0054: Why I Use, Love And Recommend Audacity For Voice Over Work
Video:
Audio:
Show notes:
Hey there, hero!
I often get the questions “What sound recording and editing software do you use? And why?”
Here’s my answer: Audacity. For sure.
And I’ll tell you why (and why I do when I could use a number of more complicated apps, like ProTools and Logic, but don’t) in this episode.
What sound software do you use? And why? Let me know in the comments below.
Raw transcript:
Raw transcript:
voice talent and actors who do voice
work ask me all the time what’s the mic
you use
what’s the sound recording and editing
software you use what’s the
what’s the this what’s the that and
regarding the sound editing software
that i use they’re often surprised that
i don’t say pro tools i don’t say
logic i don’t say studio one or reaper
or
anything other than audacity and there’s
one very good reason for that actually
there’s about a dozen but there’s one
that really pops out and i’ll share that
with you in this episode of the vo
heroes podcast
[Music]
actors who do voice work as pure voice
talent we have an awful lot of choices
available to us regarding the equipment
that we use the software that we use
the items that we put in our studio to
lower our sound
and a daw or a digital audio workstation
is
central
to what we do it has to be able to
record us cleanly
and accurately and
be able to be edited efficiently and
quickly and spit out great uh great work
and
i just as a as a bit of background i
know pro tools very well for a long time
i was a digidesign which was a company
that that uh preceded avid in owning uh
pro tools i was a digit design certified
engineer certified consultant i was an
avid certified consultant so i know pro
tools really really well
and it has its place when i produce
demos for voice talent i use pro tools
or i use logic or i have my buddy trevor
who’s awesome at doing production use
logic
but there’s one digital audio
workstation that for me has been a game
changer that i absolutely adore that i
use
pretty much 100 of the time
and that i recommend to
you if you’re a voice talent to others
who who ask
and that is audacity
now the reason that i use audacity
is
it’s so direct and so perfect for what
we need
and what we need as voice talent is not
usually multi-track production with lots
of different tracks doing sound effects
and stuff occasionally we need that but
mostly what we need
is a single
track of recorded sound our voice
the ability to quickly edit that sound
and to spit it out as an mp3 to send it
in for an audition or spit it out for a
wav file
and send it in as finished work
and audacity does that so well
it has lots of other options
but if i wanted to for example do
multi-track recording as i said i’d use
pro tools or i’d use logic if i wanted
to do midi which is for musicians not
for voice talent uh i’d probably use pro
tools again midi is is an
instrumentation uh uh concept and you
know audacity doesn’t do that if i
wanted to do
automation of my mixdown
and you’ve probably seen
a video of a console with multiple
faders on it all moving on their own as
the track plays
and that’s because when the engineer
first adjusted all of those things faded
things up or faded things down or
adjusted the volume
the software pro tools or whatever they
were using recorded the movements of
those faders
so that when they play back the tracks
those faders can move with little motors
inside them all on their own and give
the engineer a visual cue now we don’t
need that we don’t do that and audacity
doesn’t do that either
and all of that combined in addition to
the fact that it records sound just as
well as any of those very high priced
digital audio workstation software
options
it’s free
now that’s not why i use it because if
they wanted to charge me for it i likely
would consider continuing on with it
but
even if it was reasonably priced it
would be great the fact that it’s free
is like a bonus
but it’s those other things that it
doesn’t do that we don’t have to get
past
we don’t have to worry about
for example with pro tools it’s a pretty
steep learning curve audacity is fairly
straightforward
it’s got a huge user base so there’s
people all around the world using it
there’s a huge base of people developing
it it’s now
managed by a company that has sort of a
track for its future
all of those things combined and the
fact that i’ve been able to build
a
business
on training people how to use audacity
for audio books in particular
and voiceover in general
and i use it so you know i’ve said this
a million times i eat my own dog food
that’s a business phrase meaning i don’t
just recommend you do something and i do
something else i do this and so that’s
why i love
and use and recommend audacity for voice
over talent because it records a single
track
really really well it lets us edit that
track quickly and it lets us put out a
file that we can use for either
auditions or finished work just as fast
and in just as great shape as any of
those more expensive
pieces of software so
that’s why
i hope this helps if you’re looking for
a daw what daw do you use what what
sound software do you use and why
why do you use that software especially
if your voice talent why do you use
software that is more complicated in my
opinion than it needs to be it’s
whatever you want to use fine i just
would love to know put it in the
comments below i’d be happy to find out
and i appreciate you watching i
appreciate you listening if that’s how
you’re consuming this podcast i’m david
h lawrence the 17th and i will speak to
you soon in the next episode of the vo
heroes podcast
[Music]
you
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I use Adobe Audition because of features such as multi-track editing (yes, I have produced demo’s), and range markers that make it really easy to spit out individual files for eLearning clients, by slide, by paragraph, etc.—as an up-sell service. I also love its spectral display and editing, which I think make my editing go much faster and more seamlessly.
