In this lesson, we will go over the processing of a voice-over.
The commercial animation usually uses a voice-over, which tells us about a company or the product
made by this company.
Most commonly, a voice-over is a key element in a voice-over mix, so its sounding must
be clear, loud, and easy to understand.
Usually, a voice-over is recorded in the company that works with voice actors.
You may get an unprocessed file that is just a recorded mono signal, or already processed
one with equalization, compression, and other types of processing.
If a signal is unprocessed, you need to adjust it more to make the voice sound clear and
loud.
If a signal is processed, you need to make sure the voice-over works good with music
and sound effects.
Let's consider the situation when you've got an unprocessed voice-over.
Let's add it to the project.
Let's listen to it I need to say that this recording sounds good.
It was recorded with a high headroom that means we have a high audio volume margin.
This recording has no background noise, and the narrator's voice sounds full enough in
terms of frequency response.
In this case, you just need to process it, make it solid, loud, and clear.
First of all, let's scale up the wave to see all the details.
As I've said before, this voice-over has no background noise, but it has pauses in between
the narrator's phrases.
These pauses mostly need to be deleted because they have additional side-tones, maybe the
narrator's breathing or smacking.
All these things will interfere with the perception of the video.
That's why we cut out these phrases in such a simple way.
Don't forget to make fade-in and fade-out for each track.
This way of processing can be made with plugins, but in this case, they may work inaccurately
and delete lots of necessary things or leave lots of unnecessary.
So, I reсommend you to do everything manually so that you will have full control over the
process.
The processing chain of a narrator's voice as in case of any other tool can be completely
different.
Each sound engineer has their own approach to and vision of processing a signal.
We will choose the sequence of chain plugins for each case separately.
For this case, let's begin with the de-esser.
What is the de-esser?
It's a compressor that reduces sibilants.
The sibilants are whistling and hissing voice sounds.
Usually, these sounds are [s] or [sh].
Let's have a look at the de-esser.
Add the de-esser to the Insert of the voice-over channel.
In the de-esser, you can see the window showing us the frequency range from zero to 20,000
hertz.
Also, here is a filter that helps us to identify the limits in which de-esser will search for
the necessary signal.
Usually, it is a narrow line directed to whistling and hissing sounds.
Usually, it starts with 3,000 hertz.
The filter section has the Solo button used to listen only to the selected frequency and
the Diff button used to listen to the signal which will be taken away by the compressor.
The Compressor tab goes after the Filter tab.
The Compressor tab has three controllers.
The Threshold controller sets the threshold at exceeding of which the plugin starts reducing
sibilants.
And the Release controller sets the time after which the de-esser stops working if the signal
goes below the threshold.
I recommend you to set the auto mode for choosing an optimal threshold regardless of an input
signal.
The Sidechain tab comes next, but it isn't used for the voice-over processing.
Let's listen to how the de-esser works with the default settings
Let's find the necessary frequency range using the filter.
In this case, we need to work only with the whistling sounds.
Let's increase it to 20,000 hertz because I think the voice has quite a lot of high-frequency
sounds.
And let's set the first controller to about ??6,000 hertz
Let's listen to this phrase once again.
Now the narrator seems to start lisping.
Let's turn off the de-esser and listen to how the voice sounds without it So, the narrator's
voice really has this lisping.
So, let's weaken the reduction in the de-esser a bit and slightly narrow the filter so that
it works from 8,000 hertz In fact, the sibilants aren't so critical in this recording as it
may seem.
But in this case, I am working with the de-esser in order to avoid the sibilants during further
work with the equalizer and compressor
Now let's add an equalizer.
Let's use the StudioEQ 4-band equalizer.
Let's activate all bands and the Spectrum to see the frequency response of the signal.
Cut off the low frequencies in the fourth band at once, since the voice has no useful
signal at a low frequency.
Let's make the cutoff of the frequencies sharper.
