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Voiceover EQ/settings for national spots and other random VO questions

whit979

whit979

I just recently upgraded to Adobe Audition 3.0 in my home studio and am a little overwhelmed with all of the controls this thing offers. I'm used to Audition 1.0 which seemed a little more straightforward in terms of what you could do with a vocal track. I personally like the sound of vocals on a lot of the national radio spots, especially McDonald's, for some reason. What I'm trying to figure out is how they achieve that sound. It's pretty bright but I can't figure out if they're using any compression, limiting, or something else and to what degree those effects are being employed. Any thoughts?

A couple of other questions:
- How many of you record your voiceovers in mono, or do you prefer stereo?
- For men with lower voices (those of you "singing in the bass section of the choir"), do you use a high-pass filter or an FFT filter to remove some of the low end?
- What's your preferred method of EQ in Audition? My old standby was one of the "mastering" presets in FFT Filter, but I'm not so sure it is preferable over Graphic Equalizer or if EQ is even necessary.

What I typically do with my voice tracks:
- FFT Filter on one of the "mastering" settings to lower bass and boost the super high region
- Compander with spline curves
- Normalize to 100 percent

Thanks!
 
The Mcdonalds sound (which do sound excellent) is probably a Neumann U87 in a quality sound booth with real good talent.

As a general rule I think light compression and hard limiting on the voice-over is a way to achieve a good sound.
Do not process the music & sfx, just get the volume right.

The compander in Audition squeezes the life out of VO. Use a much lighter setting - 2:1 ratio, -9 threshold. Then use the hard limiter so that it knocks of maybe 2db from the peaks. You're gonna have to experiment. There's not a one size fits all.
 
Remember any EQ boost in a recorded project uses energy to be broadcast. If you accentuate the "super high region" and the lows..transmitters will use available energy to faithfully try to reproduce those accentuated sounds..and will, as a rule result in a project that doesn't sound as loud or articulated on people's TVs or radios. I try and run as flat as I can, but will on occasion boost a little upper midrange, and a very little bump in the lower mid range..most everything I do..gets a radical drop off of anything lower than 80hz. Just my 12 cents..(economy has raised the value of personal opinions from 2 to 12 cents)
 
Thank you both for your suggestions. After messing around a bit with light compression and light limiting, I feel like I've been able to get a nice, bright sound without having to inject any EQ at all. I started recording my stuff in mono -- seems like it helps the overall balance of the sound. I never, ever use any stereo-based effects anyway.

Frankly I almost wish I had the final version of Cool Edit Pro 2.1 or Adobe Audition 1.0 because the controls in the 3.0 version are just too much. There's a lot going on in the effects menus that looks deceiving but is really useless for quality voiceovers.
 
I should mention that one of the reasons I'm leaning on Audition for my voice edits is because I'm using a condenser USB mic plugged directly into my editing PC. It produces a good sound but I don't have a preamp or voice processor, so everything's got to be done on the software side.
 
Hey Whit..we use 3.0 on all windows machines, and it is really really good. Spend time experimenting with all that it does..and you are right, there's a lot!

There is a great plug in for voice put out by a company called Wave Arts called "dialog" it has compression, EQ and noise reduction, plus a rumble filter to get rid of extraneous low end noises..talk about experimenting you can download a demo version free from their site.

www.wavearts.com
 
A buddy of mine i worked with in Cleveland, Jonathan Tea, is on a McDonalds campaign (and others). The studio in NYC he goes to mic him with a 416. his voice is naturally airy. No idea how they eq or process him. I produce Jeff for our AM in Akron. Audio sounds great. I just add a 6k boost and L1/C1/SSL comp, the L2 the full mix. Its AM... I smash it!

When I record my VO I do in mono unless a client requests stereo.
 
whitfm said:
Frankly I almost wish I had the final version of Cool Edit Pro 2.1 or Adobe Audition 1.0 because the controls in the 3.0 version are just too much. There's a lot going on in the effects menus that looks deceiving but is really useless for quality voiceovers.
Click to expand...

I understand why you would feel that way, BUT once you get used to it I think you'll like it better. I was reluctant to move off of Audition 1.5/Cool Edit 2.0 (essentially the same thing). I find the effects in 3.0 far better, and far easier to use, once you get accustomed to them. Can be a bit overwhelming at first but, what at first blush may seem useless, can usually be quite helpful.
 
BlackiesHotDogs said:
I understand why you would feel that way, BUT once you get used to it I think you'll like it better. I was reluctant to move off of Audition 1.5/Cool Edit 2.0 (essentially the same thing). I find the effects in 3.0 far better, and far easier to use, once you get accustomed to them. Can be a bit overwhelming at first but, what at first blush may seem useless, can usually be quite helpful.
Click to expand...

You make a great point and after a few days I'm definitely getting used to it. I'm using a rumble filter and a couple of really light compression and limiting effects, which are giving my tracks a really nice sound.

My main issue thus far with Audition 3.0 is one that I should have noticed in the system requirements. I personally built the PC that I've got Audition installed on. When I built it I was going for "ultra-quiet," so I got a low-power AMD CPU/motherboard combo. Audition 3.0, as it turns out, is optimized for Intel processors. I'm planning to put the motherboard up for sale soon and put some Intel guts into it, and I bet that'll solve my problems instantly.
 
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