I’ve been making some voice recordings over the last week for various projects. There’s been a scripting and voicing of a promo spot for a new online kids’ radio station, a reading for a friend who is setting a Spanish poetry book to music, and also a reading of some of my own work for a soon-to-be-announced e-book (of which, more soon, I hope).
I’m not an expert with sound-recording software, and I’ve been having some problems deciding on the settings to use, particularly with respect to the different effects.
I rejected all the male options, resisted the temptation of ‘gospel choir’, and decided I could hardly want ‘helium breath’ for serious recordings (though it was fun trying that one out).
Even without the female ‘dance’, ‘R&B’ and ‘rock vocals’ alternatives – and the sexually ambivalent ‘pop vocals’, I still had several choices available.
I reckon my voice is low pitched and loud enough, so I rejected both ‘deeper vocals’ and ‘megaphone’, and there’s no way I wanted to sound like a ‘mouse’, so that went, too.
Wondering if recordings made in my den counted as a ‘live performance’ raised the ever-interesting question of whether poetry reading and performing are the same thing.
Still, I thought I was narrowing down the possibilities quite well: I’d got to the last two. How on earth, though, am I supposed to choose between ‘epic diva’ and ‘basic female’?
