Marckie Somerhalt is set to impress the casting director of a particular company with his demo. He wants that voice-over job so much. In truth, Marckie has an exceptional voice. He can vary his voice in a lot of ways. He has good modulation. This is why he is very confident in submitting a sample for the audition.
So he went on with his recording and edited the audio. After a few tries here, cuts, fades, noise removal, and other edits there, he gave up. He came up to the decision that he couldn’t submit the output to the casting director.
He wasn’t sure about the format and he compressed the audio too much to a point that his voice sounded with some distortion so he decided to call his geek friend to fix the audio issue. Good thing his friend helped him immediately and he was able to get the part.
It was one thing that Marckie was able to get up from the fall he experienced while editing the sample; it was another thing that he actually experienced some difficulties. If he had the right audio editing software and the right audio training, he wouldn’t have to spend so much time tinkering with the software. He would have spent that time improving his voice and his craft as a whole.
Photo courtesy of: TimWilson
The bottom line of the story is that though it might cost you a lot, investing in the right audio editing software is the right thing to do. Even so, we are not concluding that the best software is not the one that costs more. Sometimes, even the free ones like Audacity can work well for you. It’s a matter of preference and matching.
In choosing a software, you need to consider the following:
- If it is within your budget
- If it is user-friendly
- If it contains all the NECESSARY tools you NEED
There is a wide variety of audio editing software, free or commercial, online-based or downloadable, out there. In a blog created by Dean Marsden, a video marketing specialist, and in a blog called everythingvoiceover, among the most common software used by voice actors are Adobe Audition, Audacity, The Music Club and Soundation.
- Adobe Audition – This is Adobe’s product that targets mostly composers and musicians. But in everythingvoiceover, the blogger said that this also works well with voice-overs. Practically, it is expensive but does the job fine.
- Audacity – If you want something that is very minimal but does all that you need, then this software is the best for you. “Nothing fancy, just a way to get from point A to point B,” everythingvoiceover said.
- The MusicLab – “The MusicLab is a fun and easy way to lay down a music track with tons of high quality beat matched loops,” Dean Marsden said. In MusicLab, where you will be working online, you are also able to record your own voice and put some fancy effects that will highlight the quality of your voice.
- Soundation – What’s good about this online audio editing software is that, according to Dean Marsden, the drag and drop interface made it very easy to work with. You also get a large collection of samples that might help your own sample to become better.
If you want to upgrade Sound Forge from Sony is a very good option especially useful for multiple-files editing, thanks to the batch function. You just give the file name suffix and it automatically split the audio in as many files as you have marked. This is handy for video game voice-overs. SF has an array of plugins like noise reduction, or click and crackle removal. The latest version is great to synchronize your voice-over to the video.
You can start with Sound Forge Audio Studio 10 for just $ 65 then using the $ 374 professional version Sound Forge Pro 10, that for the first time is also MAC compatible.
But the mother of all audio editors is probably ProTools. An excellent software that is actually intended for the creation of music, but it is the reference in voice-over studios around the world. You probably don’t need the professional version if you are an independent solo voice-over talent, the ProTools Express with its Mbox interface is probably all you need…
The list above is just a short one. How about you? Do you use another software for your audio editing? Share your reviews with us!
A lot of software programs are geared towards music and multi-track editing. They come with lots of bells and whistles that you pay for, but hardly ever use.
My software of choice is Twisted Wave (www.twistedwave.com). It was specifically developed for voice-overs.
Twisted Wave has a clean and easy-to-use interface and is ideal for mono recordings that don’t need a lot of sweetening.
Zooming in and out of the waveform is very fast. Option-click and drag the mouse to zoom very accurately, while the waveform is being refreshed more than 100 times per second, even when the files are several hours long, or when the file has not finished loading, or when an effect is being applied.
It supports Audio Unit plug-ins and many file formats. Unfortunately, there is no version for PC.
I have found Acoustica mixcraft to be a high bang for the buck product. It too is designed for music, but if you do any audio production it’s well worth the 70 bucks