Best Software for Remote Voiceover Direction

Best Software for Remote Voiceover Direction

By Christopher Tester

British Male RP Voiceover Artist

What's that? Of course! I've got a secure internet connection offering seamless remote direction. Let's give it a go! I've got a secure internet connection offering seamless remote direction. Let's go on the all-new BMW x3 on a mission. Depending on the genres of voice-over that you work in, being able to offer remote direction facilities could be essential or negligible audiobook narrators almost always self-direct after having agreed on a sample with a client. Whereas about 75 of the corporate work that I do is also self-directed. But suppose you're working with video games or on commercial projects where real attention to detail is very important. In that case, the remote direction is almost certainly going to be a requirement and even for those genres of work where it isn't commonly requested. 

You can still offer it as a selling point as soon as you've got it because you'll be able to work really with fine detail on a client who might even know that remote direction is actually a viable option for them. I've already covered this in this video. Being able to establish some unique selling points is going to be even more important in allowing you to stand out, and so proactively being able to offer this kind of remote direction option could be a part of that. Now, of course, there are a number of very clear reasons why remote direction will create anxiety in your voice talent. First of all, your recording quality in your home studio needs to be of a certain standard, and that's without any post-processing being involved.

There's no point in someone offering direction while listening in if the file that they actually get back. It sounds really, really different because you've whacked our high pass filter on it. You've compressed it to eliminate sounds that are outside of the studio or because of insufficient room treatment. Secondly, we, the voice talent, have to get used to various different types of software and the various different quirky ways that they work. Even something like Microsoft teams can be slightly different to handle than something like zoom. 

But certainly, when we get to the realms of source connect where their entire separate apps. It does take some time to be able to fully confidently manage how these work with the rest of our existing setup. You might be lucky enough to have an audio engineer at the other end of the setup. Who can do things like edit recordings on the fly or offer playback? But more often than not, you might not have that person, in which case you're the person that has to do that for the inclined. Especially with inexperienced clients, you might have to really step in and take a proactive approach in how you actually manage the entire session.

What you offer, how you log takes etc., and this is again all stuff that I've already kind of covered in another video here. So with all of this in mind, I thought that I would cover the most prominent, most talked about, most used options for remote direction and also just kind of clarify the difference between remote direction and remote recording just as a side note. Remote direction is when obviously, a client can listen in and direct you in real-time. But with that remote direction, there's the expectation that you are always recording at your side with remote recording, your signal that you're actually sending through needs to be of such good quality that it can actually be recorded without any latency. On the other side, which is where we get into the realms of things like source connect. But I'll cover this a little bit more in-depth when we get there! 

So first of all, we have the common garden video conferencing software. By this, I mean things like zoom teams, Microsoft teams, and also skype if it still even operates, which I believe it does. Obviously, the advantage to these is that everybody is relatively familiar with how they work. As long as you know how to root your interface inputs through them, they are as simple as can be.

But the audio quality itself is never broadcast quality. With these, the sound itself is usually compressed to make things run as quickly as possible, and there's still the risk of dropouts often occurring. The chat and screen sharing functions can be useful for sharing scripts and other resources, but there will always be a slight lag in the audio. There is also no remote recording when using any of these apps. You were definitely recording within your own door and then sending it through to the client, and as a result, these options are usually pretty acceptable for things like corporate work or for some e-learning. When you need to get an agreement with the tone, it doesn't offer the finer detailically required for commercial reads. 

You should definitely know how to use these because they're free as well, and I always recommend downloading the latest versions of these different conferencing software. So that you have them to hand, you know if their interfaces have changed or if they've been updated weirdly or anything like that as well, so that you've got that locked already. Also, one thing to check yourself before you actually use one of these in a recording session is to see whether or not having your video turned on starts to work your processor. 

The processor of your computer is heavier, not with my current setup but certainly with my previous one. If I turned on my zoom camera simultaneously, that made my processor go into overdrive. This created background noise that I then had an issue with so quite often. Especially if you've got an older computer, it might be a good idea to request that there's no video running through at the same time as the recording is happening. Next, we have several browser-based options, and these all are specifically designed for the recording and replaying of professional quality audio. 

First, we have bedalgo core, which offers a simple broadcast quality solution. But dalgo itself is a pay-to-play subscription provider. But it actually offers this service completely free, and neither party, neither yourself is the talent, nor the client has to have an account or anything to do with badalgo to actually use this service. You simply create a digital room for recording, and then you invite your collaborators. You can use the chat feature as well as using webcam connections. But again, this does increase the risk of the audio signal dropping out. 

A very similar program to bedell goat call is another one called clean feed which has both a free and a paid version. Now I would recommend that the free version is more than sufficient. If you're just the voice-over talent and you're not doing huge amounts of audio engineering on the side.

The only difference when starting out is the person who starts the session. Which is almost certainly going to be the voice talent has to have an account, albeit a free one with clean feed first, before they can invite people into a room. One of the additional benefits of clean feed, though, is that you can actually record within the browser. It has to be a chrome browser just to add that as well. But you can record either your end another person's end within the browser if, for example, you're working with another actor on an acting scene or, alternatively, the entire session. So as well as being able to record remotely on your computer.

You can also do it in the browser to have it as an added backup, and also, if somebody else within the session wants to be able to pull that recording and edit it on the fly, that means that they can. It may still be susceptible to the odd dropout, so always record your door as well. But it's a really helpful additional option source connect. Now is the free version of source connect and shouldn't be confused with source connect standard or source connect professional pro source connect now operates in a very similar way as to clean feed in that you normally have to use a chrome browser in order to be able to use it most effectively that you have to have created account beforehand to register your details. But then, after that, you can invite up to four people into a session.

