Audio recording process

Upon receiving the source scripts from our client, we analyse them to see the final word count and assess how long the recordings will be in total in number of minutes. We also assess the gender and number of voice talents needed to complete the project based on the scripts, to be able to send male and female voice samples for our clients to pick their preferred voices.

When our clients hesitate between several voice talents for their final choice, we are often requested to produce audio teasers, which are a recording of 10 to 20 seconds of the existing project script by multiple voice talents so our client can anticipate how their project could sound with the difference voices and make a final choice for their projects.

At this stage we provide you with a quotation in which we will itemise the services requested and break down the number of number of minutes to be recorded per voice talent. All our quotations are free of charge. This is also the stage where we discuss the costs and timeline associated with the different project steps. Once we are all set and get your go-ahead, we can kick-start the project.

As a very first step our project team preps the scripts for each voice talent involved in the project. We will then skim through the scripts to identify ambiguous words that we will report in a pronunciation guide. This is a document to be discussed with the client to approve how these will be pronounced by the voice talents. These words can be proper names, acronyms, foreign nouns, etc. We also make sure at this stage that we have gathered sufficient instructions from our client in terms of tone of voice, emotions and emphasis prior to proceeding to the recording session.

Our voice talents adhere to the overall project instructions and record the scripts. This is also when post-production activities take place such as mixing music or adding sound effects into the audio clips. Audio files are cut, named as per our client’s established naming conventions, and saved as per the delivery format agreed upon (WAV, MP3, etc). If required by our clients, audio markers are also added to the audio tracks at this moment. Our project team will then run the compulsory QA checks on the audio clips recorded to verify the adherence to the scripts and that the instructions in terms of tone of voice, specific pronunciations and emphases have been respected.

Your dedicated account manager will deliver the final files to you via the delivery method agreed upon (email, FTP, secured link) and expect feedback. We can deliver both the open files (audio composition delivered as .SESX with audio markers built in Adobe audition for instance) or the final audio files as MP3 or WAV.