In voice overs you sometimes hear disturbing clicks. Where do they actually come from? And more importantly: how do you prevent them?
Sometimes you get those voice over recordings that have clicks in them somehow, but why? That’s what we will talk about in this blog.
Reason number 1: The cappuccino effect. There you are in a great gorgeous sound studio. One of those studios with leather chairs, and often they’ve got a fantastic espresso machine. And you think: ‘Let’s make a cappuccino!’ No, you’re not going to get one. Because it’s going to produce a lot of saliva. And saliva produces a lot of clicks in your recording.
Reason Nr. 2: Synchronization errors. There are those voice over recordings in which you can hear clicks and you think: ‘Damned, where are they coming from?’ It can be because of using a cheap or a defective audio interface or voice processor. Or B: The internal clock of the voice over processor doesn’t match with the internal clock of the computer. And then the two are competing with each other and you will hear clicks. Why? I really don’t have a clue.
Another reason: Dirty electricity. That’s a spooky one, dirty electricity. Imagine yourself in a very old city, underneath the surface there are electricity cables. One is tied up with the other, this one with the next one, and so on. And in some kind of strange way it produces dirty audio, and the dirty audio produces clicks. But there’s a solution. It’s this one over here. The dirty electricity goes in, clean electricity comes out and the clicks are gone.
Reason Nr. 4: Environmental noise Here can make a real contribution as a producer. If a voice over actor is recording there can be talk of environmental noise. In one studio it can be more prevalent than in the other. For example, if I talk really loud over here you will hear the walls.
And then afterwards, if you are going to edit a voice over like that, then every edit will produce a click. Simple enough to fix by: Choosing ‘select all’. Make a cross fade on every region of about 15 milliseconds. Click – and all the clicks will disappear like snow in the sunshine. And that’s it with our quick guide to a clickless voice over world.
