Got VO Mouth Noise?

what's up bill Dewey's here from voice - over - training org to discuss the dreaded topic of mouth noise don't you hate mouth noise you you get done working on what you feel is the perfect project you've executed beautifully flawlessly you're excited about your your client to hear this this project that you've so artistically and beautifully crafted and you go back to listen and edit and proof only to find out that that audio is filled with the pops the ticks and the clicks of mouth noise it's it's like it's like working hard to maintain a beautifully manicured lawn only to go out one morning and find these ugly and sidious weeds that find their way up through the nooks and the crannies and the cracks you know the cement and within the lawn itself and just ruin an otherwise beautifully created masterpiece so let's talk about mouth noise what it is and and what we can do to to eliminate it or at least severely suppress it while it's probably impossible to 100% eliminate all mouth noise well I shouldn't say impossible certainly with proper editing you can go back and you can do that but I'm talking about on the fly as you're recording because you can do just about anything post-production although my philosophy is and I believe it's a good philosophy to follow is that you want to make sure that your audio is as near perfect and flawless as possible on the front end to make sure that what you have to do on the back end if anything is very minimal and that certainly includes mouth noise so what is mouth noise as I alluded to just a moment ago a mouth noise there those those ticks those pops on those clicks that happen um when we speak and it's it's in short just all of it you know your your tongue your lips your teeth the roof of your mouth it's all of these pieces of your anatomy coming in contact with each other as they come together and smack and pull away and separate it creates again the these noises that can ruin otherwise some really some really nice work so let's address what are the causes first of all I think it's important to understand the causes before we talk about the cure so we know how to attack this there are several things that can contribute cause or contribute to mouth noise the first and perhaps the most you know readily apparent and and the biggest cause would be dehydration when you don't get enough hydration ie water that certainly will cause mouth noise because what happens is the inside of your mouth becomes aluminum it's not as well lubricated it's sticky so again the tongue and the teeth and the top of the roof of your mouth begin to stick together when things move around again and come in contact and pull apart they create they create mouth noise so that's that's the first cause the second and another very common cause is lazy mouth lazy not in the sense that you are lazy but lazy in the sense that your mouth has not yet been trained to minimize mouth noise in other words you not consciously aware the fact that your tongue is colliding with your teeth and the sides and the roof of your mouth and and again you're speaking the way that you may normally conversationally which certainly you want to do it in a voiceover many times but not to the point of where you're allowing again unconsciously the insides of your mouth to collide haphazardly to create mouth noise the other reason is going to be is dirty mouth not dirty mouth in the sense that of your language but dirty and that there's other there's something else in there debris that's causing this it could be extra buildup of saliva it could be the fact that you recently ate lunch there may still be particles of food left over from a meal again that are kind of gumming up the works so to speak and and causing excess noise again because you have excess debris in your mouth last and probably the least common occurrence of mouth noise is due to four physiologic reasons and and perhaps you know you're having trouble physically physiologically getting the parts of your mouth and tongue again to work properly to allow you to speak with without or with minimal amount of mouth noise so those are those are the most common causes from my experience now let's talk about cures now first of all there is software and within your digital audio recording / editing program your workstation you may have built-in software that allows you to to eliminate or minimize clicks and there are some very high quality audio plug-in software programs on the market that allow you to do that and they work pretty well I really think that is that should be a last resort again as I mentioned earlier you should try to make sure your audio is as pristine and clean on the front end as possible to minimize what you have to do on the back end in post-production and I have also found through experience that working with software that D clicks or tends to minimize the mouth noise it also can affect the character and the quality of the audio sometimes only slightly but it can still affect the character and the quality of the audio so for me software is a last resort so let's talk about some of the other things that you can easily do first is get hydrate I mean I mentioned earlier that one of the primary causes of mouth noise is is just dehydration not that you may not feel thirsty you may not feel dehydrated but you may not have properly hydrated your body so that all parts are lubricated how do you solve that well with the build with signature autographed voice over hydration bottle I'm kidding this is a water bottle that I picked up I don't know Walmart or Target so for a couple of bucks you can get a water bottle or just take a water bottle you know that maybe you keep in the fridge into the studio with you and throughout the day now you don't need to you know guzzle down a half gallon before you start in the morning but throughout the day I simply take a sip of water I'm in between scripts or maybe I've made a mistake and I've got to go back into another read another take I just take a slight slip sip rather now