Voice & Spoken Word8 min read

Voiceover Recording: What to Expect in the Booth

Andrew Nolan13 January 2025

# Voiceover Recording: What to Expect in the Booth

Voiceover recording is a precise craft, and walking into a professional voice over studio for the first time can feel disorienting if you don't know what the session actually involves. The mic is live, the room is quiet in a way that feels unnatural, and someone is talking to you through a speaker asking for another take. Knowing what happens at each stage, from mic setup through to final file delivery, means you spend less time adjusting and more time performing.

At Animus Studios in Brisbane, we run VO sessions for commercial clients, broadcasters, e-learning producers, corporate video, and independent creators. The process is consistent regardless of the project type: good signal chain, clear direction, clean editing, and delivery in the format your project actually needs.

The Signal Chain: Mic, Preamp, and Room

The microphone choice for voiceover work depends on the voice and the application. We most commonly reach for the Neumann U 87, which has been the industry standard for VO for decades. Its large-diaphragm condenser capsule captures detail and warmth across a wide frequency range, and its cardioid polar pattern rejects room reflections effectively. For voices that sit brighter or for clients who want a slightly more forward, present character, the AKG C414 in cardioid mode is a strong alternative. For broadcast-style reads, particularly podcast narration or content that needs to cut through without heavy post-processing, the Shure SM7B is a reliable dynamic option that handles proximity effect well and is forgiving of minor positioning inconsistencies.

Signal from the mic runs through quality preamps into our Universal Audio Apollo interface, which gives us low-latency monitoring and clean conversion at 48kHz, 24-bit. That 24-bit depth is important: it gives us 144dB of theoretical dynamic range, which means we can record at conservative levels (around -18 to -12 dBFS peak) without noise floor issues, and still have plenty of headroom for processing in post. We monitor on Genelec speakers in the control room while the talent works in the live room or booth.

The Booth Environment

Professional voiceover booths are acoustically treated to be as dead as possible. That means heavy absorption on walls and ceiling, bass trapping in corners, and a room that produces almost no natural reverb or flutter echo. This can feel strange at first. Voices that sound full and resonant in a bathroom or a lounge room can sound thinner in a dead room, because you're hearing your voice without the flattering reflections you're used to.

This is normal, and it's exactly what we want. A dry, clean recording gives us full control in post. We can add subtle room character, EQ for warmth, or process for broadcast spec without fighting against room artefacts baked into the recording. If we record in a live space, those reflections are permanent. If we record dry, every option stays open.

Mic technique matters inside the booth. We position the mic at roughly mouth height, slightly off-axis to reduce plosives (the hard P and B sounds that cause low-frequency bursts on the capsule), and we use a pop shield as a second line of defence. Distance from the mic affects tone significantly: closer gives more bass presence due to the proximity effect, further back gives a more open, natural sound. We'll set this based on your voice and the project brief before we hit record.

Direction: How We Guide Your Performance

Voiceover direction is one of the most underrated parts of a VO session. A technically clean recording with a flat, unconvincing read is not a usable recording. Our job in the control room is to get the performance that serves the script, not just the audio that clears the technical bar.

We give direction between takes rather than interrupting mid-read. Common notes include pacing (reads that feel natural in the room often run too slow on playback), energy level, emphasis on specific words or phrases, and conversational tone versus formal tone. For commercial reads, the difference between a line landing and not landing often comes down to where the emphasis sits in a single sentence.

If you're new to voiceover recording, don't expect to nail every take immediately. We typically run three to five takes of each section as a baseline, more if the script is complex or the direction requires significant adjustment. Experienced VO artists often find their best take is the third or fourth, once the technical self-consciousness drops away and the read becomes more natural.

Working With a Script

Bring your script in a format you can read comfortably, whether that's printed or on a tablet. Scrolling on a phone mid-take creates handling noise and breaks concentration. If you're working from a client's script, read it aloud several times before the session. Unfamiliar words, awkward sentence structures, and tongue-twister combinations are much easier to identify and flag before the mic is live than during a paid session.

