Voice-Over sounds different from a year ago

[modjul]

Hey everyone,

I recorded some voice-over for a large course last year and wanted to update the course this year. Since this really is a large course I didn't want to re-record ALL of the slides, but just parts and then edit it together. Somehow the voice changed dramatically (to my ears) since last year. I let somebody else listen to it and although they couldn't hear a very dramatic difference, they did notice the difference a bit.

What effects could I use to "equalize" the voice over?

I'm using Adobe Audition CC 2017.

Thank you so much for your input, really appreciated!
Nat

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

When we record voice-overs, we always do it in one sitting; peoples' voices can change from the morning to the afternoon - sometimes quite noticeably. And the reason that we do it in one sitting is that it's pretty much impossible to EQ your way out of this situation. Subtle changes happen that aren't frequency-dependent, which is all that EQ could fix. Typically, it's things like the state of your sinuses that can cause it, or even sometimes just the general state of your health; tiredness can also affect your voice quite dramatically. Generally, EQ makes things worse, not better, because if both sessions are recorded in the same environment, it will alter the sound of that too - and that's just as noticeable.

But you're talking about a year - your voice could easily have changed fundamentally during this time, and listening to it critically - especially with a direct reference to what it was like - is going to make that pretty clear, I'd say. The one thing that humans can detect easiest is subtle changes in voices - it's how we survive!

What you do is up to you at this point. You either re-record, or take your colleague's word for it that it's not too bad and just alter the parts you need, but I'm afraid that there's no electronic 'fix' for this at all. Your colleague may well be correct; what's blatant to you really won't be anything like as bad for anybody else.

But no amount of electronic trickery is going to fix this, I'm afraid.

[modjul]

Thank you, SteveG!