Remote recording: Is it still viable?

With the big shift to remote workflows during the pandemic, many actors hoped that remote work would be here to stay, as it meant they could avoid long commutes or even move out of areas with a high cost of living. It also allowed for more variety in cast lists as well as increased accessibility for disabled actors. The idea of being to work from anywhere was a glimmer of hope for those who didn’t want to – or couldn’t – move to a hub like LA or Dallas. But unfortunately, work-from-home was not considered ideal from the perspective of many studios.

Why are so many studios reluctant to consider home recording again?

Recording from home has been fairly common for years in genres such as audiobooks, e-Learning, corporate narration and a good amount of commercials, where the audio for a project is often recorded by a single actor – meaning it’s easier to get it up to whatever standard is needed for mastering. But in a cartoon, dub, or video game featuring lots of different cast members, having everyone record on different equipment in different recording spaces can be more difficult to deal with in mix—costing the studio more time and money. In an age of streaming platforms and live-service games, clients tend to demand very quick turnarounds for recording, often without extra room in the budget, meaning that studios hesitate to do anything that would hurt their workflow.

Additionally, remote sessions tended to be less efficient. No matter how prepared someone was or how great their setup was, unavoidable curveballs would sometimes happen – connection or technical issues, outside noise (planes/neighbors/construction), or other snags in the workflow that studios just didn’t want to gamble with on projects with extremely tight deadlines.

Finally, even if a particular studio was open to remote recording, not all end-clients were. Some of the issues cited were the perception of getting lower-quality deliverables, concerns over security/confidentiality of materials, and a feeling of wasted money if they were paying for fancy studio space that was not actually being used to record.

The benefits of remote recording

Despite the drawbacks, a hybrid model of recording can be mutually beneficial. Some of these benefits include:

• Access to a wider talent pool outside of the local market, resulting in more unique cast lists
• Ability to work with actors who are unable to come in-studio for accessibility or health reasons
• Access to a more diverse group of actors for purposes of authentic/representative casting
• Possible ease in scheduling (actors not having to factor commute times into their availability)
• Ability for actors who are sick to work in a manner that does not endanger studio personnel or other talent (if they feel well enough to work but may still be contagious)
• Lessened chance of late starts and wasted time due to traffic/parking
• Possible reduced operating costs in other areas (cleaning, studio supplies, reception, etc)

What are some things you can do as a voice actor to help promote a positive image of remote-only actors?

• Sign in on-time or early to your sessions
• Be prepared with everything you need (script, software, and conferencing programs open and ready to go)
• Connect via a fast, stable Internet connection to avoid dropouts
• Be honest about your equipment, space and capabilities (and have a list of these ready to go)
• Have a raw home studio sample handy
• Be available for a connection test with the studio prior to your session
• Record and deliver backup files promptly and according to instructions
• Delete any proprietary materials, such as scripts or reference videos, from your hard drive when no longer needed and avoid sharing them with others
• Be willing to accept feedback from the engineering team on any adjustments your audio may need

Your recording space

Your physical recording environment is arguably the most important factor in whether or not your setup is considered “broadcast-ready”. Even the most expensive microphone can still sound terrible if recorded in an echoey space!

Examples of suitable recording spaces may include pre-built vocal booths, DIY booths (PVC pipe + moving blankets), or an acoustically treated walk-in closet. Note that just sticking some basic foam up on the walls of an otherwise large room isn’t going to magically make it broadcast-ready!

You may have also seen products for sale that claim to diminish room echo, such as “reflection shields” that attach to the microphone stand or a semi-enclosed box meant to contain the microphone. While these items may be able to play a small part in mitigating reverb if you’re forced to record in a less-than-ideal environment or add a little extra help to an otherwise treated space, these alone are not the answer to treating your room, and the money you spend on them is often better invested in getting materials to treat the space around you (such as the walls, ceiling and floor). Enclosing the microphone itself does very little to contain the overall room reflections and can result in a muffled sound. Again, reflection filters/isolation shields can help if it’s all you have and can work if you’re mostly recording hobby projects, but those alone will not bring your space up to “broadcast quality”.

General qualities your recording space should have

• Acoustically “dry” – free of room echo/reverb/bounce
• Sound-reflective surfaces covered, angled away from the mic or otherwise minimized
• Not such a small or tight space that it creates a muffled or “boxy” sound
• Enough soundproofing to mitigate unwanted outside noise

There are plenty of helpful, free videos and articles online about how to acoustically optimize a recording space!

Mic technique + placement

Even if you have a well-treated space and a great microphone, there can still be another pitfall in your audio and that comes to where and how the microphone is placed.

One common problem involves recording too close to or too far away from the microphone. You don’t want to record so far back that you pick up the sound of the room or lose the quality of your voice, but standing too close can result in noticeable breath sounds as well as an unwanted proximity effect. It’s important to keep your distance from the mic consistent between sessions for the same project, as how close or far back you are can make a noticeable difference in the sound. You can mark the floor with painter’s tape if you need help with this.

Experiment with various microphone placements and angles (different microphones can have different ideal positioning), and when you find the best one, take note of it and even take a picture if need be. You can also search for videos or pictures online of how your particular microphone tends to be placed in professional recording studios. Note that during sessions, the engineer may ask you to step forward or backward depending on the level of projection of certain lines and/or to ensure consistency of sound with others on the project.

