Acoustics hacks for performing voiceover in your home studio?

[SOGGY BAWS]

Hi Folks, hope you are all well.

I'm convinced there is method in my madness, but please see photo of what seems to work for me, when recording voiceovers to lay ontop of footage, when not using vlogging content. (Reviews/explanations/story telling....)

My home office (that I do the day job in, edit, watch TV, spend 75% of my life in), is a sun room extension off the back off the house, with laminate floors and lots of windows.

Not going to get away with changing the floor covering, or errect acoustic boards.

My phone (Sumsung S23)is my best microphone, everything is is too sensitive, the phone seems to dampen the echos, makes it less tinny. Toyed with a net curtain "tent" for a while but that didnt seem to make any real improvement.

Breaking up wall surfaces with random soft objects seems to dampen things.

Anyone got any temporary hacks that might be useful?

Cheers,



Stevie.

 

[R-Rated]

Stevie other than spending money on acoustic tiles the only suggestion could be removing the echo using your audio editing software.

I will say the voice over can be tricky. If used right then you can narrate and even make it seem like you were talking when the footage was recorded. If used wrong then it can seem disingenuous. Case in point I watch this portly fellow hike around the desert looking at runes. His latest video was when the desert was so hot the river bed was dry. The footage showed his first person point of view hike down and back up out of the river bed while navigating steep angles and large rocks. The whole time he is talking about it but never gets winded. Then he turns and looks back with a nice slow pan while talking except there is him also talking low to the camera with notes.

It really took me out of the moment and I found myself wondering how much chugging and huffing was edited out of the original sound track.

The best voice over was a motovlogger who used B-roll track day footage. He mixed in him announcing who won a contest. Then his bike slid out complete with magic words.

He then let the audience know his trick of mixing the later recorded voice over in with the real audio from the track day wipeout. Very well played.

 

[Theodor]

Breaking up smooth surfaces is one of the main things for sure, when fighting with echo. Egg crate shape is also very useful, for speech frequencies. You can get foam, or you can just set aside actual egg crates, and make panels from those.

 

[SOGGY BAWS]

Stevie other than spending money on acoustic tiles the only suggestion could be removing the echo using your audio editing software.

I will say the voice over can be tricky. If used right then you can narrate and even make it seem like you were talking when the footage was recorded. If used wrong then it can seem disingenuous. Case in point I watch this portly fellow hike around the desert looking at runes. His latest video was when the desert was so hot the river bed was dry. The footage showed his first person point of view hike down and back up out of the river bed while navigating steep angles and large rocks. The whole time he is talking about it but never gets winded. Then he turns and looks back with a nice slow pan while talking except there is him also talking low to the camera with notes.

It really took me out of the moment and I found myself wondering how much chugging and huffing was edited out of the original sound track.

The best voice over was a motovlogger who used B-roll track day footage. He mixed in him announcing who won a contest. Then his bike slid out complete with magic words.

He then let the audience know his trick of mixing the later recorded voice over in with the real audio from the track day wipeout. Very well played.

Thanks for replying RR, I'll have a look for that capability in Filmora.

Yeh, it can be quite distracting when you tune into someone doing that, but dont think I'd be so bold to try to pass off voiceover as riding commentary. I tend to use voiceover for product reviews (WIP - hence current focus) and story telling. When story telling, my riding footage tends to become B Roll itself.

My riding commentary tends to be quite brief, I'll pretty much have it planned out in advance, and deliver it to a bar mounted rider facing camera. I'll put my hands up to occasionally lifting a bit of riding audio, and dropping it over a different piece of visual, when the engine note/environment will match - lol.

There are a few here in the UK doing well with a voice over essay format, dropped straight ontop of riding footage. Not exactly what I am aiming for, but a nice example of that genre working well.

 

[SOGGY BAWS]

Breaking up smooth surfaces is one of the main things for sure, when fighting with echo. Egg crate shape is also very useful, for speech frequencies. You can get foam, or you can just set aside actual egg crates, and make panels from those.

I shall get the family to save them up for me and give it a go - thanks for replying

 

[R-Rated]

Thanks for replying RR, I'll have a look for that capability in Filmora.

Yeh, it can be quite distracting when you tune into someone doing that, but dont think I'd be so bold to try to pass off voiceover as riding commentary. I tend to use voiceover for product reviews (WIP - hence current focus) and story telling. When story telling, my riding footage tends to become B Roll itself.

My riding commentary tends to be quite brief, I'll pretty much have it planned out in advance, and deliver it to a bar mounted rider facing camera. I'll put my hands up to occasionally lifting a bit of riding audio, and dropping it over a different piece of visual, when the engine note/environment will match - lol.

There are a few here in the UK doing well with a voice over essay format, dropped straight ontop of riding footage. Not exactly what I am aiming for, but a nice example of that genre working well.

Have tried a purple panda mic on your lapel and plugged into your audio recording device? Those mics do not pic up as much when compared to RODE or Sony lapel mics.

 

[Hippo-Drones]

Have you considered recording the voice over using your full motovlogging set up including helmet?

 

[SOGGY BAWS]

Have tried a purple panda mic on your lapel and plugged into your audio recording device? Those mics do not pic up as much when compared to RODE or Sony lapel mics.

I've not yet, I use the Speedlink SL 8691 SBK 01 as faithfully used and recommended by Andy Cam Man on YT, which has worked well from a road noise perspective, but it seems to catch everything in the studio. I'll keep an eye out for a PP when next need a new lav mic.

 

[SOGGY BAWS]

Have you considered recording the voice over using your full motovlogging set up including helmet?

Yeh, good idea, that was my best option prior to getting my new Samsung Galaxy S23, but the phone seems to perform noticeably better indoors, and is way easier to edit, as I can see me my lips moving to prompt a cut.

 

[scooterwuf]

Take your mic - a lavalier is the best for voice over work - into a clothes closet. The more clothes the better, and do your voice over work there. The clothes will create a soft and isolated environment. Make sure there isn't any heat/air conditioning system running to add to any background noise and then record away.

- Wolf

 

[PhilTonic]

Happens very rarely but I just sit on the couch with a blanket on top of me. Works fine.

 

[Theodor]

Happens very rarely but I just sit on the couch with a blanket on top of me. Works fine.

Is this called ghost protocol? And you take advantage of the silent treatment...

 

[Drakhen99]

I will say this: using plugins in your editor can make audio from a hard situation like yours [and mine, which is a glassed-in porch with concrete floor and a cinderblock wall behind me] sound good, if not great.

I have a video that's recorded, edited, and uploaded, and is now in the queue to be published, probably in January, in which I take the raw footage and fix it in my editor to make it sound good.

I can't hang tiles [easily] or modify the space - it's just not worth it - so the post-processing is my go-to solution.

-John

 

[CalmBiker]

I've heard of people putting acoustic material in a box and putting that over their head before. Not sure what would be better though, the sound quality or the view from a camera!

 

[eddahenry]

I have used Mini Vocal booths in the past to record singers
they actually work great and are super portable and packable
can be had really cheep these days online at places like Temu