There are some basic truths that can help. One thing... No EQ is better than poor EQ. Trying to EQ anything on less than optimal monitoring equipment is a losing battle, and without a working knowledge of audio fundamentals can cause you to create more problems than you can possibly solve with it. Even WITH good monitoring equipment, lacking an understanding of audio fundamentals can lead to bad habits and mistakes. Just as with EQ, poor compression practices are worse than no compression. A little can go a long way. There's probably a little more margin of error here than with EQ, as long as you're working conservatively. A high pass filter (AKA HPF or Low cut) is something that can generally be applied conservatively on a voice and absolutely not hurt a thing. IOW an 80Hz or 100Hz setting. If you engage it and don't hear it doing anything, that also means it's not hurting anything. It should help keep rumbles, low end environment noise, wind noise, and plosives down. You might get away with a higher setting, but if nothing else, that conservative setting is a good idea as something to always just engage. Room noise/echo is a product of the environment you're recording in. If the mic is picking up too much of the sound you don't want (the room/echo) and not enough of the sound you do want (your voice)- Get closer to the mic. Change the S/N ratio (signal to noise). Loudest sound at the mic wins. Get closer to the mic, and make sure the mic is aimed properly. Also, make sure you're using a cardioid mic versus an omni (or figure 8 pattern) mic in these type of environments. Getting closer to the mic helps changes that balance and gets more of your voice into the mix vs the ambient room noise. The signal you want versus the noise you don't want. It probably goes without saying, but using a voice that projects versus a quiet voice trying not to be heard also helps. If you talk quietly so others won't hear you, the mic will have trouble hearing you as well. You don't have to shout, but speak like you want to be heard. You can also improve your room to make it less lively, but unless you don't want the mic in the camera shot, getting close to the mic goes a long way if not all the way in most cases. Or do both things... Ignore nonsense about condenser mics vs dynamic mics. If all else is equal, then that's not the reason for most problems people have in this regard. If you match the gains, then there will be tonal differences in the mics (as there are in ANY different mics), but "condensers pick up more room sound" is mainly a myth based on a fundamental misunderstanding of audio principles. As long as all else is equal anyway. Likely main reason this myth floats around is that a condenser is typically a LOUDER mic than a dynamic. But you're supposed to adjust and optimize the gain in your system. As soon as you do that, the dynamic and condenser are essentially going to do the same job as far as room noise goes as long as all else remains relatively equal. Comparing a condenser in a figure 8 pattern to a cardioid dynamic, even if gain matched, will have the condenser picking up more ambient noise. That's not because it's a condenser mic... it's because it's a mic with a figure 8 pickup pattern. There are some other caveats, but the gist of it is the mic type (Dyn vs Cond) is rarely the issue when room noise is the complaint. But, also, speaking to the myth, I'm sure some people have swapped out a louder condenser with a quieter dynamic, didn't gain match the mics, and noticed the dynamic didn't pick up as much room noise. Well, that's because it's not as loud in the first place. It also won't pick up as much voice (because it's got a lower output). But then if the person gets closer to the mic to compensate THAT actually helps to mitigate or fix the S/N ratio issue with room noise. So... cause and effect might lead someone to believe the dynamic mic fixed the problem.... No... getting closer to the mic is what fixed the problem. Answer from bball2014 on reddit.com
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/newtubers › help with voice-over and audacity editing?
r/NewTubers on Reddit: Help with Voice-over and Audacity Editing?
June 25, 2023 -

TLDR: How do I make my voice-over sound sleek and professional? The way any video essay channel does?