We can provide a music stand or script holder in the booth. Some clients prefer to stand, others sit. Both work. What matters is that your posture doesn't restrict your breathing, because breath control is directly connected to vocal consistency across a long session.

Takes, Comping, and Editing

Once we've tracked all the material, the editing phase begins. In Pro Tools, we work through the takes and build a composite, or "comp," selecting the best read of each line or phrase across multiple takes. This is standard practice in professional voiceover production. The goal is a final read that sounds like one continuous, natural performance, even if it's assembled from six different takes.

Beyond comping, editing involves removing mouth noise (clicks, lip smacks, and saliva sounds that microphones pick up more readily than the human ear does in person), cleaning up breath placement, and trimming silence to the correct length for the project. For e-learning content, pauses between sections need to be consistent. For broadcast, timing often needs to hit specific durations. For audiobooks, breath removal and noise floor consistency across hours of material is a significant technical task.

We use iZotope RX for noise reduction and mouth noise cleanup. It's the industry standard for dialogue and voice post-production, and it handles these tasks with surgical precision without affecting the quality of the voice itself. For audiobook work specifically, we follow ACX technical requirements: -23 to -18 LUFS integrated loudness, -3 dBFS peak, and a noise floor below -60 dBFS. These specs are non-negotiable for Audible distribution, and we deliver files that pass the ACX check without revision.

For more detail on what's involved in long-form narration projects, see our [audiobook production](https://animusstudios.au/services/audiobook-production) page.

Delivery Formats

Different clients and platforms need different file formats. We discuss this before the session so there are no surprises at delivery.

Broadcast and streaming: WAV or AIFF, 48kHz, 24-bit, stereo or mono depending on the platform spec
Podcast and web: MP3 at 192kbps or higher, or WAV at 44.1kHz, 16-bit for smaller file sizes
E-learning (SCORM/LMS platforms): MP3 at 128 to 192kbps, mono, with consistent loudness across all modules
Audiobook (ACX/Audible): MP3 at 192kbps, mono, meeting the loudness and noise floor specs above
Corporate video: WAV stems delivered to match the video editor's project spec, often 48kHz, 24-bit

We deliver files labelled clearly with take numbers, scene or line references, and any alternates the client has requested. If the project involves multiple file versions (for example, a long version and a 30-second cut of a commercial read), we deliver each as a separate file rather than expecting the client to edit.

For clients who need ongoing VO work recorded remotely, we also offer [remote mixing and mastering](https://animusstudios.au/services/remote-mixing-mastering) services, and can work with files recorded in other studios or home setups, cleaning and processing them to broadcast standard.

Preparing for Your Session

The practical steps that make a VO session run smoothly are straightforward.

Hydrate well in the 24 hours before the session. Dry vocal cords produce more mouth noise and fatigue faster.
Avoid dairy on the day of recording. Dairy increases mucus production, which creates more mouth noise and throat clearing.
Bring water into the booth. We provide it, but having your own is fine. Room temperature water is better than cold.
Warm up your voice before arriving. Even five to ten minutes of gentle vocal exercises makes a measurable difference to consistency in the first takes.
Know your script. Familiarity reduces hesitation, which reduces editing time and session cost.

Our [voiceover recording](https://animusstudios.au/services/voiceover) service covers commercial, corporate, broadcast, and creative projects. Sessions are booked in half-day or full-day blocks depending on the volume of material.

What Makes a VO Session Work

The technical side of voiceover recording, the mic, the room, the gain staging, the editing, is something we handle. What you bring to the session is the performance, the preparation, and the willingness to take direction and try different reads. The combination of those two things is what produces a recording that actually does its job, whether that's selling a product, narrating a story, or delivering information clearly and credibly. A professional voice over studio in Brisbane is not hard to find. One that treats the performance side of the session with the same rigour as the technical side is worth knowing about.