Lenny B’s Knowledge Library for Creators
Real-world guidance on audio, voice, workflow, positioning, business, marketing, and audience growth—built from the problems I solve, the systems I use, and the lessons I’ve learned helping creators turn their skills into stronger work and better opportunities.
A professional voice-over recording is not created by one plugin, one microphone, or one processing preset. It is the result of a series of production steps performed in the correct order.
That order is your voice-over production workflow — your production procedure.
Workflow determines when you r...
If you record any type of voice-over, you are familiar with the recording level struggle. Setting a good level is easy for consistent conversational speech. However, setting a good recording level while capturing dynamic performances can be challenging. A recording level that captures soft or qui...
There are a lot of different recommendations about the “best” recording level for voice-over, and that can make something fairly simple feel confusing. My approach is to set the input gain on your preamp or audio interface so that your strongest natural peaks land as close as possible to –6 dB witho...
Audio normalization is one of those features that looks simple but is often misunderstood.
At its most basic, normalization changes the gain of an audio file so its highest peak reaches a target level. It does not compress the audio, change its tone, or automatically make a recording sound better....
The best way to set your recording level is at the source — by adjusting the input gain on your audio interface or preamp while you record.
Your goal is to have your strongest natural peaks land as close as possible to –6 dB on a peak meter without going over it.
A healthy voice recording will oft...
Recording Level vs. Loudness for Voice-Over
One of the most common mistakes I see in self-producing voice-over is trying to make the recording sound loud while it is being recorded.
That feels logical. You speak into the microphone, look at the waveform, listen through your headphones, and natura...
