Voice Mastering

[vcool]

Hey-ho, sound gurus! I always wondered, what do you guys do to get voice recordings sound like, erm, voice recordings?

In other words, when playing a game, how do you make voice recordings sound as if they're there, instead of them sounding like they were recorded on a microphone?

I know you can equalize, but is there some kind of rule of thumb when equalizing human voice?

Also, I know about recording on a good mic and minimum noise. Think of it as if I already have a good raw voice recording.

This is for personal advice, but if there are a lot of responses I could make it a sort of "tips for voice mastering" thread.

Thanks!

[ghost12332]

It's all about the compression and EQ man, thats it. It's just a fine art of itself. For a game you want to have as little reverb as possible, because it's going to be right in front of you. Through code n such source can do reverb on sound, so basically you just want a clear, de-essed, heavily compressed vocal file saved as a 16-24 bit wav file.

[RefaelBA]

There are a few tricks to this right.
First of all it would be a great help if you were the man who did the sound design for the game. You need to know how the sound engine works so that you can give it the best possible samples. But even if you don't, you could always use samples from the game itself and try to match them in quality and normalization.
As for "being there" there are a few elements to keep in mind - first, good acting and believable performance! This might seem obvious but a lot of people don't really know how to act in front of a microphone, making a lot of potentially good recordings go down the drain.
Once you get a believable recording, try equalizing it to sound like you imagine, but REMEMBER that a sound engine will add echoes and effects to sounds depending on the scenario, so be careful around filters you don't need. Make sure the volume pretty much matches existing sounds from the game.
Test it a couple of times and refine the result using EQ. Test in both loud scenes AND quiet scenes!!
Also consider using scripts to make different samples play for different situations (like louder radio while doing battle) or play randomized samples (like different footstep sounds playing randomly when you walk instead of hearing the same one all the time).
Last and not least, nowadays lip syncing has become quite a requirement, and you should properly lip sync your characters. While at it, make sure the recording conveys the "feel" (or mood) you're aiming at and that the timing and animation is also in order.

Hope that helped! Phew, lots of writing.

[YokaI]

Recording studios are a big problem too. Recording studio quality needs to be TOP NOTCH in order to be convincing. For example, Final Fantasy XII had a large audio problem, the voice recordings sound tinny and have some odd echo sounds. It's predecessor even had better audio quality, so sometimes it doesn't matter if it is compressed or not if it isn't convincing.

Sometimes extreme character-voices can cause an unconvincing sound because they don't ever sound like they are talking like a normal human being. The best character voices have a voice that is unique but sounds convincing as a person. (An example of this is Steve Bloom, probably my favorite Voice Actor.)

This is why I prefer Japanese Voice Overs for the majority of games / animated programs. English Dub has a lot of work to do really, but we are getting better at it. Japan's is better for several of reasons. First of which is the fact that Seiyu (or Voice Acting) is considered a industry equivalent to the Hollywood Acting Industry. The majority of voice talents work both on Pop Song singing and Voice Dubbing, which gives them a very good control of pitch. Japan also avoids extreme character voices that are just annoying and not really convincing people that they are a real human being.

Anyway, a little bit of a rant about Voice Over quality. In a condensed statement, make sure your room conditions are as good as possible (if you have no budget for a studio), and try to avoid annoying over-the-top character voices.

[Mess]

I think the most important element is a professional-quality microphone. I get away with using an AKG C-1000s at home, but in the studio we have professional mics which really do make the job so much easier - it's a simple case of running the vocal through an L2.

[Acheron]

I think the most important element is a professional-quality microphone. I get away with using an AKG C-1000s at home, but in the studio we have professional mics which really do make the job so much easier - it's a simple case of running the vocal through an L2.

Simply a professional mic isn't good enough for most things, granted I know this is just for voice recordings but it's for all things microphones are involved in. It's been drilled into my head by a mixing engineer and friend. The microphone is only as good as the preamp driving it.

You can have a neumann u87 or whatever the hell it is, run it through a shitty preamp and it won't sound any better than nearly any other microphone, granted none of those mics are truly that great any way. An SM7b will blow most of them out of the water for vocals. Though then after that yeah, your typical limit, eq, whatever you want/need.