Recording & Submitting Voice Over

Spaces of silence can make editing easier. 

Leaving five seconds of room tone (you are quiet, letting the microphone record the ambient sound of your room) at the beginning of the recording gives us a sample to reference if we need noise reduction.

Leave a second or two of space between each take, and more space between each line so we can see the separation in the waveform.

Unless a breath at the start or end of a phrase is a specific artistic choice, leave a quick space between the breath and the line or word when recording. Breathing leading directly into or overlapping words can't be edited out.

Reduce echo & reverberation.

Reverb and echo are created by sound waves bouncing off hard surfaces and back into the microphone. Low pitch sounds create a much longer wave form than high pitch sounds, and are therefore harder to fix. (Also harder to block, but blocking sound is a bit of a different beast.) Medium and high pitched reverb is more immediately noticeable. However, the "boxy" sound you often hear talked about is usually caused by low pitch reverb. This is usually caused when recording in a very small space, like a closet or, well, a box. These low waves also build up the most in the corners of rooms.

We can't fix these in post, but their presence can make you harder to understand, and make it so your character sounds like they're somewhere else than everyone else.

To check for reverb in your environment, record a hand clap from where you would usually sit/stand. If you hear an echo in the recording, or the sound goes on for longer than it should, you have reverb.

Reverb can be reduced in several ways. Fluffy things and irregular surfaces & angles can help break up the bouncing sound waves. Blankets, pillows, thick batting, carpets, can all help. The thicker something is, the better it addresses low pitch reverb. Egg cartons struggle to stop anything, and thin foam squares can't do much for low end reverb. Microphone shields that sit behind the microphone tend not to help much because it's blocking sound from the least sensitive side of the mic rather than the side you're on, where the mic is most sensitive. Try to break up right angles and pad or break up surfaces that are parallel to each other. If you're struggling with a "boxy" sound—low end reverb—try stuffing a lot of fluffy material in the corners to act as "bass traps". A carpet can help a lot to break up sound bouncing between the floor and flat ceiling.

Mic pops & puffs.

Air hitting the mic creates a big sound that is hard—if impossible—to edit out. This is usually caused by breathing on the mic diaphragm, or caused by the air from plosives hitting it. (The diaphragm is the part of the mic that picks up sound. It vibrates when air/sound waves hit it. It's often a round disc you can see inside the grill of many mics) Plosives are consonants that create puffs of air when we say them, like 'p' and 'b'. (Sibilance is the sound of air passing between our teeth, like 'sss' and 't'.)

The easiest way to fix this is to stop our breath from hitting the mic. We do this by positioning the diaphragm to still point directly at our mouth, at the same distance we usually record at, but to the side of us so our breath doesn't hit it.