Hollow Voiceover??

Justin Marx

Justin Marx

Well-known member
I recorded a VO in a car (poor mans studio) unfortunatley the VO is a bit hollow in sound (first time for me, it's usually perfect! DAMN VOLVOS!!)

IS there ANYWAY in FCP to make it LESS HOLLOW without brain surgury? I don't the time to go through 8 million trials, I'm just looking for that magic EASY fix, or the little magic lever to slide in the right direction.. I know I'm dreaming.. But if someone can make this dream have a HAPPY ENDING I would love you for EVER and EVER!!!! :thumbsup:

Thanks BOYS and GIRLS..

- - - Justin
 
IS there ANYWAY in FCP to make it LESS HOLLOW without brain surgury? I don't the time to go through 8 million trials, I'm just looking for that magic EASY fix, or the little magic lever to slide in the right direction.. I know I'm dreaming.. But if someone can make this dream have a HAPPY ENDING
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No.


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No magic formula, but you might find reducing the bass frequency and increasing the midrange a bit to be an improvement. The hollow sound will be there, but less pronounced.
 
Justin Marx said:
IIS there ANYWAY in FCP to make it LESS HOLLOW without brain surgury? I don't the time to go through 8 million trials, I'm just looking for that magic EASY fix, or the little magic lever to slide in the right direction.. - - - Justin
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Hmmm, go to tools> audio filters> de-hollow magic filter. Then move the magic slider 3 stops to the right. Be sure to hold your tongue properly as you do it or it will not work.:engel017:

If that doesn't do it then probably nothing will:D
 
Removing reverb from a recording is kind of like baking a cake and then removing the eggs.

EQing and proccessing the track will improve it slightly, but you'll ultimately have to either live with it or re-record it.

Monitor your sessions more closely in the future: review the tracks on either a set of reference monitors or a good set of headphones (and by good, I mean Sony MDR-7506). Unless absolutely unavoidable, you should never end a session before you're happy with the tracks.

Sorry if I'm coming across a bit nastily, but please understand that "how do I fix hollow sounding audio" is one of the most common questions in audio post-production.
 
Thanks guys.. I think.. While recording the audio, it sounded fine. Honestly I think it still sounds fine.. The client just sees a difference between the EXT shots and the VO, and YES it's a "bit" more hollow, but not bad.. I'm pretty sure that they only viewed it on a laptop.. Which will make anything sound like crap. If you have any interest in it here's a link to the video: I'd still be curious if there is any way to adjust it a bit.

http://marxnet.net/JUSTIN/links/ZENN.htm

Thanks again for your time.. I'm always learning here..
 
I checked out the link you provided. I see now that I misunderstood what you meant by "hollow." I thought you meant "roomy" or "reverby," but what I hear is actually "phasey." Essentially, the sound reflecting from the car windshield is causing phase cancellation at certain frequencies. In the future, avoid placing microphones near highly reflective surfaces. If you must record VO in a car, cover the inside of the windows with blankets. I'm actually rather curious why you didn't just record the voiceover elements in a quiet exterior location, since your production sound is quite good.

I'm afraid that the difference is very pronounced when played back on reference monitors, and is not at all a product of laptop speakers. But that's beside the point; your mix should be clear and articulate on a laptop. When mixing for broadcast and home video, you have to anticipate a wide range of playback environments. That includes everything from high-end home theatres to the summed mono speaker on a handheld video device. Of course laptops have cheap speakers with poor playback quality, and no reasonable client would expect a laptop to sound like anything but a laptop. But blaming poorly matched ADR and production sound on the playback system may not sit very well with some clients.
 
Justin Marx said:
Recorded it in the car because it was EXTREMELY windy that day.

Is it that bad?
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I'm afraid it is what it is.
You may be able to EQ the car VO to better match the exteriors, but it will be very difficult to get them to match closely. Alternately, you could EQ some of the dialogue surrounding the VO sequence to match it a bit more closely to the VO, although I don't reccomend doing that. If at all possible, re-record the VO in a manner more in line with the production sound.

Extremely high winds can be dealt with using products such as the Rycote windjammer. Even winds strong enough to knock a person off their feet can be managed using a Rycote windscreen covered in both a high-wind cover and a windjammer, although a 80Hz high-pass filter may be neccessary to deal with the rumble that may sneak through on a particularly strong gust. Another strategy would be to move the session to a location better shielded from strong winds, although a location with different background noise will complicate things. Recording room tone at every location will allow you to match the background noise sounds of different locations.

Try re-recording the lines in question as off-screen wild lines, rather that VO.
 
you dont need to record in your car.

i do this all the time, i pull out my audio technica at4053a hyper, open up cubase, plug it in, apply a limiter and a compressor, and all you hear is crisp clean, noisless vocal sound. No buzzing, no room tone. nothing. and there is noise in my basement, slight, but there, from the heater.

stand about a foot away from the mic, make it hot, and i promise you wont regret the sound quality. I sometimes compare what i get to ( my favorite voice over quality ever ) what you hear in good fellas.
 
Justin Marx said:
Thanks guys.. I think.. While recording the audio, it sounded fine. Honestly I think it still sounds fine.. The client just sees a difference between the EXT shots and the VO, and YES it's a "bit" more hollow, but not bad.. I'm pretty sure that they only viewed it on a laptop.. Which will make anything sound like crap. If you have any interest in it here's a link to the video: I'd still be curious if there is any way to adjust it a bit.

http://marxnet.net/JUSTIN/links/ZENN.htm

Thanks again for your time.. I'm always learning here..
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I hear it but it doesn't bother me. That sort of thing happens all the time. You can even get different sound in different parts of the same room.

Ty Ford
 
It might help the transition if you fade out some room tone from the outside. Most of the transitions are ok and helped by the music but a few are quite jarring.

You might be able to help the VO with some boost in the midlows. You could also dirty up the location sound to get a closer match. The location sound also sounds a bit hollow but ok for this type of project. What mics did you use?

In the end, it's actually pretty good but just needs a few tweaks here and there.

Cheers

PS-interesting vehicle; tough marketing nitch to find.
 
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