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Voice Recording Basics

step one

We are finally seeing people's voice over machinima's come to life with an encouraging increase in

responses to voice acting auditions. This is very exciting! 

Introduction:

   More and more Sims3 machinima makers are trying out voice overs or voice acting. Perhaps you've considered it too but you are not sure where to start. This lession is about how to get started on basic voice recording. Future lessons will provide more advanced tips for mixing and editing.

    Your voice overs can make or break an otherwise great machinima creation so we hope this helps you get started on the right track. We are  in no way intending to be mean. On the contrary, we want nothing more than to help each of you improve in any way that we can help. Rather than offer individual feedback which we have not been asked for,  we thought that posting this might help any of you auditioning for voice roles.  If you ever want any feedback on this, or any project, please feel free to contact Minraed or any of the moderators that you are comfortable with and we will be happy to help you along.

Part I - Preparing for Your Recording

• Use a decent quality microphone - A microphone / headset is also a great way to monitor the sound as you record.
• Limit background noise - don't record while you have music playing or other loud or distracting sounds.
  
• Chair check - make sure you are not sitting on a squeaky chair that will be recorded every time you move a little.
• Privacy and comfort - you are not likely to record a good voice over if you are whispering or otherwise trying to avoid other people hearing you. Choose a time and place where you have the privacy that you need so that you will feel comfortable and relaxed
• Get comfortable - make sure you are not shuffling around trying to get comfortable
• Avoid rooms that are "hard" like rooms that have a lot of hard wood, metal, glass - "soft" rooms that have plenty of carpet and soft furniture will absorb sound better and reduce unwanted reflective sounds or echos - hard rooms will make your recording sound like you are in a tin can, this is really bad
  

Part II - Tips for Recording

• Record music and sound effects separately from your voice
• Don't inahale the microphone - be sure to have your mic a good few inches away from your mouth to allow you to speak normally and to avoid capturing distracting breath sounds - too much puff and pops from your breath as you speak is bad (see next point)
  
• Set the mic a bit off to the side rather than right in front of your mouth to avoid "plosives" - the poppings sounds from hard letters like b and p
• Don't just talk like you would in real life - get into character, think like the character who the script is written for - think and speak like an actor
• Posture and body language - good posture allows your voice to project more powerfully and will help you avoid distraction and shuffling around while body language, gestures, smiling or grimacing etc. will reflect in your voice - don't be afraid to play out the role a little as you read (another reason you may want that privacy)
• Don't rush - leave spaces between sentences and bits of speech so that you can break them down in editing later - if you are speaking too quickly and running it all together it will be very difficult to edit out what you don't need later.

Part III - Audio Files Basics

• In the Windows world quality audio is saved as .wav files
• In the Macintosh world quality audio is saved as .aiff
  
• Audio files can be converted to the universal .mp3 compressed file format but the quality will be reduced somewhat

Audio Recording Software

  Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ; or click HERE

       A free download - it takes some getting used to, but there are some very good tutorial and help files.

Discussion

   Drop in to ask questions, share tips or discuss this topic HERE

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I just wanted to point out an important page for our members. There are no current concerns to explain why we have now posted this, we are just thinking ahead in hopes of keeping things amazing here as we grow. Thank you to everyone for keeping Simatography the comfortable, fun and supportive community that it is.

MORE UPDATES

to make our site even better

    I've just completed a sorting of the STORY BOARD section of the forums to make sure everything was up to date. Don't forget to drop by there and see what our members are up to. There are some great stories being created. And remember story makers, if you want to be listed on our STORIES DIRECTORY create a small banner similar to the ones you see there already and I'll post it along with a link to your story page.

Ok, back to work for me. Once the forums are all cleaned up we will unveil the shiny new site design for the New Year.

You may notice that there are some forum threads that are empty when you get to them. It appears that all of our locked forums have been lost. I will contact WEBS and try to find an explanation, but it is not likely that we will retrieve them so along with the general updates and changes we are still in the process of making, we will be sure to update and clean up the threads. Sorry for any frustration if you are looking for something that is now gone.

Sorry for messin' with your heads everyone, but if there is something you can't find because of my mad moving frenzy please ask me and I'll direct you. Take a few minutes to browse. It's not all sorted yet (mainly the General Admission part of the forums is still moving around) so bear with me. It's going to be easier once you get a feel for the changes.  Minraed