Voice Acting? Options

[8igDaddy8lake]

I heard mention in the stream of voice acting being needed for several units. I could do some voice samples, if anyone would like (all I would need to know is what needs voicing).

[Cobretti]

You and me both. I've already submitted voice clips for a unit.

[teslashark]

Count me in, if you need really weird/cold-blooded/lines you wouldn't really like to do yourselves.

[Mr.Kim]

Unless, you guys need a high quality sound mic equipment.

[8igDaddy8lake]

Unless, you guys need a high quality sound mic equipment.

I can get access to the high quality equipment, but I should do a sample first to see if you guys want the voices, as I need to reserve access to the mic equipment. Although, my normal mic is pretty good, and might be able to cut it.

[Serialkillerwhal...]

How do you record sound?

[Knossos]

How do you record sound?

[Serialkillerwhal...]

What is that infernal device?

Bah you kids and your doohickeys! Back in my day, we just shouted really loud!

[Mr.Kim]

Audio Editing programs.

[Graion Dilach]

Yea, high-quality sound equipment is a must. You can't believe how annoying it can be, when an inferior quality recording gets chopped in alongside the rest.

[Knossos]

Yea, high-quality sound equipment is a must. You can't believe how annoying it can be, when an inferior quality recording gets chopped in alongside the rest.

So, I suppose a tape recorder isn't going to cut it.

In your opinion, hat would be a great alternative to a soundproof room, if you live in a rural city?

[George_E]

Hell if any of you folks want a crack at this voice acting gig then I personally don't see why not, just throw a few samples together from either existing quotes or make some up yourself, then let any of the top brass (Hunter, Comr4de etc) or myself know that you've got a demo to show off and we'll see what happens =). If you want a few pointers on programs to use, methods, do's / don'ts then feel free to ask us by all means. But yeah little reality check as Graion said, be sure that you have a pretty reasonable mic for recording otherwise the clips can come out somewhat diabolically sounding!

This post has been edited by {G}: 28 Apr 2014, 10:32

[George_E]

In your opinion, hat would be a great alternative to a soundproof room, if you live in a rural city?

Usually throwing a bunch of duvet sheets over some sort of makeshift framework helps. What you want to achieve is to eliminate the echo of sounds bouncing off the walls, I personally end up using my wardrobe with the doors wide open and a load of sheets over the top so that I creates a fairly large makeshift vocal booth I can stand in. From there I use a mic on a floor stand with a vocal shield mounted to it and use a mount for my Ipad and read the lines off that. The vocal shield might not be strictly necessary for you to run out and buy if your just starting out but is a nice addition if you fancy doing this as a fairly serious hobby. But one thing I can highly recommend is some kind of pop shield that assists in eliminating, or at least reducing, the heavy 'plosives' of when you say words with prominent "P's" or "B's".

Although all this might not even drown out say heavy traffic outside your home, that's a bit of a chance happening when you might get a quiet moment to record

[Graion Dilach]

You can also speak next to the mic, with around 5-10° angles, that also reduces popping without much degradation of the voice balance itself, if you're low on cash (the higher the angle is, the more imbalanced the tone will be).

But yea, experimenting is the key point here. It's not like one buys the mic and done. You have to find out thereafter how can you get the best performance with it. And it starts from scratch with every upgrade.

This post has been edited by Graion Dilach: 28 Apr 2014, 11:37

[Comr4de]

So long as the quality of the recording is fine as well as the voice, we can accept voice actors; we still need a shit ton (preppin for 2.0 content too).

As forementioned, send any clips to George, The_Hunter, or myself if you think you've got the right stuff.

[Serialkillerwhal...]

Can you suggest a program to use?

[Comr4de]

Audacity, it's free and it's what I and George use.

[George_E]

Goldwave is another one that I use, I tend to use them both in tandem as they have their own useful little features =).

[8igDaddy8lake]

I'll try to send you guys some material later this week. You need voices for the Msta-S, and what else exactly? It would give me a better hold on what I should make it sound like. I can do husky (think Batman or Gollum, though I can tone it down a bit) and gentlemanly (especially English) voices, and can experiment with others.

[DragonNOR]

Just for reference; a decent microphone usually records in at least 44.1 Khz and 16 bit depth. If your microphone is capable of that, then you 'should' be in the green when it comes to hardware

Can't wait to hear some lines here

[GeneralCamo]

^What he said.

No, your internal microphone on your laptop will not do. Even if you do edit out the noise from fans, you will end up with an inferior audio anyway as you will cut out a lot of stuff (good stuff) to remove that noise.

[Comr4de]

I'll try to send you guys some material later this week. You need voices for the Msta-S, and what else exactly? It would give me a better hold on what I should make it sound like. I can do husky (think Batman or Gollum, though I can tone it down a bit) and gentlemanly (especially English) voices, and can experiment with others.

Just do what you want for now, once we take a listen we'll figure out where a voice would be best suited in the scripts we've created. Majority of the units have scripts accounted for with pre-determined characters so we can easily move a persons talent to that perfect spot.

[DragonNOR]

No, your internal microphone on your laptop will not do.

^This.

Types of microphones that won't cut it are:

- Headset microphones. The microphone is usually directional, but generally records at a very bad frequency and bit depth. A headset with a 'doable' mic would cost as much as a professional microphone and then some in order to be usable.

- Laptop microphones. Because they are not directional and rely mostly on recording sound from a wide area, capturing sounds coming from every direction.

- Cheap-o microphones. As a rule of thumb, the magical treshold for microphones is 50 dollars new from the store. Anything below that will usually have all the negative traits as
those above in addition to being hardset to a too high sensitivity to be usable for voice recording.

- Cheap-o handhelds. These follow the same rules as above. The lower the pricerange, the worse the quality. For these the magical treshold is even higher. Think of them as the laptops of sound recording.

- Smartphone recorders. This one is more of a 'should not' than 'can't'. I know for a fact that it's possible to get decent recordings with a smartphone of the latest type, but it is hard, requires a stand to be mounted on like any microphone and in most cases will require heavy postprocessing to sound 'normal'. But if this is your only option to record, give it a whirl and see how it turns out.

[TinRoofRusted]

So long as the quality of the recording is fine as well as the voice, we can accept voice actors; we still need a shit ton (preppin for 2.0 content too).

As forementioned, send any clips to George, The_Hunter, or myself if you think you've got the right stuff.

I'm available and happy to voice any women. Let me know what you would like me to do. =)

[Serialkillerwhal...]

I'll get back to you once I find a good mic.