You can do this by using the Q-Factor controller.
Pay attention to how the Spectrum works: the red envelop curve shows us the signal after
the equalizer’s work, and the white line shows the signal before the equalizer’s
work.
And I think that here I can surely cut out the voice from 100 hertz, and it won't affect
the sound of the voice at low frequencies.
Now let's find the frequency that obstructs the voice sounding.
Look for a resonant frequency, and do it as follows: make the Q-Factor parameter narrower
that is we've got a narrow band, and make the Gain as loud as possible.
In this position, I will look for a resonant frequency.
What is a resonant frequency?
A narrator usually records the voice in a room.
In this room, stationary frequencies may occur when the voice reflects from the walls.
In this way, you can detect this frequency.
Usually, this frequency forms a kind of hum when you increase the volume.
You will hear it right away.
If you hear such frequency, reduce it.
Let's listen to it Here at the frequency of 280 hertz, you can hear it kind of sounds
as if in a box.
In this case, the frequency doesn't cause a hum.
But, as you can understand, by weakening this frequency, you will avoid this impression
of this box-like sound.
Let's reduce it to minus 3 decibels, and expand the Q-Factor slightly
Let's try to continue searching for the resonant frequency.
Do all the same
You can hear that there is a kind of a plastic sound at this frequency, so here we will also
reduce it to minus 4 decibels and expand the Q-Factor slightly
Let's search some more for the resonant frequency.
Take the first band and change the curve to Peak.
Also, increase the Q-Factor, increase the Gain and look for a frequency
At about 1,000 hertz, you can hear this unnatural side-tone.
Let's reduce it as well, make the Q-Factor a little wider.
So, we've finished with the equalization, and I should say the equalizer can be set
several times in the chain.
We need the first equalizer in order to remove undesirable frequencies before the compressor
starts working.
Low frequencies are volumetric and loud compared to high frequencies.
And if we don't weaken them, the compressor will work only for low frequencies, and high
frequencies will be compressed rather weakly.
You can set the next equalizer after the compressor if necessary.
And in this equalizer, we add the frequencies that are needed for the voice.
In this case, the voice already sounds quite clear, so I won't use an additional equalizer.
Let's move on to the compressor.
Well, let's set the compressor.
The Ratio is usually set to 4:1 for voice-overs.
The Attack can be chosen by ear, well, let's set it to 5.
Let's make the Release shorter so that the compressor works faster.
Let’s set the Make-up to auto, which is the restoration of the volume after the compressor’s
work.
That is the compressor will restore the volume to the initial one by itself.
And lower the Threshold controller so that the Gain Reduction shows the level of compression
to minus 6 decibels.
If it goes lower, it's not a big deal.
It must be at minus 6 decibels on the average.
Approximately the same settings are always made to process
a voice-over So, we've done with the voice-over editing.
As you can see, it took quite few plugins to process the voice-over.
This happened because, firstly, the voice recording is done quite well and requires
very few adjustments.
Secondly, you need to create a natural sounding of the voice, and by using a large number
of plugins, your voice may no longer sound natural, and you will hear the plugins.
There are situations when the voice is poorly recorded, and it really requires a lot of
adjustments with equalizers, compression, and other plugins.
In such cases, you'd better record the voice again.
But if it's impossible, then you need to try to fix it using the available tools.
Let's sum up the highlights of the voice-over editing.
First of all, you need to clear a voice-over from unnecessary frequencies: firstly, low
frequencies, secondly, resonant frequencies, and thirdly, sibilants.
After that, you need to compress a signal in such a way that loud moments become a little
quieter, thus quiet moments of the voice become slightly louder.
So, your dynamics in volume will be loud enough.
Then, if a voice isn't bright enough, and this brightness is usually present at high
frequencies, then you should add an equalizer, which allows you to increase high frequencies
and to make the voice sound brighter and clearer.
Well, that's all for now.
See you in the next lesson.