To minimize undesirable noises, placing a pop filter (these can be ordered for very reasonable prices online, and don’t need to be any specific brand) in front of the microphone AS WELL AS recording “off-axis” (slightly angled away from the microphone instead of speaking directly into it) are the generally recommended techniques. You should also be sure that the microphone is placed in a shock mount and on a stand preferably with a boom arm, as you want it to be held in a static position without any interference.

How do I know if my audio is broadcast-ready?

If you are booked for a job that requires remote recording with a professional studio, you will usually be required to do a short, unpaid “test session” prior to your actual booking. The purpose of this test session is to ensure there are no problems with the remote connection and evaluate any potential issues that need to be addressed with your space or equipment. They’ll be listening for things like noise floor, reverb, and mic technique. Try not to stress out if the audio engineer asks you to make an adjustment—they’re here to help make the project, and your recording, sound its best!

Of course, if you’d rather not “chance it” by waiting for an actual booking, you may wish to have your audio professionally evaluated. There are many audio engineers who offer freelance audio consultations in which you’ll send them a raw sample recorded from your home studio and they’ll pinpoint any potential issues that a studio may have with approving your setup. Before you pay for such a service, it’s important to make sure that you are going to a professional audio engineer who currently works in the business and understand what studios are looking for in remote recording. It can further be helpful to choose someone who specializes in the genre you’re working in—for example, if you’re looking to make sure your home studio is ready for video game recording sessions, you may wish to consult with an engineer who has experience recording on games. There are some who will specialize in creating “effects chains” that help you post-process your audio in certain ways, but when you’re recording live with a studio you will be sending RAW audio, so presets and plugins won’t help you with that!

“I know of some people who got away with recording on terrible setups during the pandemic, yet I can’t get a studio to approve my setup that I invested tons of money in! Why?”

The onset of the pandemic was sudden and unexpected, and left studios scrambling to figure out how to continue production without being able to have actors come into the studio. Some actors already had viable home setups from working with remote clients online, but plenty did not, and many actors did not have the excess funds to suddenly buy a booth and upgrade their equipment. With media production – and the demand for it – ramping up more and more as so many people stayed at home, studios had to quickly find a solution to keep things moving, and some of it meant having to record actors under less-than-ideal circumstances in order to ensure the cast stayed consistent. Engineers worked with actors to troubleshoot issues, but sometimes they were forced to simply make do the best they could.

However, now that the industry is largely back to “business as usual” and has been for a while, there isn’t really a reason why a studio would have to accept subpar recording quality, as they simply expect the actors booked on the project to attend sessions in-person at the studio. But if an actor needs a remote exception, they are more likely to be sticklers for quality, because when the majority of the cast is recording in-studio, having one or two people recording remotely can sound jarring. The modern-day standard is often that anyone recording from home should sound comparable to the actors recording in-studio, which can be a challenging bar to clear.

About recording software/DAW

Unless you are doing your own engineering or post-production work in addition to VO, you may feel free to use whatever DAW (digital audio workstation, aka recording software) you are most comfortable with, so long as it can export uncompressed audio in the quality and format requested by the studio (typically, 48000hz/24-bit wav or “48/24” for short.)

Using a fancier or more expensive DAW isn’t magically going to make your audio sound better—it just records what you put into it, so what you’re paying extra for is usually workflow and post-production tools which are not necessary for just recording and sending raw audio from a session. You will often hear about how ProTools is the industry standard, but this is for recording studios and is overkill for what the grand majority of voice actors will need. Most of what you will be doing in live sessions is just recording a backup track so the studio can have a copy of your full-res audio.

If you want something a little more robust than Audacity for recording live sessions that doesn’t require an ongoing subscription fee (and has a backup feature built in in case the program crashes), Reaper is a popular affordable option.

Creating a home studio sample

A home studio sample is imperative for any actor who wishes or needs to record remotely. The purpose of this audio file is to give studios or potential talent rosters a raw, realistic look at what your equipment and recording space sounds like and what they would be getting if they were to work with you remotely. This sample is often used to determine whether or not you will be approved for remote recording.

The home studio sample must be RAW – you may adjust gain in between and cut sections together if needed, but do NOT add any processing (such as noise reduction, noise gating, EQ, compression, de-click, etc.) For the purposes of this sample you should also avoid amplifying or normalizing—set your gain appropriately for each step of the process.

While each studio or talent roster may have their own specific requirements for samples, here’s a good benchmark for items to include:

• Include a short sample of you speaking at a normal, conversational volume with gain at your typical baseline level. It doesn’t particularly matter what you say, but an example could be “Hello, my name is [name] and I am recording on a [microphone] into an [interface]. Here is a sample at conversational volume.”
• Turn your gain down and deliver a short reading at a projected volume—think of what you might use for delivering battle callouts or attack efforts. Ideally this should peak at no more than -3 dB. Make sure your audio does not clip or this will likely be an automatic “fail” of the home audio evaluation!
• Turn your gain up and deliver a short reading at a whispered volume—think the quietest level you might realistically be asked to record at during a session. It’s normal for your noise floor to be more audible at such quiet levels, but this will help the team to evaluate whether such a noise floor will be workable.
• Turn your gain back down to your “normal” level and clap three times. This will help the team to evaluate the echo in your space.
• Staying at this normal level, provide around 10 seconds of room tone. Avoid making any noise if possible (you may even wish to step outside your booth for this to ensure you get a good clean sample).
• Export the audio as something like Your Name – Home Studio Sample.wav, unless you are asked to label differently or save in a different format.

June Yoon has created some resources here on making a home studio sample for further reading if desired!