again you have to guzzle this I mean when I say sip I mean I mean just enough to wet my tongue I do this all day long and over the course of the day again it keeps things brocaded and it helps me hydrate but you got a drink you've got to be you've consciously aware of the fact that you need to drink water and you need to drink plenty of it throughout the course of the day and the easiest way again I found is just to keep a water bottle in the studio with you now the other thing is is really awareness many people that I that I coach and work with I find that just they're simply not aware that they produce a good deal amount of mouth noise until they go back and listen to their recordings and oftentimes awareness alone can lead you to to minimizing mouth noise because once you're aware you can begin operating your mouth in such a way where you don't just carelessly and haphazardly slap your tongue and your teeth and your mouth around to where you're creating so much noise in other words when I'm recording a voice over I'm very consciously aware of any extraneous noise then I want to keep out of my recording for instance this is not mouth noise but just to give you an example of noise moving around simply moving it you know if I touch a shirt or even my arm or my chair without thinking about it you know you may be able to hear that me kind of rubbing Marv's against my side the movement against the cloth on my shirt creates a noise that that's room noise you don't want that same thing with your mouth if you may remember that game that used to play as a kid called Operation and the the goal of operation was to take these these little forceps that we're wired into the game operated by battery and you wanted to lift these body parts out of your patient without touching the sides which were made out of metal because if you touch the side of the body where you're taking out the bone or whatever the organ was you know it buzzed well much in the same way if you keep that and keep that example in your mind when you're delivering a voiceover you don't want your tongue to to touch the sides of your mouth any more than it needs to in other words you want to carelessly just allow that particular organ of your body just a slap pass haphazardly around when I'm delivering a voice over I'm very conscious that I want to to keep all my mouth noise to a minimum not to a point where it will affect my delivery in my performance but again I'm consciously aware of the fact that I'm not overly you know slapping things around inside my mouth and creating more noise than is absolutely necessary another thing that can help you to to eliminate or minimize mouth noise is to clean your mouth now let me say this before it kind of preface this point with this not every strategy that you hear not every technique that you hear works for everybody for instance something that works for a number of people a lot of people are granny smith apples that tends to help a lot of people clean the mouth and minimize mouth noise for me it creates extra mouth noise some people brush their teeth which I certainly do on occasion but not before I record because I found that if I if I brush my teeth in the middle of a recording session it actually causes me to create extra extra mouth noise for me going back to the to the water I just take you know what when I if I start to hear a little extra mouth noise one of the things that I'll do I'll pick up my water bottle I take a very small sip not a big gulp just a small sip just kind of clears things out and then I'm up and running again with no worry with no worries now that's that's one way to clean your mouth another way that you can do that is by using my this is is my voiceover secret weapon it is build Elise's signature autographed again I'm kidding this is the extra spearmint gum it's my it's my gum of choice you need to find what works for you but I just I always keep a pack of this in here and I put a half piece in my mouth when I'm getting a little bit too noisy and I think it requires more than water I do that for 10-15 seconds and take a sip of water and my mouth is nice and clean and there's nothing in there there's no excess debris or what-have-you to create noise this I swear by this there we go I swear by this stuff again whether you use this brand or not is immaterial but having gum in the studio again for me you've got to find it works for you but this works very very well for me so keep things in the studio tools studio water and gum or what have you again to help minimize it and if you do all of those things it should go a long way toward helping you to either eliminate or at least very to a great degree minimize the amount of not mouth noise that you have now going back to the idea of practicing and being aware making sure they your tongues not flopping around haphazardly that's you know it's excuse me it's a practice of building its building muscle like like lifting weights and it may feel kind of uncomfortable at first but as you practice that and become aware of that you'll find out that you have a little more control over what goes on in here and and you'll find that the mouth noise becomes a minimal issue I rarely ever have to deal with mouth noise now occasionally as I go back and I look at audio and I listen I'll find it click here there but it's very rare but but it's because I've trained my mouth not to create excess mouth noise it's because I hydrate and it's because I keep my mouth nice and clean while I'm recording because after a beautifully recorded voiceover the last thing you want to have to deal with again is the dreaded mouth noise I hope these tips are helpful to you I wish you all the best and great success in your voiceover career and I look forward to talking to you soon take care you

Channel: Bill DeWees

Views: 41,344

Keywords: Bill DeWees, voice over training, Voice Actor (Profession), Voice-over (Broadcast Content), Voice (Field Of Study), voice over talent

Id: xWZR0VcZq8Y

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 06 2013