Recording a spoken voice over is interesting because everybody’s voice is different. Although it’s not as challenging as a vocal that is sung you still need to match the voice and the mic well so that the resonant quality of the voice comes through naturally particularly if the VO is for radio.
We recently produced a radio commercial for Tahoe Regional Young Proffessionals (TRYP) where two VO talents had a scripted conversation. The ad had to be 30 seconds long so it’s very important that your script is no more than within 2-3 seconds of the maximum time allowed. In the editing process I cut out all unnecessary pauses, breaths, lip smacks and evened out the level and tone of the voices. It’s important to maintain a natural conversational flow while still editing for time.
Then we had to find the right music to underlay to VO. Usually for a 30 second radio spot we want something upbeat but not too dynamic so as to not have the volume of the music jump up suddenly and thereby interfere with the VO. After some extensive searches online we found just the right track that was easy to edit and flow with the conversational VO. We put it all together and it sounded great. Client happy. Mission accomplished!
