Quite possibly........ Our London based voice over recording studio is equipped with the latest, cutting edge Avid Pro Tools HDX system. That, combined with over 25 years of professional experience and expertise, is designed to guarantee that you complete your session with the ultimate in professional voice over recording.
Check out our equipment list in the HARDWARE tab above.
At the heart of London Voice Over Studio is our Avid Pro Tools 12 HDX system. This allows recording to a full 128 tracks of 24 bit audio compatible with all industry film editing programs like Apple's Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premier. Our Pro Tools system is clocked by a rock-solid Apogee Big Ben synchroniser and complemented by a selection of top quality microphones and pre-amps.
Unlike London recording studios offering only Pro Tools LE or Pro Tools HD Native, this HDX system allows true minimal latency monitoring as well as vastly increased processing power to run our substantial collection of AAX plug ins. Of the London recording studios offering Pro Tools HDX, we undoubtedly offer some of the best recording studio rates for such a highly specified system - a system used by AV professionals in similar studios the world over.
Digidesign C|24 Mix Control Surface
Coupled with our multi computer Pro Tools set up is a Digidesign C|24 control surface. We truly believe that this piece of equipment, with the tactile feedback it allows, helps produce better sounding mixes as it encourages the engineer/producer to rely more on listening rather than staring at a computer screen - and that can only be a good thing. Being a highly engineered piece of Digidesign equipment, you won't find this in any studios that rely on anything other than Pro Tools HD as their Digital Audio Workstation of choice.
Acoustically Treated Recording Booth
Our acoustically treated and insulated 2m x 3m vocal booth is of state of the art Studiobricks construction, both fully ventilated and daylight illuminated. It's one of the largest such booths in the UK. The directional LED lighting is adjustable to suit the voice over artists' taste and the booth is big enough to accommodate several voice actors at a time. Up to eight pairs of headphones can be used simultaneously, all with individual volume controls to allow personalisation of monitoring levels.
The booth can be both completely private (with no window to the control room) or with direct line of sight to the engineer if desired. This means that if a voice over artist wants to assume their own favourite method acting pose whilst performing then no one else will see! We will, however, hear and record - and the results can be spectacular!
You can see more pictures of our booth and studio here
London Voice Over Studio Microphones
We have a carefully chosen selection of top quality microphones to suit all voices and styles, from valve condensers, a ribbon mic and small diaphragm capacitor mics through to dynamics. Our favourites are:
- Neumann M149 Tube mic with custom, ultra high quality Vovox cable - one of Gearslutz.com's top 10 mics
- Twin Lewitt LCT 940s - these new mics can offer either valve or FET operation, or a blend of the two - fab!
- Sennheiser MKH416 - a favourite with visiting US Voice Over Artists, this has a classic sound
- Sontronics Sigma Active Ribbon Mic - unlike modern condensers this gives a darker, retro radio sound
- 3-Zigma Master 4 x 10 Toolkit - a host of classic FET condenser mic emulations (C12, U47, U67, ELAM 251)
Pre-amps by Slate Pro Audio (the new, fabulous FOX being our latest addition), Broadhurst Gardens, Oram, TL Audio and Digidesign handle the audio inputs to our Pro Tools HDX rig.
Check out our microphone list and pre-amps under the HARDWARE tab above.
London Voice Over Studio Plugins
Every Pro Tools based voice over recording studio has its prized selection of digital plug-ins for enhanced processing and we are no exception. Our already highly specified system is, of course, complemented with a wide range of plug-ins (both the essential and the more esoteric) to ensure that you get the perfect professional voice over recording. As well as those by Avid, we have the latest plug-ins by Antares, Aphex, Brainworx, Eventide, Massey, MsDSP, Sonnox, Sound Toys, Source Elements, Synchro Arts, Wave Arts, Waves and Izotope (including the new RX4 Advanced for complete audio repair and enhancement, dialog de-noise, de-click etc ). RX4 Advanced, in our opinion, is an absolute essential for all voice over recording - every studio should have a copy!
