Tech Notes for Voice Talent

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technical questions about equipment and software used by voice talent who record at home - moderated by Beau Weaver

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My favorite audio editing tool for Voiceover

Guys,

As I have mentioned frequently, I am a long time hater of Pro Tools. If you are recording multiple channels of music, routing through plug ins and locked to picture, it sure is the right tool. But for recording and editing voiceover tracks, it is a needlessly complex and cumbersome resource hog. And those are it's good points.

I cannot count the calls I have taken from folks who are new to home recording, literally in tears, trying to figure out how to save a simple recording as an mp3 file with Pro Tools. And don't even get me started on how any OS update from Apple usually renders Pro Tools inoperable. And a year to support Leopard? Give me a break. But I digress.

I have done extensive testing of virtually all the audio editors for Mac OSX, including, Logic, Soundtrack Pro, Peak, Adobe Sound Booth, Sound Studio 3, Wave Editor, Amadeus Pro, etc. On the PC platform, I was a long time fan of Sony Sound Forge, but they do not have any plans to port the app to Mac. Peak has it's fans, but it crashes regularly, and support is spotty. I was liking Sound Studio 3 a lot, but there were some bugs, and omissions and the developer did not respond to support requests at all. All of the above programs have their strengths and weaknesses, but for the way I like to work, they were just not quite right.

Anyway, I have been working with a software developer to perfect a suite little app that I just love, and I want to pass it along to you. For my money, the best tool for recording and editing voiceover is: TwistedWave. http://twistedwave.com And, the price is 49 Dollars!*

It loads in about one second. No changing cursors into different tools. It works like a word processor. It saves directly as mp3 files, and will convert between almost all important audio file types. It exports the selected portion of the waveforme as a new file, of any type you specify. Navigation is a dream. You can zoom horizontally in the waveform and zoom in all with the tiny trackball in the Apple Mighty Mouse. It will record the highest resolution audio, sample rate and bit depth your sound card supports. It works with any digital interface that uses Apple Core Audio. For the advanced user, keyboard shortcuts are customizable, and you can create and save customized effects stacks of AU plugins.

I have worked closely with the guy who created the program to make some ease of use tweaks and fine tuning. He has responded to every one of my requests the same day. I think if you spend a little time playing with it, you may fall in love too.

You can download from this link, and try for a 30 day evaluation period for free. A major 1.5 update has just been posted, with additional improvement in development.

I have been using this as my daily editor for some time now and it is a huge time saver. If you are also a musician, or music producer, then Pro Tools is obviously. If all you need to do is record voiceover sessions, quick edit and cleanup and ship off via ftp, then give Twisted Wave a try, and never look back.

Full Disclosure: I am a paid user, and receive no compensation for this recommendation, other than gratitude for a tool so ideally suited for the task at hand.

Beau Weaver

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HELP! How can I hear myself when I record on my laptop? 2 Replies

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191 Comments

Comment by Hélène Janover on November 6, 2009 at 1:55am: I recently started using Twisted Wave and you are right, it is really nice. I used Audacity, which I never loved, and then tried a few other things over the past few months including Sound Studio. That seemed pretty good for a minute, but it was just missing something. Personality maybe?

There's something about TW that just works great. I immediately could hear that the quality of the sound files were noticeably different than from Audacity, let's say. Which was starting to make me crazy anyway.

So, thank you Beau for being part of the creative team.

Comment by Rick Marcil on November 2, 2009 at 4:46pm: Happy to try to help - my next suggestion was going to mention sound card settings.

Comment by Kevin Doherty on November 2, 2009 at 4:42pm: SoundForge issue resolved, related to settings within program that I must have messed around with! Thanks for the suggestion though Rick.

Comment by Kevin Doherty on November 2, 2009 at 4:09pm: Hi Rick,

I'm not sure as the laptop was a gift. I provided the SoundForge help desk with my computer ID number which was required though. Now it seems the software is allowing me to record vocals however the meters are still empty?

