Today’s audio industry offers the freedom to produce any audio content, whether a music album or a voice-over for a movie. Businesses and video production companies hire voice over services to improve the relevance of their video content and make it available to a global audience.
If you are new to the world of audio production, something you need to know is what it takes to produce a soundtrack. Wondering where to start? Here are five essential components of audio production that you should know.
- Planning
Every successful audio project starts with planning. Planning involves writing the song lyrics and creating a detailed roadmap for the entire audio production. It determines the production’s beginning, middle, and end parts. Just like anything else, it all starts with writing ideas down on paper.
Writing down chord changes, the placement of the sound in a film sequence, setting up required instruments and electronic equipment in the studio, and even the tiniest details are planned out during this phase of audio production.
The whole planning phase revolves around the construction, creativity, and the provisions to achieve the desired results. The duration of the final track determines the longevity of the project.
You must, however, understand that a 5-minute feature video and a full-fledged movie will have different times for completion. Professionals such as voice artists, sound engineers, technicians also have to be assigned specific roles and responsibilities.
Planning also includes determining the budget and estimating the project’s potential risks. The planning phase makes sure every project reaches its goals no matter its size.
Planning also includes understanding the requirements of the clients. Clients are often confused about their requirements and may not articulate them clearly.
- Arranging
Audio productions are usually done by music labels, recording studios, and voice over service providers to produce high-quality voice projects. Every audio project requires certain resources for its completion.
Talent, funds, recording equipment, editing, and production software are essential resources for producing professional music tracks, voice-overs, and dubbings. The arranging phase of the audio production involves sourcing these resources.
Once the project budget is finalized in the planning phase, production companies will need to arrange funds to kickstart the project. Along with the funds, they may also need to assign the tasks to selected audio professionals.
This phase also involves sourcing the recording equipment, software, and essential tools required for completing the project.
- Tracking
Tracking is the phase where the actual recording happens. The previous two phases determine how effective and accurate the tracking will be. The recording studio plays a vital role in this phase.
This is the phase where the voice-over artists come into the picture. They use their voice-over skills to breathe life into the script to engage with the target audience. Finding talent who are native speakers from the region will always deliver the best results. Voice talent are responsible for syncing their vocal emotions with what they see on the screen to create a consistent feeling for the audience. This process is very intricate; that is why it makes more sense to hire a professional voice over service that has access to talented individuals who have done this work time and time before.
The studio must be equipped with all the necessary equipment like microphones, a Digital Audio Workstation, audio cables, headphones, audio interfaces, studio monitors, and so on.
The next essential part of this phase is efficiently implementing the talent’s skills. People usually are unaware of their potential, and they might need some inspiration to bring the x-factor out and give their best for the project.
It’s also essential to provide some amount of artistic freedom to try new things. You’d be surprised to see how creative an artist can be if not limited by too many constraints.
- Editing
Editing involves editing the soundtracks of the final project. Audio engineers use software to edit, amplify, and rearrange the chunks of the recordings called tracks.
Each track is analyzed and edited with different presets or custom sound techniques to reduce any external noise and improve the audio quality. The sound engineer mixes the tracks in different sequences, editing their speed, pitch, duration, and loudness according to the requirement.
The latest state-of-the-art software helps the engineers to streamline the process and make it efficient. The vocals are also analyzed and improved according to the project. Multiple tracks often overlapped into various layers.
The editing phase is one of the project’s essential phases, determining the final output.
- Mastering
Mastering polishes all the edited parts and makes them ready for the final rendering. This is when the sound engineers and editors look at the final product and make subtle yet critical final tweaks.
It also includes equalizing and compressing certain parts of the final track to make it finer, faster, and more refined in the final render.
All these processes often overlap over the course of the project depending on the size of the project and the availability of the resources.
These processes require a higher level of sound expertise. That is why it makes more sense to hire professional sound production and services for voice oversto work on your project and ensure timely delivery.
