Voice Over Editing Tips for Beginners

In voice over, editing your work is just as important as recording it. An unedited recording is basically an unfinished job, because it’s not really a usable product for your clients. Editing is something that you’ll have to learn, though, and something that you’ll improve on the more you do it. Here are a few tips to keep in mind for those just getting into VO.

●     Check your mic. Before you even start recording, do a quick mic check. You want the best source material possible, so that your editing work is less complicated. Read your material at normal volume, then play back what you recorded. Adjust your mic as necessary.

●     Get rid of background noise. After you’ve recorded your material, it’s critical that you remove any background noise that interferes with your voice over - so all of it, essentially. Static, hissing, vibrations...none of this should be on your final product, so use your editing software to isolate and eliminate these extraneous sounds.

●     Eliminate gaps of silence. Like background noise, gaps of silence are an unwanted element of your recording. Using the similar tools, remove these for a better-flowing recording.

●     Removing breaths. Sometimes, breaths should be removed. Other times, they shouldn’t. Consider your recording and how a breath may add drama or intensity to it. If this is appropriate, you may want to leave certain breaths in. 

●     Amplify and normalize. Chances are, there will be parts of your audio that are too soft or too loud. Sometimes this includes the entire track, but often it’s a mixture of the two. To create a more consistent volume, you need to amplify or normalize. For a recording that is either one or the other (too soft or too loud),  you need to amplify. For a track that exhibits both characteristics, normalizing is in order. I use Twisted Wave, with a couple of choice plugins, for my main editing software.