Suzy recently had a voice-over question. She asked: “What are the industry standards for finished audio?”
So let's dive into voice-over technical standards!
When it comes to finished voice-over recordings, I record everything at: 48kHz, 24-bit resolution. That’s my goto in Adobe Audition.
Why? It’s by far the most requested specs I’ve ever seen from auditions, clients and working with recording studios that happen to specify what they want.
48kHz captures a wide range of frequencies, while 24-bit depth ensures greater dynamic range and precision. The end result is professional-grade audio that clients are happy with.
Keep in mind, some clients may specify something different. I have some that request recordings at 44.1kHz and 16 bits. And some phone systems need files to be even lower quality.
And most clients don’t provide any specs at all, so I stick with the 48kHz, 24-bit for the highest quality.
That standard may eventually change, but it’s been good enough for many years now.
Also, for file formats, the main ones are wav, aif and mp3. If I save a file as MP3, I go with 192kbps Constant - that seems to keep the quality high and the file size low.
One final note: always record in mono. The file size will be smaller and there’s no need to have a stereo file if it’s just a dry voice-over.
That's it! I hope that gives you the standards on recording and saving high quality professional voice-over files.
