Should a voice actor deliver raw or processed audio?
- Mark Mullens
- Aug 3
- 1 min read
It really depends on the size of the production.
I offer a range of processing amount, which can go from absolutely raw, nothing done to it, or fully processed, ready-to-use, just drag and drop in your video timeline and it's ready to go.
The key question to ask is: does the project have an audio engineer?
If the answer is yes, the voice actor shouldn't process the audio. That's the audio engineer's job. This mean the voice actor delivers raw audio.
If the answer is no, it still depends. Is someone in the production handling audio post production?If the video editor is also handling the audio, I will generally do some minor cleanup but still mostly leave it alone.
If absolutely no one else is handling the audio, I will do it. I'll clean it up fully and add effects such as compression and equalization to make sure the audio is clear, and you don't have this issue where:
Either the voice over is too loud or the music is too loud and you can't hear the words.
You hear this aggressive volume reduction when the voice comes in and it's jarring to the listener.
This isn't a step you want to skip, especially if the voice over is going to be mixed in with music and sound effects.
Good audio post production makes sure the voice over is clear, the music is clear, the sound effects are clear and nothing clashes.
So make sure!
Comments