Recording Your Voice-over Script

SoundEdit 16

By now you have crafted a fine and compelling story to tell and the task of recording your voice looms large.
The audio capture software you'll use will make this process relatively painless.

The Windows

SoundEdit 16 is an audio capture tool. You'll use it to record your voice into several clips.

The timeline or capture window will display a representation of your voice in wave format once you have recorded a segment of your script.

The Controls window is extremely simple to operate. Click the Red button to record and the Square Black button to stop recording. The Play button or your spacebar will PLAY the clip.


The Microphone settings

Choose the appropriate microphone setting from the Control Strip. The small slot mic located at the top of the iMac box is the Built-in mic. If you plug in a microphone into the side bay, then you are using an External Mic.


The Recording settings

Audio is measured by the bit depth that is assigned to each second of audio. The higher the bit depth (8, 16, 24) the better the audio, the larger the file. Audio is also calibrated by the dynamic range of info recorded, from low (11kHz) to high (44 kHz)

The Sound Format window is accessible from the Modify menu.

For the best quality, record your voice at 44 kHz and 16 bits.


Test… Test… Test…

Its very important to your movie that the audio is of great quality. You need to test record then listen/replay to be sure you have captured the best version of your recorded voice.

You can also see if your voice is too quiet or too loud (which causes distortion) by looking at the waveform in SoundEdit's display window.

Adjust the strength of your voice or your distance from the microphone to create the best balance.

The spacebar will PLAY the clip to hear the results.


Save as…

Each chunk of your story should be saved as a separate file with an alphabetical AND clue naming convention.
The file name should begin with "a." followed by a one word "clue" to help you identify what that audio clip contains.
i.e.

First clip = a.doctor
2nd clip=b.babynames
3rd clip=c.lemonjello

Save them all directly into your Voiceover ƒolder on your computer.

Save the file as an AIFF

Once your recorded clip has been saved, you can select and delete it or record over it to replace the previous recording with the next segment of your script.

When you have completed your recording session, transfer all the clips to your Voiceover ƒolder in your Moov ƒolder.


Simple Edits

You can copy, cut and paste just like a word processor to make simple edits.

The 'dead air' represented by the flat line portion of the audioclip can be selected and cut or deleted as you would in a text document. This would close the gap between the words spoken.
You can also copy and paste a word or phrase to repeat it.


Special Effects

3 special effects
Select a segment of your captured audio and choose from the Effects menu.

Echo… will create an echo effect, you can choose the 'time-delay' of the echo

Pitch Shift will change the pitch. Your voice can sound deeper and slower, or higher and faster.

Tempo… will change the speed of your clip. Your voice can sound slower or faster.

The spacebar will PLAY the clip to hear the results.

and 1 for fun…
Choose Backwards, play and listen to it several times and then mimic what you hear and record that. Apply Backwards again to see how really odd it sounds. Now get back to work!

If you haven't submitted your script by sending an email to techno09teacher@mac.com. you are woefully behind in your work...

 

 

 

 

 

 

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