Back in the mists of time, all professional voiceover artists recorded in commercial studios. 

In fact, the idea of recording anything anywhere else was regarded as a bit bonkers until relatively recently, not least because ISDN – the only option in the pre-Source-Connect era – at home was an enormous investment.

I’m of an age where I have fond memories of ‘doing something for telly’ involving a trip to the Big Smoke, a booking at Television Centre and the possibility of seeing Terry Wogan in the lift. Oh the glamour!

I mean… I didn’t dare come out of the booth at any point once I’d found it because I immediately got lost in the labyrinthine corridors, but it was still an exciting time.

If you’d told the Natalie of then, breathlessly clutching her BBC pass, that one day she’d have a top-notch recording studio of her own, in her own home, I don’t think she’d have believed you. 

But with the passage of time, recording voiceover at home has become very much the norm. So when I had the opportunity to finally build my perfect custom setup in a newly-converted barn adjacent to my house, booth number 5) I wanted to get things spot on.

I’m sharing my success here not to show off, but to hopefully help others understand the process that makes my studio my ‘happy place’ and be inspired by it.

Thinking of setting up your own perfect home voiceover studio? As well as reading this post, I strongly suggest you get in touch with sound engineer and all round good egg Rob Bee. His studio ‘Tickling Tours’ are legendary, and his knowledge on how to get the best out of your setup  is vast. 

Where did I start with building my own home voiceover studio?

It might sound obvious, but from an audio perspective, a perfect home studio is a sound-neutral place where a voiceover can control the internal reverberations and reflections, and eliminate external noises.

Equally, a producer’s busy life is made infinitely less stressful by working with a voiceover whose setup allows them to deliver consistently high-quality recordings quickly and without any technical hiccups.

If your audio differs wildly in quality it may as well be consistently bad, as your clients are going to stop calling, or start asking you to redo audio that doesn’t meet their standards.

Rob Bee

So, given the privilege of starting from scratch, how did I try to get as near to the perfect studio as possible?

#1 I chose the right place, shape and size for my booth

I built an irregular shape (not square!) to reduce standing waves, which cause certain frequencies to bounce around unnaturally.

Size is a consideration here. No-one wants to feel stuffed into a broom cupboard, and nor do they want boomy, bass-heavy audio, thanks to low-frequency sound waves building in corners and pinging off walls, ceiling and floor rapidly.

However, few of us have unlimited space or budgets, and there’s a sweet spot to be found that provides enough space for proper microphone placement, comfort, and treatment without being too big to manage acoustically.

For myself, I wanted room to gesticulate wildly, sit in a variety of creative positions and, if necessary, fit all of my voiceover children in with me. (Oh! And space to lie quietly on the floor when it all gets a bit too much and I’m hiding from my family – don’t tell!)

#2 I soundproofed and acoustically treated judiciously

In the most basic of terms, soundproofing is concerned with blocking sound from coming in or out, whereas acoustic treatment controls how sound behaves inside the room.

You’re giving yourself a leading advantage in both areas if you site your studio setup somewhere that’s already quiet.

Use your ears! A ‘quiet’ place isn’t just a place where you won’t be disturbed, out of the general thoroughfare of your house (although plonking a booth in the middle of my kitchen would be utterly hilarious), but one that is naturally as noise-free as possible.

If the tucked-away area you thought would be perfect turns out to have your house’s main plumbing route running through it, or border on the M25, it’s only undisturbed by footfall, not quiet. It doesn’t mean you can’t record there, just that soundproofing is going to cost more than your pocket might like.

Because, like you, I live in the real world, I had to compromise a little with the placement of my professional home studio setup.

Although I basically live in a field, there are a higher-than-average number of tractors, and the external wall of my booth borders on to a 60mph road.

My house is also full of almost-adult children, demanding cats and a dog who likes to defend us all from such terrifying threats as the postman and next door’s Tesco delivery. Loudly.

How do I control noise in my home voiceover studio?

A floating floor. Separating the floor from the structural foundation minimises the transmission of low-frequency sounds (like tractor rumbles…), and by including a rubbery layer of Tecsound my voiceover studio is also able to absorb vibrations (caused by tractors…).

Layers, layers, layers. The walls of my voiceover recording studio are more than mere walls. They’re a complex sandwich designed to absorb and neutralise sound frequencies of all sorts.

From the outside in, they go…

1. High density plasterboard, aka ‘acoustic’ or ‘soundproof’ plasterboard. This was then plastered for a seamless finish (primarily aesthetics, but another layer never hurts!).
   
   
   
   
2. TecSound. A ‘viscoelastic membrane’, if we’re getting technical, this self-adhesive marvel is the not-so-secret weapon when it comes to stopping airborne noise dead. It’s also phenomenally heavy which is something to bear in mind if you’re not planning on building on the ground floor.
   
   
3. MORE of that lovely high-density plasterboard.
   
   
4. Another layer of TecSound (now you see why I said ‘sandwich’ at the top).
   
   
   
   
5. Green Glue – not really glue, but REALLY green. This gloop dampens sound waves, especially low frequency ones, by turning their mechanical energy into heat. Don’t ask me how, but it works.
   
   
   
   
6. Rockwool insulation. This stuff is thick and porous, isolating noise and suppressing echoes in its fur.
   
   
   
   
7. MORE TecSound, more plasterboard, more Green Glue. Layer and repeat.
   
   
8. A final finishing layer inside the booth of acoustically neutral fabric on the walls and ceiling, and carpet to the floor.

#3 I invested in the right equipment and learned how to get the most out of it

Ultimately, a producer wants a clean audio file from the voiceover they work with. As a voiceover working from a home studio setup, it falls on me to be studio engineer, technician and problem-solver as well as voice. No pressure, then!

My gear stack, just like my space itself, has been specifically whittled and refined to suit me. Your perfect might look different, but I use and recommend…

Hardware

• Neumann TLM103 (with Sennheiser MK-H 416 and Rode NT2 microphones waiting in the wings).
• Solid State Logic SSL 2+ interface.
• Fostex monitors and Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro / Beyerdynamic DT150 headphones.
• A dedicated studio Mac for recording and iPad Pro and pencil for scripts (gone are the days of trying to avoid rustling paper).

Software

• Twisted Wave for super-simple recording, 
• Adobe Audition and iZotope RX9 for editing and post-production

Collaboration

• Source Connect Standard
• CleanFeed
• Zoom

What makes a professional home voiceover studio successful?

Three years in, I still love my studio.

Yes, perhaps if I was recording audiobooks week in week out I might have invested in aircon, and I could keep adjusting the lighting until the cows come home, but there truly isn’t a lot I’d change. 

What does your perfect setup look like?I’d love to hear your thoughts.