REAPER. Far far more configurable for VO and Audiobook work than Audacity. More useful native plugins, plus REAPER accepts most 3rd party plugins. And one can adjust those FX in real time as one is listening to the file and watching the waveform. Once one puts in the time to learn it, Punch & Roll and making corrections (with Time Selection Auto Punch) in REAPER are a snap. And because the editing is non-destructive (unlike Audacity – yet), fine tuning the edits is also much easier and more efficient because there is more recorded (not deleted) material to play with. PLUS – REAPER allows 2 External Editors. So if one really wants to, one can make Audacity one of the External Editors (and iZotope RX the other), edit in Audacity if one insists on doing so (and/or clean up things in RX), and then go back into REAPER (or stay in Audacity) to Render (Export) Mastered files. The only thing I would include to make REAPER even more useful is the “heal” function used in Adobe Audition’s Spectral Repair. (Admittedly, REAPER’s Spectral View and controls are very clunky compared to AA and RX.)
Quite honestly, other than it being free and relatively simplistic to use, I don’t know why people won’t spend the time to learn and opt for a more powerful and feature rich and configurable DAW than Audacity. It’s the difference between driving a Mercedes S-Class and a Yugo. The ONLY thing I use Audacity for is to double-check my file specs with the ACX-Check plugin. And even at that, it is only as a secondary or tertiary precaution.
David,
I used Audacity in a rudimentary manner before becoming a VOHero pro. Now I feel so much more confident. It is easy to use and has so many pluses that you show us to make our VO work even easier and better. Thank you.
Mary Z.
.
I use Audacity as well. Mostly for my classes, as I’ve not yet been able to break in to v/o.
It’s everything you said. And I haven’t experienced all it can do.
My feeling on using Audacity is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
It does the job. I know it well. I can do it quickly.
With so many learning curves constantly being thrown at actors, why change DAWs if what I’m using is working?
Note: On my wishlist is an Audacity app for iPhones, so when quick turn around is mandatory and I’m not in vicinity of my book, I could record on Audacity. Right now, the only recording/editing iPhone app I know of is Twisted Wave.
Question: Anybody got another on-the go record / audition work flow to share?
Hmmm: I can record in Messages. Wonder if there is a way to send upload that file to an audition site. Not sure if its even an mp3.
Anybody got an on the go, record audition on your phone, methodology to share?
I absolutely agree!!!! I’ve used audacity exclusively my entire VO career(9+ years) and see no reason to use anything else! It’s free, the updates are free, it’s easy to import plugins and it’s easy to use!
When I first got into voice over I knew about Audacity and wondered why everyone was using ProTools when it was so complicated and Audacity was so simple. I was ecstatic when I saw that you teach people to use Audacity! It’s one of the many reasons why I love being in VOHeroes.
I’m semi-retired but still do editing for other people’s projects, including VO, lectures, soundtracks, etc. I’m using an older iMac and have Audacity on my machine. I do like Audacity but have found another free (they accept donations) app called Ocenaudio that I’ve been using and supporting for years that I tend to prefer over Audacity. Ocenaudio is very clean and simple and allows for plug-ins (I use Soundtoys, RX and Ozone plug-ins mostly). It’s multi-platform and updated regularly. For multi-track, I’ve tried many of the DAWs, but prefer Reaper. Reaper can be complicated if you need a complicated workflow, but if I’m trying to do simple overdubs or segue a couple pieces of audio, it’s so easy to do in Reaper. To me, Reaper is affordable and they offer a generous evaluation time. Because Audacity is continually updated, I will continue to revisit it and I appreciate your take on it. I do enjoy your podcasts!