Voiceover Effects

[smokescreen15]

Hi Guys

New to this board and this profession I guess you could say. I'm pretty young and I want to get into production. I'm still in college and I work at a station in my Market.

1. I want to know how to get my VO's to cut over the music and come through crystal clear without having to bring down the levels of the music.

2. I want my VO's for IDs and Promo to have some sort of 'Presence'. By that I mean sound really bassy so that if you were to hear it everyone in the room you would 'feel it' .

3.and finally I noticed that in the final mix for some CHR stations Ids and promos the levels are through the roof in terms of -dB (clipping and whatnot) yet everything come through clear and sounding awesome.

This Imaging company is a perfect example of what I'm talking about

http://www.nrgimaging.com/demos.htm
check out their 99.3 Buzz Promo you'll see what I mean.

For most of my promos and IDS I tailor them towards CHR because I love those stations and think they are the most unique and creative.

For alot of my VO's for IDs and promos I love to use WaveL2 for the voiceovers. but anything else I could use to get like a clipping compression effect plez let me know

Any advice or help you guys could lend me would be great.
O and just to let you know I use Soundforge for the Voiceovers then SonyVegas to put it all together. I also have experience with CEP/AA1.5 and Protools. I just like SF and Vegas for some strange reason.

Thanks guys,
Jay

ps tips about production are welcome (What you look for in demos when hiring, your dealings with other departments of the station, Production managers what gets you most PO'd at your producers...etc tidbits basically)

 

[bigwoody]

This may/may not help. It's from Eric Chase's site, www.chasecuts.com

Eric Chase is the premiere producer in the country, regardless of format. But he leans CHR (WFLZ, KRBE).


PROD TIP: OVER-COMPRESSING



Q: I've got a question regarding over-compressing. Recently someone challenged me to try producing with no compression whatsoever on my vocal tracks (only on the master bus) to really get comfortable with EQ. Up until about now, I've been squashing everything I make - the waveform has no visible changes on the mixout. I'm working on breaking that, and am now using only mild compression on the master bus. But using only EQ on the vocal tracks and still getting the voice to cut through seems impossible. Can you offer any more advice on this?



A: I think the main thing is, that compression and EQ are not learned overnight, and many producers over-compress in general, especially when they're just learning how to use it. It's a bit of a crutch, and while it does make mixing "easier", it's really incredibly common to hear mixes that are smashed to a bloody pulp. And don't forget that compression on a VO can directly affect the sound of the EQ too, so it might be good to kind of separate the two in your mind, and treat them as separate tools to be used when needed, rather than slathered on everything randomly. It takes a lot more mixing effort to mix without a load of compression, so you gotta be hyper-attentive to levels, and use your automation to ride things up and down (whereas over-compressing eliminates that need)... Then ideally, when it hits the air chain, you get some extra comp that helps smooth things out and pump them up nicely... For me, I find that the BEST compression is when you BARELY see the attenuation meter working at all, and you're just taming the extremes, rather than smashing EVERYTHING together. I'm also constantly adjusting the volume of little pieces of audio, so that the compressor doesn't have to do that much work.. Over-compressing and over-limiting can dirty up your mix, big-time. And it took me years to learn how to tweak comp and EQ with any finesse, so it's not like it's simple or anything.. and there's actually a lot to know, so it's good to read A LOT. Music and recording magazines are a great source. I love Sound On Sound in particular.



Using EQ to 'make room' for things in the mix is an important mindset. Helps thing fit together organically instead of just using the brute force of compression to smash 'em together... To do that, you need to think of where every element needs to 'sit' in the frequency spectrum, and try to carve out little niches for them... Sometimes, getting a voice to cut is simply a matter of changing the bed you're using, so it's not 'fighting' the VO with a bunch of midrange synths or guitars.. Or maybe it's just a matter of chopping lows off the VO, so it can ride 'on top' of the bed. Typically when a voice isn't cutting thru, it's because there's something else in there competing with it, frequency-wise. However I would add that softer, less aggressive VO's are always gonna be a bit of challenge to mix in a busy, aggressive promo...



The main thing to remember is this: There's a fine line between tasteful compression, and smashing everything all to hell (although sometimes that actually might be part of effect you're going for on a VO)... But some VO's require a bit more finesse simply because their nature. Some sound terrible smashed with compression; others sound like crap if they're NOT smashed... Mixing someone like Ann Dewig, for instance, was always infinitely more of a challenge for me than someone like Chris Corley, just because of the different nature of the 2 voices. So I found that it required more time and effort to get a good mix with Annie, and a lot more concern for what other elements I put around it. That's one reason voices like Corley's are so popular---they're "easy" to mix, because they tend to just knock everything else out of the way.



It is indeed a great exercise to mix without compression, because it teaches you to rely on the most important aspects of mixing, like levels and EQ. Then once you've got a good no-comp mix, you can always add just a touch of comp on the mix to give it that extra bit of punch. The main point is, you don't want your compressor to do your mixing for you---- let your ears do that, and let your compressors take on a more subtle role... smoothing out harshness and peaks, gaining a bit of oomph... And always keep an eye on that attenuation---when a compressor is doing a lot of work, it's usually detracting from the sound.
<P ID="signature">______________
Everyone is entitled to my opinion.</P>

 

[DoogieDown]

To answer one of your questions...

Getting your voice to cut through the music bed:

(I picked up this tip in the Cool Edit forum on the old Syntrillium site, and I've been in debt to it ever since.)

As another poster mentioned, this is very often an EQ issue. I use what is called a "smile" EQ for a lot of my music beds. The bass end of the EQ is normal and so is the treble end... but I lower the mid-range so that the overall equalizer setting looks like a smile.

Now this is just a starting point! Every music bed is different. So I START from the base "smile" setting and then experiment from there to see if anything can be brought back (or pumped up, in the case of the lower and upper ends of the EQ). Some beds are fine with a "flat" EQ setting, but the "smile" technique is a good way to get your voice to cut through many music beds.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

> Getting your voice to cut through the music bed:
>
> (I picked up this tip in the Cool Edit forum on the old
> Syntrillium site, and I've been in debt to it ever since.)
>
> As another poster mentioned, this is very often an EQ issue.
> I use what is called a "smile" EQ for a lot of my music
> beds. The bass end of the EQ is normal and so is the treble
> end... but I lower the mid-range so that the overall
> equalizer setting looks like a smile.
>
Hold my hand and make sure I am reading this correctly. You apply the "smile" setting to the MUSICAL BED, not to the voice track? Is that what the quote is saying?

 

[Emmett1057]

> Hold my hand and make sure I am reading this correctly. You
> apply the "smile" setting to the MUSICAL BED, not to the
> voice track? Is that what the quote is saying?
>


Yes, that's what the poster is saying. I'm going to take this idea a step further by suggesting that you dip the fundamental voice frequencies in the music bed, rather than making a complete smile. This would look much like a "mini-smile", starting to dip at 250Hz and ending the dip at 2.5kHz. That leaves the music bed more true to the original, while still making room for the fundamental frequencies in the voice.

As for the voice itself, shelve out the lowest frequencies (below 80Hz). First, that will give you more headroom, so you can make the voice louder without clipping. Second, low frequencies make on-air processor work harder, so the voice will cut through better without them. Third, you won't notice the loss of frequencies because the ear will hear those missing frequencies in the music bed and compensate for them.

Emmett

 

[DoogieDown]

Nice additional info from Emmett.

Every music bed is unique... so just use the "smile" as a base of operations IF you find your voice isn't cutting through the way you'd like it to. As Emmett points out, the goal is to apply EQ to the bed only if there's a need--and then without it changing the sound of the bed significantly.