This week I thought you’d enjoy a video “tour” of my home voice over studio recording set up.

I get a little geeky as I describe the equipment so if you’re just starting out, don’t worry. Just take a deep breath and come along for the ride.(If you need help with your home studio, check out my home studio training program www.homestudiohowto.com)

Like many voice over professionals I have more than one voice over studio, 3 to be exact.

 When I hit the road I take along my iPad loaded with the Twisted Wave recording app, Dropbox and an Apogee mic. It sounds great and is perfect for auditions and some jobs (like voice prompts for phone systems) here broadcast quality isn’t an issue.

There’s a lot to love about recording on the iPad. Its light, there’s no noise from a laptop fan, and the inexpensive ($10) recording app called Twisted Wave works perfectly fine for a quick audition.

I have a very simple, broadcast quality set up at home and a full voice over studio with a sound isolation booth, mixing board, ISDN, phone patch and a couple of audio engineers on staff at the office.

I load my scripts into Dropbox, a file sharing app, and open them up on the iPad with Twisted Wave running in the background. The great thing about doing this is you don’t have to print out scripts or worry about page turn noises. It’s easy to increase the size of the text with your finger and the iPad screen is backlit and easy to read.

At home I have the same mic I use in the office so the sound is consistent. For my voice I like the AKG 414. This is an expensive mic that requires a preamp so I don’t recommend it for beginners.

In my home set up, I plug my AKG mic into a Mobile-pre preamp which then plugs into the USB port of my laptop PC. I use Sony Soundforge as my recording software. The mic sits inside a foam
lined Porta Booth which deadens the sound around the mic. Its not sound proof but my home office is pretty quiet and the windows are well insulated so as long as they’re closed, background noise
isn’t really an issue. So there you have it! That’s how I roll.

Got a picture of your home studio? I’d love to see it. Send it along to info@greatvoice.com and I’ll publish it in a future issue of Inside Voice Over.

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Susan Berkley is a top voice over artist and founder of The Great Voice Company, a company devoted to teaching great voices around the world how to become successful voice over actors. The Great Voice Company is an international leader in voice over training and in providing top quality voice over recordings in all languages to discerning businesses and marketers. For additional information visit www.greatvoice.com

Copyright, The Great Voice Company. All Rights Reserved.  An Exclusive “Insider’s Tour” Of My Home Voice Over Studio.