Amateur Voice Recording: Getting Started

Nearly anybody can create an amateur voice recording. One can make a voice recording of decent quality using only a few simple tools and techniques. Here are the basics of getting started and making a first voice recording.

Are you curious whether people who compliment your voice are sincere? Would you like to send audio messages or spoken greetings to a distant relative? Perhaps you'd like to record audiobooks for your child or for a visually impaired relative, or you'd like to record audiobooks for everybody through a group such as Librivox or Podiobooks. Maybe you've considered a career in voice over work, but decided the initial investment, the time-intensive courses, and the self-marketing are not for you--at least, not yet.

All of these and more are great reasons to start recording your voice on an amateur basis. To begin recording, you will need a few items.

Equipment

Computer
One can, of course, record one's voice without a computer. Using one, however, gives a degree of power and flexibility that would otherwise be unavailable.

Microphone
A microphone is absolutely necessary for voice recording or any other kind of recording. A high-quality microphone may be prohibitively expensive for somebody recording his or her voice only as a hobby. Don't be alarmed, however, since most electronics departments carry extremely cheap microphones, and any microphone can sound decent after a little processing.

For voice recording, I use a $15 USD Logitech headset microphone/headphone combination with an 1/8" jack. The low price is an indication of the quality. In addition, a headset usually sounds worse than a standalone microphone, and an 1/8" jack is usually lower-quality than other available connections. Again, though, one can make any microphone sound decent.

Headphones
In order to make adjustments to a voice recording, you will need to hear the recording accurately. In particular, a pair of headphones will help you judge the amount of noise in a recording. As with microphones, although quality headphones are expensive, even inexpensive headphones are useful. I use the above-mentioned Logitech headset, which is much better than computer speakers for evaluating a voice recording.

Recording and Editing Software
You will need a program to record the sound from your microphone, as well as to make later changes to the recording. Although there are many excellent options available, we will focus on Audacity.

Audacity is an audio editor and recorder that is powerful enough to serve many podcasters and semi-professionals, yet intuitive and easy to learn. The software is free, not only in the "free speech" sense, but also in the "free soda" sense. It runs on all popular home desktop operating systems. A huge user base and community support Audacity, so if you have a problem with recording or with editing a recording, somebody will likely have a solution. For all these reasons, Audacity is well-suited to amateur voice recording.

Audacity is available at the link above. The site offers download links for a stable version and a beta version. With a few exceptions, the beta version is quite stable, and it includes some important features either missing from or significantly inferior in the stable version. If you wish to export recordings of your voice to .mp3 format, you will need to download and install the LAME encoder, as well.

Acceptance of Your Voice
This item may be nearly as important as a microphone. Many people detest their voices when recorded and played back. There may be several reasons for this dislike. The primary reason is that the voice you hear when speaking, which your jawbone conducts and which resonates in various cavities, is not the voice other people hear. A recording reflects (more or less) the voice that others hear. Since this voice differs from your expectation, it may seem odd.

If you hate your recorded voice, simply know that, most likely, nobody agrees with you. Listen frequently to recordings of your voice. As you do so, you will grow more accustomed to your voice. You may or may not eventually like it, but hopefully you will at least be able to accept it.

Test Recording

Once you have all the above items--except, perhaps, for acceptance of your voice, which can come later--you're ready to make a test recording. Choose something short to read for this voice recording. It could be a short poem, a grocery list, or even the Emergency Broadcast System message.

Plug a microphone into the USB or mic-in (not line-in) port on the computer. Depending on your setup, it may be imperative to do this before the remaining steps.

Make sure the microphone input through the operating system is at a reasonable level and not muted. Details for doing this differ by operating system. Windows users can access the controls through the speaker tray icon or through the control panel.

Start Audacity or your chosen recording software. Adjust Audacity's input volume, press record, and start speaking (KDE users, before recording, you may need to suspend aRts using aRts Control Tool and aRts Status--at least, that is my experience). When finished, press stop.

Now, play back your new recording. Don't worry about the sound quality. Depending on your equipment and environment, the recording itself may have many problems, but several simple techniques can address those recording quality issues later. For now, do you hear your voice? If so, you're well on your way to becoming an amateur voice over artist. If not, you may need to do a bit of troubleshooting, but there are many places to find help.

Once you've successfully recorded your voice, you can save the recording in two ways. First, you can save as an Audacity Project using the "File -> Save Project" or the "File -> Save Project As..." menu item. An Audacity Project is the program's main format, so you will use this for any works in progress. You cannot, however, share an Audacity project with somebody else, burn it to CD, load it onto an .mp3 player, or put it in your media player's playlist. To do any of these things, use the "File -> Export..." menu item, which will save the recording to one of several standard file types.

Congratulations

You've recorded your own voice, and you've saved the recording in a format you can share. For many, simply getting started and creating a voice recording is the most difficult step.