The subtle difference is that you can record yourself within the browser. But you can't record anybody else. So if you're working one-to-one, that might be straightforward and fine. But if you're doing multi-character stuff and someone wants to have a remote copy of the recording as well. Then maybe clean feed might be a better option. But one thing to really emphasize is that this is a completely different product to source connect and is in no way compatible with standard or pro. Now the next two options of browser-based remote direction options are very much like clean feed in that they're probably overkilling or voice talent to use themselves. 

It does require someone to have actually paid on the other end. So ipdtl is very well known and respected and thought of as an industry standard in a lot of ways. But you, as a voice talent, don't need to have a paid account for it. If the audio engineer or studio who is actually setting up the session does have an account like that. Anyway, hey, just send you an invite you to accept. You go straight into the browser. Now the reasons that an audio engineer might want to pay for something like ipdtl is that it offers talkback switches and a multi-track recorder, and it also has its own ipdtl browser. 

This is essentially an older version of chrome which is guaranteed to work, and I would say if you do think you might ever use ipdtl. It's worth checking out and downloading that in advance. So you have an ipdtl approved browser rather than just your normal chrome one as well just because that eliminates any potential risks from updates etc. Again I'd say the paid version is overkill for most voice talent unless it's something that you think that you're going to be regularly using. Otherwise, you can make a purchase just so it's a one-off instead with a guest pass.

Session link pro is also very popular in mainland Europe and offers many of the same things. It can also stream video within it. So I have often used it when the end client has some video that they want me to be able to voice alongside. The session link pro is able to do that to a good degree, and again they can record on their side they can record on my side. So it offers that extra level of flexibility as well. But it's not something that you should subscribe to in any way, shape, or form. Instead, I think it's something that you need to familiarize yourself with whenever you get the opportunity. 

But again, you're just going to be sent a link, and as long as you have a chrome browser in order to use it, it's absolutely fine. Now all of these in-browser options offer a very high quality of recording with low latency between yourself and the other point that's recording. They are also relatively simple to use once you've had a look at them and realize that the vast majority of the controls don't actually involve you specifically, and you can just kind of focus on being able to hit record. 

But these are all still at the mercy of people's respective internet connections. If someone has a dodgy one, the entire session will be affected. This is one of the reasons why most people will insist that you have your computer hard-wired into the internet via an Ethernet cable rather than trying to depend on wi-fi, which is more prone to dropping out. So that's something to really look at if you haven't already thought about it. 

But the main takeaway is is that because of that risk of dropouts, you must always press record on your door as well, and so we come to source connect standard or premium not now, which is a completely different beast in some ways to these browser-based options it's considered as an industry-standard in the US, especially for commercial work dubbing and ADR as well as many video games, and although it is used much less frequently outside of us, it is still considered very much an industry standard. 

So first of all, the important thing is to remember that all different versions of normal source connect, which are standard pro and pro x, do talk to each other, and you as a voice talent will almost only ever need the standard version with a source to connect your download and register a proper piece of software that exists as an app on your desktop, and it's through this that all of the recordings are done, and the crucial thing about that app is that it has a time code as a standard. 

So the two ends of where the recording is taking place are synced together in the same way that an old-fashioned ISDN line would be. The first hurdle with source connect is that you have to set it up and to do that, you really need to be able to kind of match. The various ports at your end to its overall system can be quite complex and overwhelming to begin with. There's also quite a lot of software to negotiate. However, there are various how-to guides out there about it, and source connects customer service is excellent when I set my connection up here. I actually called them up so that they could then take remote direction and set up everything at my end, including my ports being matched etc., which I couldn't understand. So that they knew it was definitely working and that they could stress test it for me. 

 The second main issue with source connect is that you do have to pay for it at either end, and that's also one of the reasons why it might eliminate offering it to clients on a more casual basis. If they don't understand what source connect is telling them that they have to pay a one-off fee of 35 for a month's membership plus an initialization fee of 75, plus they have to go through a whole process of setting it up if it's just for a corporate explainer. It's probably not going to be worth their while. But like I said, for a lot of auditions, especially through agents, especially through American agents. It's seen as an absolute non-negotiable standard.

So if you're at a stage in your career where you'll be up for that kind of thing, it's something to really look into for me personally. I've had source connect permanently for about 18 months, and I've used it a total of about four times. So it has more than paid for itself, but that subscription does really add up. So I would say if you think that you are going to be using it for a sustained period of time. I would look at the lifetime buyout option that I think source connect still offers which could be significantly cheaper after about a year's worth of consistent work on source connect.

Rather than get just on the rolling contract of 35 dollars per month and the final thing to take away with source connect, even though someone can record it hopefully in perfect quality at their end, is that still always record it in your door because more often than not the audio engineer will ask for a copy from it is from you as well and not all software is going to necessarily behave in the way it should all of the time, so when in doubt, press record. 

Verdict

So hopefully, you're now a little bit more aware of all the different options are out there how they might operate, and you've got some things to be able to google and maybe play around with yourself in your own time so that you can become confident in the handling of them. At the end of the day, this is an essential part of being able to offer voice-over services remotely and being able to proactively solve more problems and create more options for your end client as well. 

This video should be taken alongside all the other videos that I've done in a remote direction so that you are as confident as possible to be able to provide this service to your clients. So that you're solving their problems more and demystifying some of the overwhelm that kind of comes when you initially get into this kind of area. I hope you found it useful if so, please do like, subscribe, and all that good stuff, and I look forward to seeing you next time.