Add an Ounce of “Effective” to Your Voiceovers

Although much of the voiceover work VO actors are booked for is for a natural-sounding voice, sometimes (and quite often when I closely go through VO actors' tweets), they are asked to give a read with more depth and gravitas (a more old-school way of voicing).

VO artists always find this strange that they would book them for this read because, to be honest, there are half a dozen guys that they would consider their direct competition at any level that have deeper richer voices than they do. So why are they booking them for the job? Well, they could go deep into the why but that’s for another post. What prompted them to talk about how they handle this situation in an incredibly simple way and how you can do the same?

Your voiceover demos need to show a lot of important things (again, another post for another time), but one of the things it must show is range. And one of the easiest ways to show range is by manipulating the microphone through a simple process called proximity effect.

The proximity effect is exactly what it sounds like - the ‘effect’ of moving closer or further away from the microphone. Now I could go into the technical aspects of polar patterns, frequency response, and microphone equalization, but it’s really not necessary.

In a nutshell - what you need to know is this: The closer you get to a microphone, the more it receives, the lower end of your vocal tone, and less of the sound of the room you are in. This makes the voice sound deeper, more resonant, and more intimate. Also, getting closer to the mic enables you to speak without projection, so you can really work those lowest notes of your range. The further you move away from the microphone - the less of this “bottom end” of your voice is picked up by the microphone, and the “mids” and “highs” begin to dominate. Also, being further away allows you to project more if this fits the required tone or style for the performance.

I once witnessed a voiceover student in one of the voiceover seminars who had a beautiful deep rich voice, much lower than a median voiceover trainee. The others in the group felt he was a more likely candidate for voiceover success. The VO trainers bet them that they could sound as deep or deeper than he did on a read. (They should have bet money). He performed the voiceover with his Orson Wells-like tones. The group actually laughed when the trainer walked up to the microphone to try and match it. Imagine their shock when he with a speaking voice that is normally several tones above his, managed a deeper darker, and richer read. All done with “proximity”. (He was practically eating the microphone when he did it.)

Deeper Isn’t Always Better

You may say, “Well, if getting close on the mic makes a deep resonant sound, isn’t that good, and shouldn’t you do it all the time?” Nope.

A close-to-the-mic performance will deliver a very specific tone that only sounds acceptable in a few circumstances.

Also, from an equalization perspective, the bottom end of your tone doesn’t cut through with the same clarity as your mids and highs. For example, most rock music has the highs and lows turned up, and the mids turned down. Go onto iTunes and chose “Rock” in your EQ tools, and you will see a “V” shape with the little equalizer. A voice that is stronger in the “mids” area will cut through the music and be heard over all that noise with far more clarity. You can only achieve these mids if you are a little further from the microphone.

This is all a little hard to explain with the written word, but I hope you get the idea. You can find some interesting videos on YouTube or VO blogs that usually come with some online training they are building for interested people. But the best way to learn is to get in front of a microphone and experiment. See what happens when you move around to different positions on the mic. Test it out. See what works and what doesn’t for your individual voice.