FAQ / Keeping character voices consistent
How do I keep character voices consistent across recording sessions?
A cartoon production rarely finishes in one day. The trick to making episode three sound like episode one is keeping the mic setup, the room sound, the reference clip, and the loudness target identical each session.
Save a reference clip per character
The first time you nail a character's voice, save a 5 to 10 second clip of that line by itself. Label it spark_reference.wav, narrator_reference.wav, and so on. Before every new session, listen to that clip out loud, then read one line of new dialogue and compare. Your ear can match a voice you just heard far better than a voice you remember from last week.
Lock the mic position
The same character recorded six inches from the mic and twelve inches from the mic will not sound like the same character. Mark the spot on your desk. Use the same microphone. Same headphones. Same gain knob position on your interface. Take a phone photo of your setup at the end of a session and rebuild from the photo next time.
Record a calibration line first
Every session, before you do anything else, record one line you have already recorded before. Open the old project, play that line, then record the new one. If the levels and tone are within shouting distance of each other, you are good to record. If they are not, fix the mic chain before you touch the new script.
You can drag any audio file into a VoiceOverAndOver paragraph with the Import... button. That is the easiest way to bring a reference line into a new project so you can A/B against it without leaving the app.
Use the gain slider for fine-tuning
Even with careful mic discipline, day-to-day energy varies. Per-paragraph gain in VoiceOverAndOver lets you trim a hot session down or push a quiet day up by a couple of dB without touching the recording itself. Combined with the merge step, it gives you a final file where every line sits at the right level.
Lock a loudness target for export
Pick a target integrated loudness (the app uses LUFS, with -16 LUFS as a reasonable default for streaming) and use the same target on every episode. That single decision keeps the show from drifting louder or quieter over a season.