music! Thanks as always to all the support!Comfortzone Audio studio recording booth

Posted in Recording studio | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Where not to start looking for voice over gigs…

Posted on March 26, 2012 by VOgig

While it may be tempting to check out places like Craigslist for voice over gigs – don’t do it! All you are going to find there is empty promises, and insulting prices! People don’t realize (or care) just how much studio time it takes to record even a small VO project. They want to give you $30 for a 2000+ word read, and they think they are doing you a favor. They are idiots, and you should let them record it themselves if it is so easy to do!

Craigslist voice over job offer people… you suck. If you are desperate for VO work you are welcome to try your hand at trying to land one of these low paying insulting BS jobs, but you are better off waiting for a real offer! Now you are thinking to yourself: OK, VOgig that’s great, but where DO I start?

You start by making a DEMO, and then you hit the streets with it. Walk into local shops in your area and let them know you are a local talent looking to represent them. Contact local college radio stations, and get a name that you can send your demo track to. Small businesses don’t realize just how cost effective it can be to run a small ad on the local radio station. You can help them find this out, and start getting your name out there as a local talent. If you attend a church that might be a great place to start… I always have a few requests coming through from local churches looking for a great voice! Talk to people and let them know who you are and what you can do! Get up and make it happen!

Posted in How To, Voice Over | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Looking for that old time radio sound?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by VOgig

Wow this week has been crazy in the VO community! I guess everyone is getting ready to step out of hibernation and make the some Money! It will be interesting to see if we can land some major contracts with a few big names in this new found busy scene.

This is a great time to knock the dust off that old demo, and come up with something newold time 40's radio announcer sound to shake things up! For some reason I have seen a lot of requests for an “old time radio” sound. Not hard to do… Just do your best 40s announcer voice, and knock out the Bass and Treble with your Air Kill EQ plugin in Pro Tools! Check out the image to see a good example. Play around with it, and you will be surprised how great it sounds!

Posted in How To, Voice Over | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments