What do you think when some one implies that spoken word is...?

...that spoken word is easily recorded with simplistic technique and simple gear?


I learned live sound from a guy that used to travel the world and set up the big man's microphones.

I do a LOT of spoken word recording with folks.

I kinda know how I feel... ;-)



I'm wondering if the folks that dismiss it so casually have done much spoken word work?


best regards,
mike

Spoken word.... to get a good recording.... I've never really tried to record spoken word, but I'm guessing that pretty much the same things apply.

Good mic, room acoustics, gear, placement of the mic and ................... someone with a good voice. 

I like to record spoken word pieces with a click-track. You know, to keep things tight.

mike_mccue


The thing that made me ask this question is that I was floating around the songs section and ended up at a studios website and it announced that it could handle anything including spoken word... and the way it said it made me think a voice artist would want someone who seemed to think there was actually something to the craft.

:-)

Yeah, I know. That's what a lot of people think. Even some of the voice talents "Talents" with no prior experience we get here, usually hired by the client, get really pissed off with us or we completely break their confidence because they'd thought it wouldbe easy and then we demand stuff for it to be good enough to deliver and all of a sudden talking into a mic isn't that easy. Now, we do our best to have everyone succeed tho But we see it everywhere, budgets get sliced, deadlines get shorter, new facilities pop up everywhere taking the jobs and deliver utter rubbish but somehow stay in business. But the general perseption is that it's easy and doesn't require much. They are so very wrong. All I can say, us in the know MAKE it look easy because we are really, really good!! Ha ha

What any recording facility should know is that there are no instruments that are so different from each make and contain so many nuances and dynamics like the human voice. And it require skills from both the engineer/director and the speaker to achieve good results. If a facility doesn't take a voice seriously I wold never hire them for anything else either. Not sure I could trust their judgement on anything.

Well, since recording voiceover is about 75% of what we do, and we've done it for lo these twentyfive some odd years you'd think I'd have it down pat.  But it's an elusive little bugger.  Every voice is different and every mic is too...let alone signal path, etc....

But all of our work is also IN STUDIO.  SO

We just set up a decent mic through a decent signal chain and run em in and out like cattle.  So far no complaints.  YMMV.

Location stuff is a whole nother thang!

I guess anyone with a mic can record spoken word. Not so many can do it right. After all, if it was so easy anyone and everyone would be recording spoken word.

Both.

Maybe?

I read that X1c handles spoken word.








It just sits there patiently while it's owner speaks works like %$#&* and *&^^^%@ to it.


Mind you, this is just what I've read.

Given that many Hollywood A-lister's are doing voice overs for cartoons I'd say it's a very lucrative side of the business. Lot's of big names doing car commercials too.

ProjectM


On rare occasions when they pay me to act in cartoons I am happy man come payday;)
 
 

So how do they flatten you into a 2D image?
 

I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks at the moment. Simply out of being interested in different subjects. 

I wanted to listen to Aldous Huxley's work 'Island' and couldn't find anything other than print. I then got this crazy idea that I would narrate the story myself. I gave it some thought then realised that I didn't know the story well enough to do the recording any justice.

I think that a lot of spoken word stuff depends on how well the artist understands the material that he/she is reading. 

Of course there's also the editing side such as removing breaths, nasal turbulence etc.  

Fascinating discussion...stuff I'd never really considered actually.  I always find it interesting to hear experts talk about a subject.

Is it normal to think ''whatever it is' can't be THAT hard!'?  Because I guess it does bring some comfort to think I'm not the only one in that category. :)  So many things seem fairly easy to learn but almost impossible to master, which I've learned time after time, much to my chagrine.  lol