To duck or not to duck
Posted: January 5th, 2010 | Author: andy | Filed under: post production | 4 Comments »I read recently about a technique to make a voiceover sound distinct from an underlying music bed without ducking. Ducking has traditionally been used – this is where the music bed is faded down as the voice speaks, then (un)fades back up as soon as the voice stops.
The non-ducking technique involves removing the major frequencies in the voice from the music bed, this ensures that the main frequencies in the voice are not fighting against the same frequencies in the music. Clever!
I thought I’d experiment and I’ve made 3 recordings below. The first is just my voice competing with the music, no ducking or anything – a bit of a din. The second recording utilises traditional ducking. The third uses this new technique, I like to call it frequency accommodation. My voice has prominent frequencies between 200-500Hz and again at about 5kHz, so I reduced these frequencies from the music. The differences are subtle. What do you think?
Latest word count: approx. 17,930. Yes, I know it hasn’t gone up much – I’ve been tweaking the Planning chapter.
No modification [0:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download With ducking [0:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Using frequency accomodation [0:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download