Voiceover

In the soundtrack of ALEX, voiceover (VO) is the melody: the leading part of most video and audio we produce. A personable performance, by a skilled voice artist, is recorded and edited to create the pleasant effect of having a conversation with someone you trust.

Recording

Great VO starts with the voice talent. Finding the right voice for a product’s creative direction means auditioning and casting. The artist should excel at delivering a professional but conversational performance. They steadfastly avoid the practiced remove of an entertainer, or the slick shine of a radio commercial. An ALEX host simply sounds like a person having a conversation with you.

When directing voice talent, guide their performance with an ear for a comfortable pace and natural speech patterns. Spell out any emphasized words in the script. Select takes that flow naturally from one to the next. If you can’t decide exactly how to approach the performance, consider getting a variation or three now, and revisiting the decision later with fresh ears.

Record the talent right. An ALEX host must record using a pro-quality condenser or dynamic microphone, with a good pop filter, in a room free of reflections and other noises. Be consistent about mic positioning, especially when recording pickups for previously-recorded VO.

If voice talent is recording on-site, record some test VO by yourself in advance, then repeat the process with the talent when they arrive.

If voice talent is recording remotely, request that they send a test file in advance. Many voiceover actors are experienced with remote recording—but not all of them are, and strange things sometimes happen. Requesting test VO will take you a few seconds, and only take the talent a few minutes.

When possible, avoid the temptation to rush-record substandard audio and fix it later. While many serviceable audio restoration tools exist, they slow work down and usually won’t sound as good as simply recording right to begin with. Spending a few extra minutes on your audio setup can save you hours later on.

Editing

Because ALEX can explain mind-bogglingly complex information, the products in turn contain hundreds of VO files, which are regularly changed and replaced. To keep ALEX sounding consistent, all VO is edited before it goes to our development environments. This ensures that audio recorded, say, last week will match the volume and tone of a sequence recorded four years prior.

There are three major steps to editing VO for ALEX:

1. Set a consistent amount of silence. Most VO files contain a pause at the beginning and end of the file. Adjust the length of this padding according to the kind of voiceover file you’re dealing with:

	Starting silence	Ending silence	Notes
Normal VO	0.1s	0.3s
Response VO (“Okay, great.”)	0.1s	0.4s–0.6s	Make sure the final file is at least 1 second long, adding silence to the end of the file as needed.

2. Remove surrounding noise, mouth sounds, and other unsavory artifacts. Select the pauses in between phrases, and reduce the volume completely.
3. Apply compression and loudness standardization. This process differs slightly depending on the product:

Benefits Counselor

1. Normalize to -2 dB
2. Compress audio using these settings:
   • Threshold: -6 dB
   • Ratio: 4:1
   • Attack: 10.0 ms
   • Release: 100 ms
3. Repeat normalize
4. Repeat compression
5. High-pass filter at 80 Hz
6. De-ess
7. Remove clicks
8. Fade in and out of audio
9. Match loudness to ITU-R BS.1770-3 standards using these settings:
   • Target loudness: -16 LUFS
   • Tolerance: 0.5 LU
   • Max true peak level: -1 dBTP
   • Look-ahead time: 12 ms
   • Release time: 200 ms
   • Note: This can be achieved using Adobe Audition’s “Match Loudness” feature, or iZotope RX’s “Loudness Control” plugin.

Medicare

Medicare uses a chain in Logic when selects are exported, comprised of a few Izotope RX 10 plugins and the built-in Logic compressor. Download the pre-processing channel strip in Google Drive, and add it to your Music → Audio Music Apps → Channel Strip Settings → Output folder.

Then, for each audio file, all you need to do is set beginning and end silence (see above), and loudness standardization in the app of your choice:

• Match to: ITU-R BS.1770-3
• Target loudness: -16 LUFS
• Tolerance: 0.5 LU
• Max true peak level: -1 dBTP
• Look-ahead time: 12 ms
• Release time: 200 ms
• Note: This can be achieved using Adobe Audition’s “Match Loudness” feature, or iZotope RX’s “Loudness Control” plugin.