Voice overs quality?

[dukattack]

whenever i do voice overs for a film it sounds fuzzy in the background. how do you make it sound better like BFX?

[psycho_cow_chick]

well try using a good quality mic and turn the gain down and the volumn up

[yugosaki]

It sounds like your main problem is either the quality of the mic, or your gain setting is too high. What are you using for a mic?

[cyrax037]

Yeah, probably sounds like a mic quality problem. What are you using to record? If your using a computer program, you might substitute the word gain for Line-In/recording volume, atleast thats what it is called on WavePad. (If your using a type of sound mixer, then it would be gain, and its the little usually gray knob at the top of the channel)

If your gain is too high tho, I'd think it would be very distorted aswell, and be REALLY loud. If its a mic problem, you might invest in a better quality mic. You could use a program that can remove audio noise, but nothing substitutes for a quality recording from the get go. DC7 does have a great filter I like, continuous noise filter, and one of the presets, I forget exactly what its called, cassette tape (NR) or something like that. Its pretty good about removing background hums and hisses and just general audio noise, typical of cassette tape recordings.

[Neaps]

use a good mic

[Razback]

Also i want a mic any suggestion like make one in my own....

[Andy Leonard]

Don't use whatever is on your computer. If you play around with the settings, you can get almost any external mic to give you a decent sound. Also, pay attention to the room in which you are recording. Turn off the A/C, stay away from too much glass, etc.

[DigitalVideo]

Use a free program like audacity to take out the high/low pass.

[dukattack]

i use a singstar mic

[yugosaki]

i use a singstar mic

That's probably your problem. If my research (google) is correct, those are meant for a PS2 video game. Video game mics are typically fairly cheap, since audio quality isn't a big issue when playing a game.

You can play around with high pass and low pass filters and stuff like that using audacity or any other editor, but I don't know if you'll be able to get a good result. It'd difficult to fix poor audio in post.

Your best bet is to get a good microphone.

[cyrax037]

A noise filter will help too. Maybe more then just a high/low pass. Like I mentioned before, I'm highly impressed with DC7s "Continuous Noise Filter-FeCRO2 Cassette Tape(with NR)" filter. It works really great to remove alot of background noise. But its also not a miracle worker. I've had audio that has a bad buzz in it that it just can't get out no matter what.

[dukattack]

will try

[Sacman]

If you are new to doing voice overs as it sounds like you are, I have one pointer that will help you when it is time to blend it all together.

Even when it sounds like a room is perfectly silent, it typically isn't. Always grab a chunk of 'silence' when you are filming. Make sure everyone is quite and you should be able to loop it but get a good 10 seconds or so.

Once you have done this and you record your dub in a decently soundproofed room (aka studio) you can put your voice track over the 'silent' track and it will blend well with the rest of your footage. This is one of the reasons that dubbed movies where they change four letter words are so obviously out of place, specifically on older films they are done well after the fact and they have no background sound track to work with.

This is all assuming you are doing dubs to fix bad audio or something along that line. If your entire video is done as a voice over, then simply ignore this because it does not matter. If you are doing a narrative over other footage with sound, this may still help you out so that it doesn't sound completely out of place. I have not done that before so I am not sure what it would add quality wise.

[gonzo_entertainment]

"Always grab a chunk of 'silence' when you are filming"

"Room tone", every single place you film needs 15 to 20 seconds of this recorded. Without it doing ADR or anything like that is basically impossible.

[Sacman]

Room Tone.

That definetly sounds more professional. :-)