Vocal Tips For Voiceover
Hi! I'm a singing teacher and I've helped many beginners sing with confidence.
I've recently started helping actors with voiceover work.
I'm looking to get more practice with adapting singing techniques to speaking/voiceover.
Reply to this post with your most pressing question about vocal technique for voiceover and I'll answer them to the best of my abilities.
Regards,
Benny Ng
Become a confident singer. Get your free ebook: https:///www.topsingingsecrets.com/ebook
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Hi Benny,
Thank you so much for making yourself available! I'm sure you'll give valuable insights to all of our Pros.
Kind regards
Hello Benny,
How about some ideas for making breaths quieter during a read, rather than in post? Many of the people - myself included - sometimes have problems with breaths becoming distracting within a read.
Thanks,
Joe B.
I will talk about it from a singing perspective then bring it back to voice acting.
When singing, we want to take quick, deep and quiet breaths. Or at least as quiet as we can. A noisy breath means our passageway is constricted.
Of course, it is appropriate to make the breath noisy as an effect sometimes.
How we do that is we need to have a big mouth space and a widened vocal tract.
I like to use the “hot fries” imagery.
Imagine you are hungry. You go to McDonalds and order some fries. You put the fries in your mouth. They are too hot to swallow. You keep the fries in your mouth and breathe in and out to keep the fries down.
Do you feel your jaw and tongue drop? Do you feel there is more space at the back of your throat? And cool air hitting that spot?
You have now created more space in your mouth and potentially widening your vocal tract too.
Every time you breathe in, think of the “hot fries”. It will help you take quick and quiet breaths.
Back to voice acting.
This can definitely apply when you are doing a read. You would probably be taking smaller breaths than when you are singing.
Try to plan your breathing spots throughout your script. If you know beforehand when you need to breathe, you can be prepared to make the breaths quieter.
I also go through “hot fries” and other concepts in detail in my free ebook. It will help you to get a better vocal tone. The download link is below.
Hope that helps!
Regards,
Benny
Become a confident singer. Get your free ebook - https://www.topsingingsecrets.
Thank you Benny!
Some good advice you've given here - I'm eager to try out the "hot fries" trick. I do indeed plan breaths for each read, but sometimes - in the heat of the read - one forgets.
You make a great point about a breath sometimes being a part of the read - and that brings up another point for voice actors to consider: NOT removing all breaths in post. Sometimes I occasionally hear demos posted on the Community page which have ALL breaths removed using either strip-silence or a noise gate or manual removal. In some cases, the effect becomes other-worldly or robotic. A bit of breath, particularly within a sentence, keeps the read sounding natural.
In my own editing, it's rare that I leave a breath as-is, usually lowering gain, fading, adjusting length, or all of the above. It sounds like a lot of work, but when you're comfy with your DAW, it doesn't take that long and really adds polish to the finished product.
Thanks again Benny. Regards,
Joe B
Very true!
Glad I could be of service :)
Regards,
Benny