Hello. Up-and-coming YouTuber here with five published videos. I use a Blue Yeti mic and Audacity to record and edit voice-overs. I feel like I'm a terrible voice-over artist. I think my biggest issue is getting my mouth to stop clicking. I stay extremely hydrated and turn the gain down all the way on my mic, so I don't know what the issue is. I try to remove it as best I can in editing, but then, when I use the tools to make the audio sound more professional (filter curve, amplify, compressor), I feel like it just makes the errors more pronounced and gives an echo quality to the voice-over on the whole. Any help would be so appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Top answer
1 of 4
4
There are some basic truths that can help. One thing... No EQ is better than poor EQ. Trying to EQ anything on less than optimal monitoring equipment is a losing battle, and without a working knowledge of audio fundamentals can cause you to create more problems than you can possibly solve with it. Even WITH good monitoring equipment, lacking an understanding of audio fundamentals can lead to bad habits and mistakes. Just as with EQ, poor compression practices are worse than no compression. A little can go a long way. There's probably a little more margin of error here than with EQ, as long as you're working conservatively. A high pass filter (AKA HPF or Low cut) is something that can generally be applied conservatively on a voice and absolutely not hurt a thing. IOW an 80Hz or 100Hz setting. If you engage it and don't hear it doing anything, that also means it's not hurting anything. It should help keep rumbles, low end environment noise, wind noise, and plosives down. You might get away with a higher setting, but if nothing else, that conservative setting is a good idea as something to always just engage. Room noise/echo is a product of the environment you're recording in. If the mic is picking up too much of the sound you don't want (the room/echo) and not enough of the sound you do want (your voice)- Get closer to the mic. Change the S/N ratio (signal to noise). Loudest sound at the mic wins. Get closer to the mic, and make sure the mic is aimed properly. Also, make sure you're using a cardioid mic versus an omni (or figure 8 pattern) mic in these type of environments. Getting closer to the mic helps changes that balance and gets more of your voice into the mix vs the ambient room noise. The signal you want versus the noise you don't want. It probably goes without saying, but using a voice that projects versus a quiet voice trying not to be heard also helps. If you talk quietly so others won't hear you, the mic will have trouble hearing you as well. You don't have to shout, but speak like you want to be heard. You can also improve your room to make it less lively, but unless you don't want the mic in the camera shot, getting close to the mic goes a long way if not all the way in most cases. Or do both things... Ignore nonsense about condenser mics vs dynamic mics. If all else is equal, then that's not the reason for most problems people have in this regard. If you match the gains, then there will be tonal differences in the mics (as there are in ANY different mics), but "condensers pick up more room sound" is mainly a myth based on a fundamental misunderstanding of audio principles. As long as all else is equal anyway. Likely main reason this myth floats around is that a condenser is typically a LOUDER mic than a dynamic. But you're supposed to adjust and optimize the gain in your system. As soon as you do that, the dynamic and condenser are essentially going to do the same job as far as room noise goes as long as all else remains relatively equal. Comparing a condenser in a figure 8 pattern to a cardioid dynamic, even if gain matched, will have the condenser picking up more ambient noise. That's not because it's a condenser mic... it's because it's a mic with a figure 8 pickup pattern. There are some other caveats, but the gist of it is the mic type (Dyn vs Cond) is rarely the issue when room noise is the complaint. But, also, speaking to the myth, I'm sure some people have swapped out a louder condenser with a quieter dynamic, didn't gain match the mics, and noticed the dynamic didn't pick up as much room noise. Well, that's because it's not as loud in the first place. It also won't pick up as much voice (because it's got a lower output). But then if the person gets closer to the mic to compensate THAT actually helps to mitigate or fix the S/N ratio issue with room noise. So... cause and effect might lead someone to believe the dynamic mic fixed the problem.... No... getting closer to the mic is what fixed the problem.
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1
Give the free adobe podcast AI a shot. See if it helps in anyway: https://podcast.adobe.com/Enhance
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/audioengineering › optimal audacity settings for simple voice recordings?
r/audioengineering on Reddit: Optimal Audacity settings for simple voice recordings?
December 28, 2022 -

I've just started using an EV RE20 and Focusrite Scarlett Solo (3rd Gen) to record simple recitations that will be imported into Camtasia Studio, produced with a video, and then uploaded to YouTube.

I'm wondering what the best quality settings and WAV encoding format are for this particular use case:

https://i.imgur.com/vqB97l9.png

https://i.imgur.com/9EhDFFL.png

Also, if there are any special settings in Camtasia which might negatively affect the final audio quality that I need to be wary of.

Would very much appreciate any advice I can get. Thanks for taking the time to read.

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Reddit
reddit.com › r/letsplay › best audacity settings for my voice?
r/letsplay on Reddit: Best Audacity Settings for my Voice?
June 7, 2015 -

Hey everyone!

I recently acquired an XLR microphone (Rode NT2-A) and all the necessary accessories and gadgets (namely a USB interface and Shock Mount / Pop Filter).

However I'm not sure how to modify my voice in order to improve it. I've got Audacity and I intend on creating a Chain to make the job easier, but I'm not sure which Effects to use, what order those Effects should be in, and which settings I should modify on said effects.

