Voice in Game...

This is one of the things I want to point out. I'm certainly not picking on you for this as this is one of the things people really need to understand about voice over work and why it's paramount that it's done the proper way. Please listen to this part of the clip:

https://soundcloud.com/mystic_sota/starr

This is one of the biggest issues people deal with in any type of mic'd recording. Forget voice acting for a second. You could be the best voice actor in the world but if you don't have a properly treated area to record in, you will always get this type of hiss. Now this one is obviously enhanced by whatever effect you're using, but without the effect, it would still be very noticeable. Bigger issues arise when you start putting together several people into a single scene, all who have this problem but with different room dynamics that will make not only the hiss sound very noticeably different, but the surface reflections also degrade the recording further. In music, this is easier to hide, but in spoken word, it's nearly impossible. The end result is nothing short of a mess. It would make a project sound very unprofessional.

Again, I'm not picking on you for this. It's not really a mistake or anything. It's something that without proper isolation or sound treated space is impossible to get past and took me a long time to get the proper treated area that would be sufficient enough to do voice work in and even I still run into some issues once in a while depending on the project I'm working on which is why I'm investing in a chamber this year. This is simply the reality of audio engineering.

 

Hey Mystic, could you link us some of your voice work to show the difference?

 

If I get some time this week I'll see if I can get some clips recorded as a demo reel, though a great example of it would be audiobooks of any kind.

 

We could find some great examples, but as you have access to the experience and the studio space, it would be super cool if you could post us something you personally did. I'll even challenge you (and myself) and see if I can replicate the effect in a less professional environment.

Good science experiment if you ask me.

 

If you mean the background noise, yes that is caused by the effect in which I have applied to the audio. I used several built in features to kill any noise I heard before I applied the effects and reviewed, it was quite silent. There is a chance that some of it could have come from the crappy usb headset I had on my spare laptop which I had carried into the closet with me in the other end of the house hahaha.

I don't have the unedited track before the effects to put up or I would, wish I did(one more thing I have learned is to keep every step of the project saved) so I could post it up. I was going to play around with the filters to clean it up after the effects also, however I ran out of time and had to get to bed at least a little bit before everyone else woke up

I do understand the need to have things perfect, I like them to be that way also. Though just referring back to a comment InsaneMembrane made, I think with a weeks worth of work with the software I could certainly take Ultima IX Who knows, with some decent environmental music and other things going on in the game scene 99% of the population without a trained ear may never be able to hear problems with novice material like that!

 

Well with some experimentation we may be able to find some concrete steps that people could follow to treat a room or environment while they record. Maybe it will require a lot of foam and curtains in a basement room in someone's house, and a home-made popfilter made from a coat hanger and pantyhose, and learning not to take deep breaths and multiple takes. It may take training the ear of individuals involved to the point where they can be critical of their own takes. Audacity or other software can be used, and there are technical videos on doing this, to minimize the left over noise.

This stuff isn't impossible, it just takes work, and an understanding of the required steps and expected standards.

Is it possible?

Lets be more scientific about our answer. We can experiment, share our results, document how we set up the rooms and the steps we took, then replicate them.

It is not a 'small' project, by any means. But as far as people in general learning more about the process and what is necessary to it, how can it hurt? Scientific experimentation is the best way to learn and to give people an appreciation for the studio environment. But that good recordings can only come from the studio is sort of a myth. The studio is ideal because its been treated, that Mystic is 100% right in saying. What I am saying, is that the steps taken to treat a studio can be, to varying degrees of satisfaction, be taken in home studios on the cheap.

So lets explore what would be necessary and have some fun in the meantime!

 

Yeah when you take only a split second clip of noise and smash it out on repeat of course you can hear it Mystic. What is the point in that, who out there takes the audio from games and checks out only the silent parts for noise and then points it out as a not-mistake mistake? Yourself?

I listened to the full clip, I couldn't hear any noise that put me off or even really any that was overly in your face.

 

The biggest problem with using software to clean up live recording is that it creates artifacts and often mechanical sounding elements. When I started doing VO, I was attempting the same things but was quickly shooed away from it by people in the VO communities for those very reasons. There are quite a few videos on youtube that will actually show you the differences between them. There is also a lot of great information on Voices.com available on the topic of working with vocal audio.

I had looked into getting a de-esser plugin a year ago but it ran $1000 and I figured in the long run, it would be better to just do things right the first time than to have to deal with plugin artifacts as well.

 

That was only to point it out so you didn't have to actively listen for it. It's much more recognizable in vocal audio that doesn't have that kind of effect on it. When you start mixing dialogues between people, it gets really messy.

 

I will do some additional testing, see if the noise is the room or simply the cheap off the shelf headphones I recorded with. I think the important thing is though not to let the community put you off trying different things, even if it is just with a 6yr old laptop and junk headphones/mic. Get in there and learn, have some fun!

 

I have a roughly $200 USB mic. That is sort of a bottom line for anything worthy.

 

edit: Aha, it worked. Okay, this is a very informative video using Audacity. And you can get a good overview of how to use this powerful free software. There are lots of educational videos by experts about the technical aspects of the software. Provided you got a certain 'minimum' level of quality on your audio recording, certain individuals could clean up the rest.

You'll also get a feel for how much sheer TIME is consumed, though.

 

Excellent! Thank you Holt

 

You're very welcome! I just want to make sure people give it a shot. If it can't be done, fine. But I'd rather that decision be made by people who have really given it their educated best and been enabled to do so, than self-doubt before they even get going.

 

Hopefully, if there is voice acting, the game won't be dead silent while NPC's are talking so we won't hear that dreadful background hissing of the voice over! lolol (Sarcasm.) I'm just playin'. Though, I'm pretty sure the environmental ambiance sounds would be plenty enough to cover a teensy weensy bit of background noise... Not saying that the noise is acceptable in any professional final work, but we're not professionals here. At least I'm not. lol.

My recording setup is absolutely horrible, but I think it sounds ok. Maybe I'm not as picky as I should be? But of course, this is just a hobby for me. What do you think?

Compare a sample of original recording (No effects, not even a noise gate):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5456477/alexstrasza_2.mp3

To the final product:

 

Ember that is great! Even with as you say an absolutely horrible recording setup, to my untrained happy gamer ear that works very well indeed. Also very funny!

 

Awesome work Ember! You have much range and awesome emotion!

 

I don't think the hiss would be terribly difficult to avoid during recording, and again some software lovin' from audacity could bring it down a notch further. There are also other methods of denoising.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Noise_Removal

 

Some more information, directly from some home-studio voice actors: (Thanks Lord Baldrith for finding this) Start it at 1m4s ... the editor wouldn't let me queue the time properly.

 

I guess we couldn't do any worse than these: #44, #36 pretty sad...LOL