Making GREAT VoiceOvers

"Telling someone about your experience breathes new life into it." (Mandy Aftel)

"If you connect with your own mind deep enough, it reverberates for everyone." (Natalie Goldberg)

VoiceOvers are digitally recorded from the author’s written story script. Think of the voice recording as a “performance” rather than a reading. The author’s voice provides a conduit to connect viewers with meaning, context and a relationship with the message. VoiceOvers are the heart of the digital storytelling form and should thus be honored with a clear, quality technical recording without white noise or other distracting sounds. The following equipment, software, and tips will enable you to organize very cost-effective but high quality recordings for all ages.

Equipment

• Logitech Noise-Canceling USB microphone
• SpitGuards – Click Here to Build Your Own

Software

• Audacity Freeware (MAC and WIN)
• Click Here for Using Audacity for VoiceOvers (MAC and WIN)

Tips

	Find a very, very quiet area or organize for authors to take home the microphone and spitguard to private spaces to ensure they have the least amount of distractions. Air fans, ceiling lights, phones and a multitude of other sound distractions need to be minimized.
	Use external microphones as the internal microphones generally pick up A LOT of unnecessary background (white) noise.
	Use a spit guard to eliminate natural mouth sounds like “pha- pha” found in many of our speech patterns. While these are generally ignored in real life speech – extra side sounds can really be annoying and distracting in sound tracks.
	Break the text into several natural chunks in order to record and save EACH one separately.
	DO check the voice levels for each voice recording found within the Audacity software – this is the best time to ensure the voice quality will be clear and audible. Normalizing later will actually increase the white background buzz or humming noise if the voices are too low or soft when recording.
	Coach and rehearse the text-to-voice process before going to the microphone. Voices should be well -articulated (speedy, slurred or mumbled voice readings do not create quality listening for others) using well-delivered pauses, incorporating emotions, and overall encouraging the author to PERFORM not read the meaning of the text. Words that are simply read or even well recited do not create that important conduit for viewers to connect to the content and meaning of the message. If the author reveals a connection to their message through their voice delivery – then the opportunity to communicate meaning and impact is increased for the viewer. Performed voices are memorable!
	When the recording is satisfactory – select all and normalize the voice to optimize the volume and clarity.