Check out our plugin list in the PLUGINS tab above.
Running a Pro Tools HDX rig, our plugins are all AAX. However, due to the wizardry of Blue Cat Audio's MB7 and Patchwork, we are able to run VST plugins in our DAW as well, so please let us know if you have any special requirements in that area. It could be that you have a favourite VST plugin which hasn't made it to the AAX platform. If that's the case we should be able to run it!
Digital Audio Workstation
We currently use Avid's Pro Tools HDX Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for all our voice-over recording, editing and processing.
Why? The reason is simple. It's the industry standard for all professional post-production studios; that includes voice over facilities.
There are several reasons for this:
- Pro Tools is the most feature laden DAW available
- Pro Tools 12 HDX now comes with the much faster off-line bounce - saves clients studio time and money!
- Multitrack audio editing - applying edits to multiple tracks simultaneously - saves time
- Workflow: It is simply faster, easier, and more productive
- Superb quality, dedicated hardware - both consoles and interfaces
- The standard platform for recording ADR due to its video integration
- Works on both Mac & PC - take your session to any Pro Tools studio and it will load seamlessly
Audio Clean Up and Restoration
We have a number of plug-ins that address the problem of sub-standard voice over audio recording which is brought into the studio by clients desperate for a fix. Pops, clicks, location recording noise, mains hum, mouth noises, plosive hits and breaths can all be intrusive.
The Waves Restoration bundle (part of the studio's top Waves package, Mercury) includes the useful Z-Noise, X-Noise, X-Hum, X-Click, and X-Crackle, and their De-Breath processor can certainly be a time saver. Izotope Nectar's Breath Control module can also be helpful as can Wave Arts Dialog.
However, we find the most useful software bundle by far to be Izotope's RX4 Advanced. This is really excellent at many aspects of audio clean-up, restoration and repair:
- Dialog De-Noiser - restore problematic vocal recordings in real time
- Spectral repair - visually isolate and remove unwanted sounds
- Intelligent Leveler - sets levels to optimum gain, thus saving time
- Loudness - ensures compatibility with international broadcast standards
- Ambience Match - matches the environment noise of recordings from different locations
- EQ Match - matches the sonic differences of audio from different locations
- Dereverb - removes unwanted reverb from recordings
- Denoise - Adaptive Mode allows fast, efficient audio repair on the fly
- Declick & Decrackle - eliminate clicks, crackles, pops and digital impulse noises
- Hum Removal - eliminates electrical hum and line noise
- Declip - can rebuild distorted audio, both analog and digital
Remote Session Direction
For clients unable to attend sessions in person, we offer a very cost effective alternative to the usually expensive and outdated ISDN link-up. Remote direction via Skype and telephone is now an inexpensive or, using Skype, free option.
Both our telephone patch and Skype link provide a direct live hook up to the studio engineer, other attendees and the voice-over actor. As communication is two way you can both monitor the session as it progresses and give feedback to the voice artist - just as you would if you were present in the studio. We've had telephone patch, Skype and Source Connect all running simultaneously to the USA, Canada and Europe without problem.
For those on slightly higher budgets, we offer Source Connect Pro link-ups to suitably equipped studios around the globe at no extra charge. Both Source Connect and, to a slightly lesser degree Skype, produce generally excellent quality audio monitoring and are to be recommended over the lower quality standard telephone patch.
Specialist ADR Software
Want to make the ADR process as seamless as possible? When it comes to dialog replacement, it can sometimes be a challenge to replicate the timing, nuance and expression captured in the original location recording and then recreate it in a dubbing session.
Revoice Pro can automatically and instantly transfer the timing, pitch, intonation or loudness features from one signal to another. This is perfect for syncing ADR. We unreservedly recommend this application for dubbing voice to picture.
