USA Today has a great story about the Podcast, and it’s creator David Cummings. Congratulations to David and all the fellow voice actors and producers to bring the many stories of /r/NoSleep to life in the NoSleep Podcast
David and the rest of the crew work incredibly hard to bring the Podcast to listeners week after week, and it’s great fun to be one of the voice actors who bring it to life.
I had the pleasure and privilege to bring you “The Record” a short tale of a vinyl enthusiast who finds an unexpected LP in his crate. Hear it now on Season 5, Episode 13 of the NoSleep Podcast.
I had the privilege of a co-producers credit on this one for additional sound design on the LP tracks.
SPOILER ALERT
Here is some of the sound design for this story. There were two tracks needed, that are played during different parts of the story. They get cut up during the story , interspersed with the narrator, but I thought it would be fun to present them as the full tracks as if they were actually on the turntable.
First, this track is designed to sound like a creepy damaged track on scratched up vinyl. Here is how the author described it in the story:
...what came out of the speakers was pure chaos. A garbled hiss was lost in heavy static and a sudden, shrill screech made my ears ring. Somewhere in the cacophony I could make out the sound of voices. The voice in the foreground sounded distant and muffled. I leaned close to the speaker to decipher the words, but it was as if the singer were speaking gibberish. The words were at once familiar, but completely alien.
Later in the story, another track is played. This is a spoken word track. First, I needed to differentiate the voice on the track from my voice as I was also the lead narrator.
During the playing, the turntable is supposed to speed up, slow down and skip several times during the track. I needed it to sound like an old LP and it also needed to have the speeds be roughly representative of 45RPM and 78RPM modes, and still have the narration be comprehensible. Normally 78RPM is too fast for 33 1⁄3 RPM to remain comprehensible on first listen.
It was fun recording the sounds of some old LPs into my Audio Technica turntable in my trusty Zoom H5.
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I had the pleasure and privilege to bring you “The Siren of the Sound” a crime drama with a horror twist in Season 5, Episode 11 of the NoSleep Podcast.
I had the pleasure of working with Nicolle Doolin who played the part of Lady Meg, and David Cummings who played the part of my partner.
I had the good fortune to have a big recording session recently, a coordinated campaign of 30+ Radio / TV spots that will run weekly through the year. The audio engineer did 100% of the recording in a basic room (not a vocal booth) with a Zoom h5 and a Sennheiser shotgun Mic. While the mic is a pricey one, that h5 is quite affordable and can pull double duty as a portable recorder and an interface for your computer.
There is no reason to believe that for the beginning Booth Junkie that a Shure SM7B or even a Shure Beta58 wouldn’t also make excellent, rugged Mic choices for this setup.
Even though I was recording at a TV station, it was an eye opening experience to not be in a fancy studio with a huge console and glass separating me from the engineer. It was a very achievable bare-bones home-studio setup for anyone to begin their voiceover career.
I frequently have to cut out bad takes, clicks, breaths etc. So, I have Reaper configured such that if I click on the bottom half of the track (the actual visible waveform) it automatically splits, and selects the section of track to the left.
So an edit goes like:
Click the start of the edit.
Click the end of the edit,
Press delete.
[caption id=“attachment_151” align=“aligncenter” width=“772”]
Editing a reaper take in three clicks.[/caption]
Reaper is extraordinarily flexible.
I Am Amber Nash, best known as the voice of Pam Poovey on FX’s Archer ask me anything!
I am Hank Azaria – actor, Simpsons voice guy & Determined to Succeed supporter. AMA.
Hi! We’re voice actors Gregg Berger and Tom Kenny! Ask Us Anything
I am Alex Borstein, voice of Lois on Family Guy and Nurse Dawn on HBO’s Getting On. AMA
I’m Dan Mintz, the voice of Tina on Bob’s Burgers. AMA
IamA Mary Gibbs! Voice of Boo from Monsters, Inc. AMA!
I am Ellen McLain; voice of GLaDOS & Fairy Godmother of Wish It Inc. Ask me anything!
I am Ellen McLain, voice of GLaDOS & Wish It Inc.’s Fairy Godmother. Round 2!
Hi, I’m Rachael MacFarlane. You might recognize my voice as Hayley from AMERICAN DAD. AMAA!
I am Janet Varney, comedian and voice of Korra on The Legend of Korra, AMA
I am Earl Alexander, Voice of Louis from Left 4 Dead. AMA.
Adam Harrington Voice of Shaco, Mordekaiser, Ryze, Karthus and Kassadin AMA!
Rikki Simons — the Voice of GIR from Invader ZIM — AMA — I am Scared
I’m the voice of the Nitronic Rush announcer. AMA and I’ll respond with an audio clip!
As requested, I am a professional, fulltime voiceover talent and narrator. AMA
Hi Reddit! IamA Audiobook Narrator and Voice Actor- AMA!
I am an audiobook recording engineer and newer narrator. Curious as to how audiobooks are made? AMA!
Hello, /r/books. I am an audiobook narrator and producer. My name is Steven Bateman. AMA!
There are several places where you can find sound effects and music beds for your project.
Before we start, it is important to understand one point about licensing for videos that catches people off-guard. A Creative Commons - No Derivatives license will not work for video content. Read this, right from the Creative Commons site:
Most importantly, you need to use music that is **not** licensed under a No Derivative Works license. This means that the musician doesn’t want you to change, transform, or make a derivative work using their music. Under CC licenses, synching the music to images amounts to transforming the music, so you can’t legally use a song under a CC No Derivative Works license in your video.
Here are some resources:
Soniss realesed a 10+ gigabyte sound effect library in 2015. You can get the library here. It has been extremely popular, so you may need to obtain the archive via bittorrent (torrent link)
Freesound.org is a collaborative site with tons and tons of location sounds, sound effects, samples, sound packs. You name it. Much of the content is under public domain / creative content licensing.
Youtube Audio Library has music and sound effects that are cleared for use and royalty free. These were released to help content creators ensure that their sound would not trigger a content id warning on youtube and prevent monetization of the video.
Incompetech has a large repository of Music beds. Created by Kevin MacLeod, he has a very generous license for his music, with an emphasis in his FAQ of Anyone can use any of my music in any project.* _***You do need to attribute correctly if you are using the Creative Commons license **or pay for the no-attribution license, if you choose that one. _He covers lots of genres and moods.
Bensound also has a large genre / mood based catalog of sounds. However many are licensed under a Creative Commons license with No Derivatives, which can be problematic if you want to use them with video content. Make sure you read the FAQ for information.
The Free music archive has some music available, but you need to go to the details for any given song to check the licensing of it, much of it is Non-Commercial, so it is problematic should you want to use it in any commercial voiceover.
Finally, a YouTube search can often reveal a sound effect that is just what you were looking for that has a download link. Again, always try and vet any licensing for any commercial project.
The world of licensing can be tricky to navigate. You can always pay for a license to a track at any of the many, many royalty-free repository sites, while finding free-to-use is more challenging.