Thanks,
Kevin

Comment by Rick Marcil on November 2, 2009 at 3:22pm: Hi Kevin,

Do you have administrative rights for your computer? That makes a difference, and you must have them to do certain things.

Rick

Comment by Kevin Doherty on November 2, 2009 at 2:12pm: Hi Gang,

I have been using Sony's Soundforge 9.0 Audio Suite for the past 16 months with great success however yesterday the program simply stopped allowing me to record. I have a question into their online help desk but I thought I would check here as well.

Basically, for those of you familiar with the program, when I arm the recording button there are no level meters at all. This has happened in the past but I would simply shut my PC off and when I re-started the software would re-load and work fine. If any of you have encountered this problem or can shed any light on a resolution it would be greatly appreciated as loss of revenue is amidst.

Thanks,
Kevin

Comment by Tess Masters on October 4, 2009 at 12:38pm: Hi Beau and everyone - great to be part of the group!
I have just moved here from Australia, where I have been working for the last 10 years.
VERY different scenario there - I get ALL of my work through my agent and go into the studios.
I am not good with technology and have not had to record at home - this is all very new.
I am currently in the process of setting up my first basic home studio with the view to upgrade in the future.
Goals: I travel a lot for work, so the studio needs to be somewhat portable.
So - I have a MAC and an MBOX 2.
I was told that the Apogee Mini-Me would be a great pre-amp for my basic set-up whilst satisfying the portability requirements.
Problem....they seem to be hard to find these days....and I don't want to purchase off eBay.
Can anyone suggest a good vintage audio dealer where I might be able to pick up a well serviced used unit? Or other suggestions for how to pick one up?
Or suggest a good alternative with digital output, Phantom Power and XLR connectors.
The Focusrite ISA ONE was suggested to me - thoughts? A little too big...
Any advice that would bring me out of the dark would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Comment by Ed Cowden on September 13, 2009 at 4:25am: AVID announced on Wednesday that it's set to release some Pro Tools Essential bundles in mid-September. Of note is a $99 bundle with the "Pro Tools Vocal Studio" USB condenser mic (with stand and case) and a $129 Pro Tools Recording Studio, with "a Fast Track 2-in / 2-out USB audio interface with [XLR] mic / line / instrument inputs."

All bundles will include Pro Tools M-Powered Essential software - essentially a dumbed-down version of PT. Expect 5.5GB of instruments and loops, in addition to reverb, chorus, delay, flanger, phaser, compression, EQ and other effects.

Sounds like a decent entry into the world of Pro Tools for anyone considering it. Obviously no word yet on whether or how much the software has been simplified, but chances are good it'll be similar in concept to the differences between, say, Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express.

Here's a linky for the story at PC World in addition to the story over on Engadget with some pictures.

Comment by Dan Bailey on August 29, 2009 at 12:44am: I think I get it now, Thanks Barry, you've been a lot of help.
Dan

Comment by Barry Trussell on August 29, 2009 at 12:39am: LOL.....Actually yes I do use a phone patch. It's called Bluetooth headset which does the job quite nicely.. Simple, cheap, workable. You really just need some reliable method and system. A phone patch can be as simple as a speaker phone, bluetooth, or actual phone patch systems which tie into your recording console. The whole idea is for the client to hear you giving a read, and you to hear the client giving direction simultaneously- just like a phone conversation (coincedentally) . . .yes - no - hold on- yes I liked that- can you sound more like a young grandpa - I gotta get a cheeseburger, be right back. yes, it's happened. Hey, it's their dime right? For union gigs or big fish stuff you'll end up at the studio of their choice anyway with a phone patch system, ISDN, or whatever at least until the peeps on the other end are pretty comfortable with your homje studio for doing such gigs; so (like me) until you're a bigger fish in this pond. And unless you're landing big national gigs or union work and such consistently, it seems superfluous to me, until the gigs can pay for themselves - then the time would be right. that's my business plan on that.
-barry