The Audio Process
Taking the Guesswork out of Audio
Have you ever wondered what is actually involved in the audio process? Or would you just like to get a quick overview on the processes at EQHO? Then the following information and step-by-step walkthrough will tell you exactly that. Or do you just want to hear some of our voice talent from more than 25 different countries? Then click here.
Contents of this page:
| I. | Project multimedia capabilities of EQHO |
| II. | Step-by-step audio process |
| III. | Studio Equipment Reference |
| IV. | Prices and quoting: Why is this so tricky? |
1: What are the actual audio and video capabilities of EQHO?
EQHO has vast experience in the following types of multimedia projects:
| a) | Standard multi-lingual audio track recordings |
| b) | Video with multi-lingual audio and / or subtitling, dubbing, lip synchronization |
| c) | Flash presentations with multi-lingual audio tracks and on-screen text |
| d) | Articulate publishing: Presentations with localized video, flash, with on-screen text and audio tracks |
We can handle the following project components in our own in-house studio for you:
| Script translation | Pronunciation Guides / Glossaries |
| Voice-over, with or without time codes | Cue-point marker placement |
| On-screen graphics localization | Multi-lingual subtitling |
| Audio dubbing, with or without lip synchronization to video files | Audio integration and synchronization of flash and video files |
| Flash text integration | Flash publishing / compilation |
2: Audio process walkthrough
Step 1: Voice talent selection
Choose your voice-talents. EQHO will provide you with a selection of voice talents from our database in the required languages, male and female, young or old. We can provide voice talents in more than 25 languages.
Step 2: Script review
We then start with reviewing your script; EQHO sends your script to the voice talent that you chose in step 1 and the script director who will review and check the script for “recording friendliness” and grammatical errors, typos, and how the translated text (if it is translated) would work if its spoken. In this stage, we can still identify ambiguous terms that could be pronounced in different ways for example.
Step 3: Script rehearsal
In step 3 we have the voice talents rehearse the script for at least 24 hours (whereas 48 hours or more is preferable if available). This is needed for them to familiarize themselves with the content, pronunciation guidelines, and to have a final check of the appropriateness of the script. The result is a more natural sounding recording in the style you require.
Step 4: Recording
Now we are finally ready to the actual recording. EQHO records your script with the native speaking talents that you chose before, with the direction of a language monitor / script director. The latter is very important to achieve the best recording quality without typical issues such as mispronunciations, missed words, poor speech rhythm or emphasis. A separate person besides the voice talent is necessary to insure these mistakes are picked up.
Step 5: Post-production
Following a 3-step process, in this step our sound engineers clean up the audio, edit out pops, breathing, whistles and other noise. Then the audio files are mastered, compressed to your requirements (if necessary) and made ready for audio quality assurance.
Step 6: Audio quality assurance
In the final step, a native speaker for each language recorded will inspect the audio recording to reassure there is no mistakes, mastering errors or any other problem with the files. If any error is found and not fixable, it will be rerecorded in our studio, goes through the same process detailed above until it is flawless.
III. Studio equipment
Our studio is NR15 compliant and has the following equipment:
| Control rooms | Acoustically treated control rooms with monitor loudspeakers |
| Operating System | MAC OSX 10.4 and Windows XP/Vista |
| Outboards | M-Audio DMP3, CME Matrix Y, Langevin – Dual Vocal Combo (DVC) |
| DBX Preamp, Presonous Preamp | |
| Microphones | M-Audio, AKG 414B, Neumann TLM-103, Neumann U-87, Rode |
| Monitors | Mackie MR-5, Mackie MR-8 |
| Software Audio / HD Recording | Protools LE 8.0 on MAC, Soundforge 9.0e on PC, Protools HD 6.4 |
| Software Video | Adobe Premiere Pro 2 |
| Preferred video formats | WMV, MOV, M-PEG, AVI, Sorensen compressiion and more |
IV. Prices & quoting
Why is it so tricky, why will most companies NOT provide you with prices beforehand, and if they do, why do prices vary so much between providers?
Obtaining indicative pricing for voice-over from an agency is normally very difficult as you might have experienced already. At EQHO, we will give you prices but we also want to make the pricing transparent for you so you have a better understanding of the whole process.
Following is a short tutorial on how you can get an approximate amount of working hours that are needed to complete your project:
1. Recording time:
Divide the word count of your script by 1500. This will tell you the recording time needed (in hours) for your project.
2. Post-production:
Take your recording time that you calculated in the above step and multiply it by 2.5. This will give you the hours needed for post-production.
Extra services that need extra time include:
3. File splitting (approximately 30 seconds per file).
4. Linguistic quality inspection (under normal circumstances, twice the length of the audio track of your project)
With the above, you should be able to get an idea of how many working hours are involved to complete your project. In addition we will categorize your project into one of the following 4 levels of “difficulty”:
1. Narrative
2. Complex
3. Cue-point / markers
4. Attention to synchronization
Depending on the category, time to complete and pricing varies. Please be aware that not all projects can be fit into one of the above mentioned 4 categories narrative, complex, with cue-point / markers, and attention to synchronization. Below we have listed some explanations for that as a reference to you:
- Some scripts require multiple characters with a small amount of audio, leading to complex logistical issues.
- Some scripts will have complex terminology (perhaps in another language other than that of the voice talent), which may require multiple takes.
- Some scripts will straddle the 4 categories, perhaps requiring multiple characters, feature complex or unfamiliar terminology, have dialogue or acting requirements, cue-point marker requirements and time-code issues.
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