Do voice actors really need in ear monitors?
They offer excellent isolation and can sound fantastic, but they can also feel uncomfortable, create an unnatural sense of pressure, and make it harder to hear your own voice unless your direct monitoring is set up properly.
In this episode, George, Robert, Robbo and AP look at when headphone isolation genuinely matters, including WALA sessions, radio interviews, music driven reads, remote recording, pickups and situations where headphone bleed can end up permanently embedded in the recording.
They also consider the complete opposite approach. Rather than blocking everything out, could lightweight open headphones give voice actors a more natural performance while still providing enough cue audio for punch and roll recording?
Robbo shares how headphone bleed unexpectedly saved part of a previous Pro Audio Suite episode. A damaged recording contained a missing line from Robert, but a faint version had leaked into another host's headphones. After gaining it up, processing it and running it through Waves ReGen, Robbo was able to slip the repaired line back into the episode.
The team also discusses reading to music, reading to picture, custom in ear monitors, cheap Koss headphones, modular AIAIAI headphones, and Robert's experimental plan to eliminate Source Connect echo with a ribbon microphone, a loudspeaker and some carefully aimed figure-eight rejection.
IN THIS EPISODE