Voice Over Recorder

Knowledge Base

How to Use the VO Recording Checklist

The Voiceover Recording Checklist provides a pre-flight checklist for recording professional voiceovers. Covers mic setup, room prep, technical settings, and delivery tips to ensure clean, broadcast-quality takes.

Pre-Recording Setup

• Close all browser tabs and notifications. Silence phone and smartwatch.
• Record in quietest room available. Soft furnishings (carpet, curtains) absorb echo.
• Position mic 6-8 inches from mouth. Not too close (plosives) or too far (weak signal).
• Use a pop filter to reduce harsh "p" and "b" sounds.
• Wear headphones to monitor audio live.
• Set DAW input level to peak around -12 to -6 dB, not above -3 dB.

Technical Settings

• Sample Rate: 48 kHz for video, 44.1 kHz for audio-only work.
• Bit Depth: 24-bit minimum (32-bit for maximum detail).
• Format: Mono for single mic, stereo for dual-mic (character variations).
• Gain: Set to -12 to -6 dB peak during loudest passages.

Recording Tips

Warm up with tongue twisters. Take sips of water between sentences (dry mouth causes plosives). Do multiple takes, aiming for natural delivery, not stiff. Mark the best takes. Listen critically, harshness, plosives, and room noise show up in headphones first.

FAQ

Q: Should I record one take or multiple?
A: Record 3-5 takes, varying inflection and energy. In post, choose the best or comp together phrases.

Q: How do I improve breath sounds (audible inhales)?
A: Record inhales separately and splice them in quieter. Pause between sentences instead of inhaling mid-sentence.

Getting a usable voice-over take

The room decides more than the microphone. A reasonable microphone in a soft, small space beats an expensive one in an empty room with hard walls, because reflections arriving milliseconds after the direct sound are what make a recording sound amateur, and no processing removes them convincingly. Soft furnishings, a wardrobe of hanging clothes, or a duvet behind you all help immediately.

Set distance before touching any level control. About a hand span from the microphone suits most voices, close enough to stay ahead of the room and far enough to avoid the exaggerated bass of speaking almost against it. Speaking slightly across the microphone rather than directly into it reduces plosives without a filter.

Leave headroom. Peaks landing around minus 12 to minus 6 decibels below maximum give room for the unexpected loud line, and quiet material can always be raised afterwards while clipped material cannot be repaired. Recording as loud as possible is a habit inherited from tape and actively harmful digitally.

Record more takes than feel necessary, and do them in a row. The third and fourth reads are usually better than the first, because the awkwardness of hearing your own voice has worn off. Reading a line three times consecutively and moving on is faster than perfecting each one and produces better options.

Say what a take is before you perform it. A spoken slate, naming the script and take number, means an editor with forty files can identify them without opening each one. Leave a couple of seconds of silence at the start too, since that sample of room tone becomes the material used to patch gaps later.

Vocabulary

Headroom. The gap between your loudest peak and the maximum a recording can hold. Provides room for an unexpectedly loud moment, since anything passing the maximum clips and cannot be repaired.

Room tone. The sound of a space with nobody speaking. Recording thirty seconds of it gives an editor material to fill gaps and smooth edits, which otherwise produce audible holes where the background stops.

Plosive. The thump of air from a p or b sound striking the microphone. Reduced by speaking slightly across the microphone rather than into it, and by a pop filter placed between mouth and capsule.

Slate. A spoken identification at the start of a take, naming the script and take number. Turns a folder of anonymous files into something an editor can navigate without listening to all of it.