Voice Over Sydney
Voice Over Sydney
Voice over is what we do best! Our recording studio is located very close to Australia’s two largest CBD’s: Sydney’s CBD and North Sydney’s CBD. Our convenient location and accessibility make us very busy with voice work from these two major business centres. For example, international actors, who are staying in hotels nearby, often require our ADR facility. For this reason we get a lot of ADR work from large studios in the USA, the UK, and Europe. We deliver the very best in voice over recording and ADR, for both corporate projects, commercials, and film / documentaries. If you’re looking for the perfect voice over to compliment your project, then give us a call. We’ll be happy to help!
Voice over rates. Commercial voice over recording is $220 per hour including GST ($200 + GST) and voice over editing is $154 per hour including GST ($140 + GST). ADR is $291.50 per hour including GST. Full pricing for every service is on our studio rates page, where you can also download a rate card as a PDF.
Spoken Word
On this page we aim to give you as much information as we can about our voice over recording work. This includes the variety of voice over (spoken word) projects that we have worked on. We’ll explain how we function as the best Sydney recording studio and how we can help you get great results! A lot of our work is with overseas studios. For this purpose we employ the latest internet and networking technology available. This allows us to link-up to overseas partner studios so clients can be involved in the voice over recording session – visually and audibly! This is a critical component to our voice recording work. We will elaborate on this topic a little further down this page.
Spoken word content is everywhere in our modern world. So much so that it’s easy to take it for granted! Spoken word accounts for most of the recorded audio we hear. To compete in this digital age voice over studios like ours require extremely high-end recording equipment. We have gone to the greatest lengths to ensure that we deliver the highest-quality recordings possible. Nothing but absolute world-class audio in every way!
Voice over production is particularly exposing of a studio’s audio capability and quality. Audiobooks and podcasts, for example, make the quality of the studio and microphone very obvious to the listener. In these types of audio recordings there’s usually no music to mask a poor quality recording. Every click, rustle, movement, mouth noise, and sibilant frequency is on show for the listener to hear. This is why it is important to choose a recording studio that is focussed on getting the best voice production Sydney has to offer. Anything less is a distraction from the message that is being put forward to your listeners. These listeners are your followers, and more often than not, your customers. Let’s make sure they hear you clearly.
Voice Over Examples
Voice over compilation
Nick Flynn voice demo
Voice over example
Voice over example, MM Club
The Best Equipment for Voice Production Sydney has to offer!
The Best Voice Over
– Shane Carn
Our Role in Speech Editing
Speech editing is an important area of audio engineering. It is among the most important work that we do! We have edited the speech of some of the biggest speakers on the planet. Our role is making certain that the audio recording is highly coherent and fluent. Audio messages presented in a clean manner and without error maximise the impact on the listener.
Editing speech is similar to editing words on a page. To edit a speech well requires familiarity with the language and skills that only experience can bring. Our engineers have a deep understanding of the sounds that the human voice make and how those sounds will appear as complex waves in an audio program. Our team can slice up and manipulate the audio to create coherent and clear speech. Without a doubt, speech editing is a unique skill that takes a long time to develop and understand. It is highly valued by the voice over and speaking community throughout the world.
Voice over production requires the use of specialised audio programs that enhance the recordings. Programs that operate within our main editing software are referred to as plugins. These are critical to getting the best results for any voice production. Examples of these voice enhancing plugins might be de-essers (designed to reduce harsh sibilant Sssss sounds), compressors and equalisers, mouth de-clicking plugins, and many more. It’s also very common to use software to remove breaths between lines and words. Not every voice recording requires this level of detail. For example, some conversational audio recordings do not require breaths to be removed. However, there is no doubt about it, the voice production is dramatically improved when breaths are removed. This process can take time and effort so whether or not this level of details is required is often dependent on the time a project has available and the budget.
Why Use Us for Voice Over Projects
Our business has its foundations in ADR, voice over and speech editing. Recording the spoken word is a unique skill and requires effort to master for both artist and engineer. Well recorded voice requires an understanding of vocal acoustics. Furthermore, male and female variations must be understood. We try to focus on what the end result of the project requires.
Crash Symphony Productions aims to deliver every project within budget at the highest quality possible. This requires a wide array of microphone options and a recording booth designed for maximum comfort and acoustic isolation. This helps the talent perform at their best! Therefore, the audio will be at the highest quality possible. At Crash Symphony Productions we pride ourselves on being the industry’s best at recording voice over and ADR. There are important differences in how to record the voice for film, radio, music, and film. We know how to achieve the right result for those specific areas of audio.
Expert Sound Engineers
Working with us means working with the best sound engineers in Sydney
The art of being an excellent sound engineer is not as prominent now that video has become the focus of our world. However, a top quality sound engineer can augment the quality of a production dramatically. When we record a vocal for music or a voice over for an ad we have the ability to enhance every aspect of that recording. The modern tools available to the twenty-first century sound engineer are truly remarkable. Staying on top of the rapid progress is very much a full time job. Let’s take a quick look at what work is involved in producing an excellent vocal recording for a typical voice over job.
Our sound engineer will setup the session prior to the talent arriving. In the most extreme cases, often film ADR sessions, the project and microphones will need to be prepared first. Our clients, from film productions companies, are often located in another country like the USA, the UK, or somewhere in Europe. They will send the sound engineer the program material. This will be the video files with SMPTE timecode, the cue sheet, and all specifications required by our sound engineer to capture a similar sound to what was recorded on set.
Once these program elements are received our sound engineer in Sydney will go into Pro Tools and mark out all the cue points on the timeline of the film. Each entry point will have ADR beeps that will help the talent execute their lines in Synch with the film. In ADR the talent’s job will be to lip synch in time with their delivery on set. By setting up the project prior to the talent arriving our sound engineer ensures that the session flows smoothly for the talent.
Often these “remote sessions” (where the directors and producers are overseas) are facilitated by software that helps us communicate with the overseas studios. Programs like Zoom and Source-Connect allow sound engineers in both locations to be actively involved in the session. The sound engineer overseas can literally press the recording button in one country and our software will obey the command here in Sydney. The directors and producers can watch the video content on their screen whilst listening to the audio being recorded by our sound engineers in Sydney. It’s real-time. It’s the modern way. It’s remarkable!
In this example, an ADR recording session, the sound engineer would also need to setup two microphones. One would be a lapel mic, similar to what might have been used on set, and the other a shotgun microphone. These two microphones are setup by our sound engineer in Sydney in front of a screen. This is to allow the talent to clearly view the film as they are performing. An iPad is also positioned in close proximity to the microphones. This will have all the cue points and lines that the talent will be reading during the ADR recording session.
During the session the sound engineer will be facilitating the smooth capture of cue lines. They make sure that all the takes of each line are saved for future recall and re-listening, and can even cut recorded takes together to create a composite “best take”.
Once the ADR session is complete the post-production work on the re-recorded lines begins. The amount of work that goes into the audio post-production is beyond the scope of this example. However, we can give a few examples of the kind of technology our sound engineer might decide to use on the recorded cue lines. There is software to reduce lip and mouth noises. Harsh sibilant frequency can be curtailed. The synch of the spoken lines can be further tightened by intelligent algorithms that look at the original “on set” spoken audio and literally stretch, cut, and compress lines recorded in our Sydney recording studio and make them even tighter. The list of tasks, options, and enhancements that our sound engineer can apply to a voice recording is enormous.
