Ever find yourself second-guessing your sound?

“What’s that weird noise I’m hearing?”
“My recordings don’t quite sound right.”
“Oh no… I’m not hearing anything at all.”
“Is my audio quality ready for this big project?”

If you’re a voice-over artist, you’ve probably asked yourself these questions at least once—and if you haven’t yet, you will. The real question is: When should you audit your signal chain and recording environment?  

Let’s start by breaking down what those are.  

 What’s a Signal Chain?  

Your signal chain is simply the path your audio takes from your voice to your ears, including all the gear in between. 

A basic voice-over signal chain usually looks like th is:
Voice → Microphone → XLR Cable → Audio Interface (with preamp + ADC) → USB Cable → Computer/DAW → Audio Interface (DAC) → Headphones/Monitors

You might also have or add other gear, like a standalone preamp or in-the-box processing like plugins, but this is your basic home studio setup.

What’s a Recording Environment?

Your recording environment is the space you record in—your “home studio.” Whether it’s a pro booth, a walk-in closet with panels and flannels, or a fortress of moving blankets—if that’s where your mic lives, that’s your recording environment.

When Should You Audit Them?  

In short: whenever something changes.

Here are some common triggers:  

 Physical Changes to Your Space

• You’ve moved to a new recording space
• You’ve repositioned your booth, desk, or mic
• Furniture or gear has shifted around
• You’ve added, removed, or changed acoustic treatment

Equipment or Software Changes

• New microphone
• New interface
• New computer
• Different monitoring setup (headphones or speakers)
• DAW or operating system updates
• Outdated drivers finally catching up with you 

When Audio Quality Drops

• Hiss, buzz, or hum appears 
• Static, clicks, or pops sneak in
• New reflections show up out of nowhere
• Volume mysteriously drops
• Recordings start sounding muddy, boxy, or hollow

Changes Around Your Space

• Seasonal shifts (HVAC noise, open windows)
• New appliances or electronics
• Construction, activity, or changes in adjoining rooms or outdoors

 Before Big Projects

• Before recording a demo
• Before a major client project
• Before a live-directed session

At Regular Intervals

• Quarterly or twice a year
• Acoustic materials can settle or sag, and gear can slowly degrade
• Subtle changes sneak up on you over time, so a routine check keeps you ahead of them

Signal Chain: Your First Stop When Troubleshooting

Is this thing on? (No, don’t tap your mic.)

When something sounds off, it’s e asy to overthink. (“Maybe my interface firmware is haunted!”). Instead, start simple. Check you  r signal chain: 

• Is phantom power on?
• Are your cables firmly connected?
• Is your interface actually selected in your DAW?

Sometimes the fix is that simple.

As you build your career, it’s smart to keep some “known good” gear handy—like a spare XLR cable or a small travel rig (mic + interface). Swapping pieces out one at a time can help you pinpoint issues fast.  

If you’ve run through your checks and are still stuck, don’t be afraid to call in a pro. It can save you time, money, and sanity (not necessarily in that order).

Why It All Matters

The quality of your audio is one of the clearest signs of professionalism. Clients won’t always tell you if your sound isn’t up to par—they’ll just quietly choose someone else. Especially for remote work, clean, consistent audio is often the deciding factor between “almost booked” and “you got the gig.”

Final Tip

Keep a reference recording from when your booth soun ded its best (ideally one that’s been approved by a coach or audio pro). From time to time, record the same script and compare. If something sounds off, you’ll catch it early.

Audit regularly. Sound great. Book more. Your best work deserves the best sound.

P.S. If you haven’t yet taken our introductory voice-over class, where we go over everything one needs to know about getting started in the voice-over industry,  sign up here!

P.P.S If you want to learn more from VO experts and grow the knowledge you already have, join our VO Pro group!

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In my opinion, the only real reason to have a business is to help others. There are countless ways of doing this, of course, but no matter what business you’re in, on some level you’re striving to help someone else. (Even the least ethical businesses are striving to make money to help themselves…so there’s that…) But you, the ethical business owner, are looking to help more than just yourself. You’re selling a product that makes things easier: solving a problem, providing a valuable creative service, excellent communication and client experience.

In the voice-over world, each time we complete a project, we provide a valuable service that helps others, whether we add professional VO to a marketing video, create a friendly voicemail for a client’s customers to feel heard and helped, or narrate an audiobook so an author can get their story to more people. 

We already help our clients solve problems on a daily basis, so why are we often resistant to letting others help us? I see this all the time with freelancers – we hate asking for help. We think we can do it all on our own, or for some reason, we can’t “afford” to get help.

This is utter baloney friends. 

Of course, right at first when you’re just starting out, maybe you can’t afford to hire any help and you really are a one-person show. But AS SOON AS YOU CAN, start to think about how you can hire help. Asking for help is crucial to building a successful business, and it frees you up, as the boss, to spend your time doing what you love. 

