Do you judge a painting by how it looks in the dark?
Do you judge a meal by how it tastes hours after cooking?
Then for the love of good audio...
Don't complain about the sound quality of a recording until you've listened to it...
✅ On decent equipment
✅ In an appropriate environment.
I pride myself on the quality of my home studio.
I've voiced thousands of projects from it.
It's been vetted by three different audio engineers.
But on a handful of occasions I've received complaints about the quality of my sound 😱
Whenever this has happened, I've always asked the client in question to listen back on a 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 in a 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁.
And every time... it turns out fine.
👂 That echo you sensed?
It's because you're listening in a bathroom cubicle.
🚗 That car noise you heard?
It's because you're listening in the middle of a car park.
🎧 That crackle you made out?
It's because you bought your headphones from Wish.
You don't need expensive equipment to check sound quality.
But having an awareness of what you're using and where your using it is much appreciated.
(And PLEASE... this goes even harder if you're attending a live directed session. There's few things more mortifying than being told that Steve plans to listen in to the recording from a lay-by on the M1)
Otherwise - you might just trigger a revenge trail of Raymond Reddington proportions 🙃
And NO ONE wants that.
By Chris Tester - British Male Voice Actor