For years now voice over artists have worked at home in their home studios and piped the signal over ISDN cables.  I was once asked to supervise on a project where we flew from Tokyo to Seattle, where they simply telephoned up the voice over artist who was in New York.  Why on Earth we didn’t just do it in Tokyo I’ll never know!  (Well, I actually I think it was so the Japanese staff could catch a Mariners game!)

But now things have moved on even further.  Now you get an email with the voice over track,  you record it and email it back as a .wav file.   As it’s over the internet it lends itself perfectly to a location free lifestyle as long as you can find somewhere quiet to record.

I’ve often had problems with apartments in Europe as they’ve been too echoey.  And in Thailand the sound of the jungle in the background doesn’t go down too well (I know because that’s where I was recording last night!)  But as long as it’s only you doing the recording then what I’ve done many a time is to simply record under the duvet!  It smothers the sound perfectly and as long as you don’t move it works fine!

Choosing a good microhphone can also be a bit tricky, but if this is what you are doing for a living then investing in a good microphone is always a good thing.  Just make sure you get one that can handle being thrown around by airport luggage people.  I always carry a spare SM58 around with me just in case my condenser mics get thrown around a bit too much!

In some places, such as India, it can be incredibly cheap to hire a recording studio for a few hours.  Usually the technicians are top quality as well.