Introduction to VoicePro

What is VoicePro ?

VoicePro X is an automated batch Dialog recording system for Multimedia, Videogames, web and telephony applications. it is designed to make the job of recording thousands of discreet sound files simple and error-free.

How does it work ?

VoicePro manages a recording session, and uses a script you provide to automatically create the files to record into, and also prompt the talent with on-screen text. This allows very rapid recording of dialog, and eliminates human error caused by manually naming cues, or losing your place in a script.

Select your Sound Input.

VoicePro uses the 'Default' sound input device. in OSX, you select this in the 'Sound' panel of the system preferences. In OS9, you can select this from the Sound Control panel, and also from the Control Strip.

Creating your Script.

There are several different script formats supported by VoicePro. The simplest is 2-column tab delimited text. You can create this in a spreadsheet like Excel, exported from a database, or manually entered in a text editor. The script should be in the form:

<filename1> <tab> <Dialog prompt for filename1> <CR>
<filename2> <tab> <Dialog prompt for filename2> <CR>
<filename3> <tab> <Dialog prompt for filename3> <CR>
.......

and so on. The <tab> is a tab character and <CR> is a carriage return, automatically inserted between fields and records when exporting as tab delimited text from Excel, or filemaker Pro. In a text editor you would insert a tab, and a carriage return.
Make sure your file is saved as a pure TEXT file, of filetype 'TEXT', VoicePro does not read RTF or other formats, such as those used by 'TEXTEDIT' in OSX.

See further documentation later in this manual about additional script parameters and options.

Select the script file to read from

Next, press the 'Link To File' button and select your Text script which will drive the session. Make sure that your preferences are set to match the format of your script (see preferences section)

Select a destination folder to record into

Press the 'record path' button and select a folder to record your cues into.

And we are off !!

You should see the first line of your script displayed in the Prompt window and the corresponding first file name in the Filename section of the recording engineers window.

If you have 2 monitors driven from your video card, you can position the prompt window on the second screen for use in the voiceover booth.

You can now press the 'record' button and your talent can begin. Typically, your script will automatically move to the next line after each recording (this is setup in prefs). All you need to do is keep pressing record, then stop, until you finish recording your entire script !

After each recording, you can press the SPACE bar to listen back to it, or double click it in the recordings window which logs all your takes. You can also apply a 'rating' to the take in the recordings window with a pop up menu, or using the 1-7 numeric keys,

There are many options in VoicePro which assist with retakes, or navigation back and forth in the script. These options are detailed later in this manual.

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