In addition to this the audio records solely on the left channel, however I'm fairly sure a quick 'Stereo to Mono' should resolve that issue.

I've provided an unedited raw voice recording for reference here.

Thank you for any help!

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Reddit
reddit.com › r/audacity › recording voice over in audacity - help!!!
r/audacity on Reddit: Recording voice over in Audacity - Help!!!
November 25, 2020 -

Hi all!

We are a DJ outfit from the UK and we have recently started a radio show style podcast. Throughout this, the majority of it is music, however there are intervals of talking over music.

At certain points in the show I use the envelope tool to reduce the volume of the music and then do some talking.

I record the voice into a mono channel underneath using a Samson Q2U dynamic microphone.

Now, I'm struggling to find the best volume levels for the voice-over sections. When I listen back, sometimes I feel the talking is too loud and other times to quiet. I know this can be a matter of opinion however I was wondering what the best formula for getting this right is.

At the moment I record a section of voice, apply noise reduction, -3db over bass (as my voice is deep) and +2db of treble. This can be quite time consuming to edit each voice clip.

I then amplify by 1 or 2db until it sounds about right.

I know there are other tools like compression and normalisation which sometimes get recommended but I am not too familiar with these.

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. I have attached the link to the most recent show. There is a fair bit of talking in the first minute. This can be used as a reference if you would like to hear the current product.

https://soundcloud.com/thecollectivegroove/that-disco-groove-radio-show-003-29012021-guest-mix-lisa-jane-disco-infiltrators

Many Thanks in advance!

Top answer
1 of 3
3
First thing: If you're using the envelope to manually duck your audio (lower the other track when you're speaking) you might like to try out the auto-duck tool which does the same thing automatically. Now, to your question... Normalizing and compression are two of the most important basic tools to any audio producer. You really need to study and experiment with them, familiarize yourself all you can. Hunt down all the manuals, tutorials, and such you can force into your eyes and ears; YouTube is full of good stuff if you learn well from videos. The very basics: Normalizing raises or lowers the whole volume of the track to the level specified. If the loudest point of the audio is louder than the target, normalizing it lowers the entire track until that loudest point is at the target value. If the loudest point of the audio is below the target, normalizing raises the entire track's volume to meet that target. Think of it a bit like a volume slider, but automatic. You'll need this for both your music and voice tracks. Compression evens out the volume of an entire track, lowering the loud bits and/or raising the quieter bits. What you're "compressing" is the dynamic range, which is the distance between the shorter (quieter) and taller (louder) peaks of the waveform. This is good for your voiceover and interview bits, because you want things to be a consistent volume throughout; it'd take care of your voice sounding too loud sometimes and too quiet other times. It's bad for prerecorded music, though, as you'd be screwing up the intended dynamic range the music's makers intended; don't compress your music tracks. So what you probably want to develop is a workflow something like: Manually get rid of any loud clipping peaks (coughs, etc.) that are not part of what you want in your voice tracks, and do whatever EQ, filtering, and background noise reduction type things you feel necessary. Run some compression over your voice track. Experiment with the different compression options, find what works best for your track. Normalize your voice track to a reasonable target. .7 is what I usually use for speech, but that's kind of a matter of taste; you just want to take it down far enough that nothing is peaking, and leave some comfortable headroom in the track in case you need to do any finer edits. Normalize your music track to a good level, I'd try .7 or .8 and experiment from there. Edit it all how you want it on your timeline, do your audio ducking where you're talking over the music, and adjust your volume sliders so the track exports without peaking into the red.
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In your description, you didn’t mention if you are talking over a whole song or just part of it. If the latter, what I do for my own radio show is do an extended fadin (or fade out) on the musical track, and then overlap the voice recording with the music. If the former, just kick the dB of the music track down to a level of your liking and overlap the two tracks in ableton arrangement view. Happy to help more of this isn’t clear. Just dm me.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/audacity › best audacity settings for voice recording?
Best Audacity Settings for Voice Recording? : r/audacity
December 25, 2020 - A little bit of dynamic range compression, and / or peak limiting is often beneficial, though skilled voice-over artists are often good at maintaining a consistent level, reducing the need for compression.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/audacity › guide to professional voice editing in audacity?
r/audacity on Reddit: Guide to professional voice editing in audacity?
February 11, 2024 -

Hello everyone!