Also, outsourcing some tasks means you get another avenue to help others by PAYING THEM TO DO WORK. There is nothing more satisfying than paying someone talented to do their thing. Being a boss is awesome. 

As I see it, there are two ways to outsource. You can outsource to another person or to your future self. 

Let’s start with outsourcing to others. Within this category I’ll break it down into three parts:  

1. What’s your least favorite task? 

What is not at all your skillset that you’ve been struggle-busing through so far? What do other people do well and enjoy? For me, my first outside hire as a voice-over artist was an easy decision. Audio editing. Of course, I still think every voice-over actor should know how to edit basic audio, but as I began booking more and more audiobooks, I realized the editing was a major chunk of my time. I knew I could book more work if I found a brilliant editor. Luckily, I know some people. My friend Josh Bangle is also a voice-over actor, but loves editing audio as well. He said to me, “I miss editing hours of audio”. Bless his heart. To me – no thank you! To him, it’s soothing. I may think he’s a little crazy, but I’m SO grateful. 

There are some bonuses to hiring others — first off, you’re no longer alone. Even though Josh and I don’t often meet in person, I have someone I’m in communication with and working on projects with, as a team. It’s great to be part of a team – I was getting tired of being a lone voice-over wolf. Second, any work I get isn’t just for me anymore. I get to share the wealth and am even more grateful for each audiobook project we get because now both myself AND Josh get some money. He and his wife just had the CUTEST baby. Supporting other artists is what I always wanted business to be about and now I get to do that tangibly and I LOVE IT.

How you spend your money as a business owner is important – why not invest in yourself AND others at the same time?

2. What could you teach someone else to do? 

Another angle for finding new team members is to think of something that you could, within a day or two (of paid training – no point in being a stingy boss here) easily teach someone else to do for you. For me, this was answering inquiries and running my social media pages. After I realized that, then the next hire was a no brainer. The incomparable Courtney Mentzel, currently getting her MFA in acting in NYC, had perfect space in her schedule for a part-time job with flexible hours. She’s a super talented actor herself who I’ve been fortunate enough to collaborate with in the past. She has experience running social media professionally and has a daily public transit commute during which she can help me answer inquiries. And presto – more of my time is freed up to do the things I love and generate more business for us!

3. Who can help you grow? 

I’m super lucky to be part of a thriving artists community here in Dallas. When I started wanting to veer into different projects and build something new (COMING SOON!!), I didn’t even have to think about who to hire because the brilliant Cain Rodriguez is already one of my best friends. A writer, videographer and tireless encourager. Freelance artists and small business owners NEED COMMUNITY. People are WAITING FOR YOU to find them and make awesome stuff together. 

As a boss, you’re a leader of a community. When you start hiring people to help you out and expand your team, you’re creating the kind of workplace you always imagined.

The other way I outsource regularly is to my future self. 

Sometimes today is not the day to accomplish a task. Around the middle of each day, I look at my schedule and see things that could easily be pushed to a future date. Then, I schedule time on my calendar specifically for those projects and stick to it rigorously, ensuring that everything gets done. Rome wasn’t built in a day, folks. You can’t do it all in 24-hours. Let the future be there for you as a friend, helping you out and taking a few things off your plate. Your future self will be better rested than your current self, will be able to solve that problem, find the voice for that new character, nail that audition that’s not due until Friday anyway, craft the perfect email to send to that author. Trust your future self and let them give you a hand every now and then. 

Caroline Cole is a voice-over actor, copywriter and coach based in Dallas, TX. Learn more at carolinecolestories.com or join in by following @carolinecolestories on Instagram and @ccolestories on Twitter. 

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One of the biggest areas of accountability for a professional voice actor is meeting client deadlines.

The longer and more complex the project, the more helpful it can be to hire an audio editor, but how do you manage the workflow when you do?

Audio Editor Alex DeWees and I have a couple of quick answers:

1) Constant & Open Communication
You need to be clear and proactive with your editor when you deliver audio to them. What state is it in? Does it need to be edited for sound quality? Do bad takes and bloopers need to be removed? Does it need to be checked for script accuracy? All of the above? What deadline do you need the audio editor to meet in order to deliver polished content to the client on time?

There are many possible options for how you can set up your particular workflow with your editor, and taking the time on the front end to set that system up will save you time (and your sanity) on the back end.

 

2) Be Technically Ready
Knowing how to label, share, save, and comment on files during the workflow is another key to making sure the client receives five-star customer service. Although not the only method, Alex and I utilize a shared Dropbox folder network and, within each folder, also label files with special suffixes to make it easy to see where the file is in the process at a glance.  And we back up all of this technology with email, Skype, and Messenger.

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