I started getting into voice recording and editing. However, I find it difficult to find sources on youtube and the internet in general that help me get a good understanding of how to professionally record and edit your voice in audacity.

There is so many information around this topic and it seems like everybody gives different advice. For example when it comes to the "right" peak amplitude. Some claim it is best to set the recording levels to a value at that your voice peaks at -6 db, some say -3 db and some say 0 db.

I am also confused what effects to use in what order. As far as I understand the Normalize, Compression, Amplify, EQ and Noise Reduction effects are the most important effects for voice editing.

Does anyone know a youtube playlist or other source that provides good explanations on all of these effects, when to use them, in which order and a general guide to doing voice overs in audacity?

🌐
Reddit
reddit.com › r/voiceacting › clearer voiceover audio [audacity settings]
r/VoiceActing on Reddit: Clearer Voiceover audio [Audacity Settings]
January 14, 2020 -

So I record with skull-candy headphones & the iPhone voice notes app (can't afford a pro mic currently), then use Audacity to do noise removal, compression, & normalize, but it's still not of the studio quality. (This is how it sounds: https://www.instagram.com/p/B9-IBlGACQ-/?igshid=10axd4npebw9e)

Aside from getting a better mic, I wanted to know: what features or settings in Audacity could I use to better the quality of my audio?

Please assist!

Find elsewhere
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Audacity
forum.audacityteam.org › audacity 3 help forum
Voice Over Quality Settings - Audacity 3 Help Forum - Audacity Forum
April 27, 2024 - What are the best settings to use in Audacity for voiceover work to ensure the best quality? Thanks
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/voiceover › some questions for making vo sound better in audacity?
r/voiceover on Reddit: Some questions for making vo sound better in Audacity?
May 17, 2018 -

So up until this point I've read my script in small sections, used noise reduction and just re-recorded lines where I've spoken too loud at certain points or quiet at certain points or there's too many mouth clicks. I've found this process quite frustrating as it can take a looooong time before I feel my audio sounds good.

I've today spent time really looking up ways to simplify this process. On top of the noise reduction I've been learning about compressor, limiter, EQ and normalize. So far however I've only found limiter to make my audio better, bringing the highs and lows a little closer and stopping the audio from peaking. EQ in particular makes it sound worse and compressor seems to have the audio at the beginning lower for the first second, making it sound a touch worse. I've been using the ideal settings that most seem to say is optimal from a number of different videos. What am I maybe doing wrong?

Also is there any way to reduce mouth clicks getting into the audio? It's easily the biggest reason I have to re-do a line as a fairly loud mouth click will make it's way into the audio and just sounds bad. Others in between words I can clip out but it's still not ideal.

Top answer
1 of 3
1
.You can get a de-clicker add on for Audacity.
2 of 3
1
What are you listening on when you mix and edit? You need good headphones at least to hear what these effects are doing. If the compressor is ducking the first part of a word, you need to slow down the attack and maybe lower the ratio. You might also be hitting it too hard. The effect should be subtle ("transparent"). You can ease it off by raising the threshold or reducing the gain going into it. (This can be necessary if you have a really dynamic recording.) As for "optimal" settings that are supposedly the best - every voice and recording really is different. Presets are a good starting point for learning a plugin and understanding what it does, but the best results will come from applying that understanding to your specific voice. Getting compression right will also improve what limiting does - if you control the level going into the limiter it will give a more transparent result. Same with EQ. EQ takes some time to learn! What kind of adjustments are you trying to make? It's hard to whether a change is good, bad, or just different when you don't have a vision in mind (other than "better"). At the bare minimum you want to cut out low rumbles. Beyond that, it's really impossible to give advice without hearing a recording. Some good things to be aware of are: the 250-500 range is often unflattering if too loud, but if it's too quiet the voice sounds weak; the 700-900 range often contains some nasality; the 4K-6K range is the most sensitive range of our hearing, so too much there will sound harsh; cheap condenser mics are often hyped above 12K, which will amplify s and t sounds and mouth clicks.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/newtubers › what are your audacity settings?
What are your audacity settings? : r/NewTubers
June 4, 2020 - I have the same mic and struggled ... YouTube. Once you set voicemeeter and audacity your audio will sound so much better, then I apply bass and treble, compression and limiter....
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/podcasting › what presets do you use in audacity to get your announcer voice?
r/podcasting on Reddit: What Presets do you use in Audacity to get your announcer voice?
January 27, 2021 -

What Presets do you use in Audacity to get your announcer voice?

I was using Ableton and had some killer presets, but now ableton won't work so I am switching to Audacity for a bit. I don't know what plug-ins do what.

Would be a huge help.

Thank you reddit!

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Reddit
reddit.com › r/voiceacting › is audacity enough for vo work?
r/VoiceActing on Reddit: Is Audacity Enough for VO work?
March 28, 2021 -

I’m brand new to VO work and I’m wondering what DAW to invest into. Some people have recommended Audacity but would Reaper have any benefits for me?

What I’m looking to do is record voice, add music files (I won’t be recording the music myself), and possibly sound effects for audiobooks.

I’m going to be recording with a Neumann 103 if that makes a difference. (Like I said I’m brand new so I don’t know.)

Thanks guys!

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VoiceActor
voiceactor.com › articles › audacity-settings-for-recording-voice-overs
Audacity Settings for Recording Voice Overs - The DIY Voice Over Website Template Builder - VoiceActor.com
May 23, 2023 - Channels: Select the "Mono" option. Voice over recordings are typically in mono, as it results in smaller file sizes and is easier to work with in post-production. ... To get the best results in Audacity, you'll need to ensure that your microphone ...
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/audioengineering › voice editing in audacity
r/audioengineering on Reddit: Voice editing in Audacity
February 11, 2024 -

Hello everyone!

I started getting into voice recording and editing. However, I find it difficult to find sources on youtube and the internet in general that help me get a good understanding of how to professionally record and edit your voice in audacity.

There is so many information around this topic and it seems like everybody gives different advice. For example when it comes to the "right" peak amplitude. Some claim it is best to set the recording levels to a value at that your voice peaks at -6 db, some say -3 db and some say 0 db.

I am also confused what effects to use in what order. As far as I understand the Normalize, Compression, Amplify, EQ and Noise Reduction effects are the most important effects for voice editing.

Does anyone know a youtube playlist or other source that provides good explanations on all of these effects, when to use them, in which order and a general guide to doing voice overs in audacity?

🌐
Music Radio Creative
producer.musicradiocreative.com › audacity-settings-for-voice-over
Best Audacity Settings For Voice Over
September 11, 2025 - If your audio is dull or quiet, here is a tutorial with three easy steps to give it a boost with our best audacity settings for voice over.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/podcasting › audacity settings to sound more professional
Audacity Settings to Sound More Professional : r/podcasting
July 4, 2025 - Loudness normalization is easier and fool-proof- I just don’t know if that’s a feature Audacity has. Set it to a True Peak of -1 and loudness to -19 LUFS if your episode is mono or -16 LUFS if it’s stereo. ... After I've done all the narration, I make sure to go through the following editing. Noise Cancellation (Absolute MUST to have decent quality) Equalization (look on youtube for walkthroughs of which settings give you a good EQ curve for voice)
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Audacity
forum.audacityteam.org › feedback and discussion forum › audacity 3.x feedback and reviews
Voice over settings - Audacity 3.x Feedback and Reviews - Audacity Forum
February 7, 2023 - Hey Everyone, I am new to doing voiceovers, and for now I want the simplest way to make my audacity recordings to sound as professional as possible. would it be advisable to do the following to my voice recording, in this order?: -Reduce noise noise gate -Normalize -EQ -Compress Thanks.
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Audacity
forum.audacityteam.org › audacity 3 help forum › windows
What effects, settings and order for podcasts/voice-overs? - Windows - Audacity Forum
July 19, 2023 - Hi, After reading different forums and watching different videos I am still lost. I want to create small podcasts, I bought a Rode NT-USB for that. In terms of effects I try to apply what I learned but it doesn’t seem great to me and I would like to optimize.
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diyvideoeditor
diyvideoeditor.com › the diy video editor › audio tips for video › audio processing for voice-overs in audacity
Audio Processing for Voice-overs in Audacity
July 17, 2024 - EQ is crucial for enhancing voice quality. Compression: Reducing the dynamic range of an audio signal to make the quieter parts louder and the louder parts quieter. Noise Reduction: Removing or reducing unwanted background noise. Normalization: Adjusting the audio signal to a standard level of amplitude, ensuring consistent volume. Audacity is a free and open-source audio editor that offers a wide range of features suitable for beginners and advanced users alike.