GTT Spotlight: Voiceover Audio Engineer and Demo Producer Henry Willard

George talks with UK-based voiceover engineer and demo producer Henry Willard about the rise of virtual engineering and why more actors are bringing their own engineers into remote directed sessions. Henry explains how having someone handle recording, playback, timing, and client requests can free the actor to stay where they belong: in the performance.

They also explore Henry’s approach to creating authentic commercial demos, why overproducing auditions can backfire, the never-ending battle with mouth noise, common home-studio mistakes, and the realities of producing audiobooks by hand in an increasingly automated world. And because two audio engineers can only behave themselves for so long, there’s plenty of talk about Pro Tools, headphones, plugins, noise reduction, Macs vs. PCs, and keeping your processing chain simple.

Timeline

00:00 Sponsor and Sound Check01:00 Meet Henry Willard03:00 Running an Audio Business with Two Young Kids05:00 The Reality of Working from a Home Studio07:00 Why Voice Actors Are Hiring Their Own Engineers10:00 What a Virtual Engineer Actually Does11:00 Henry’s Start in Remote Recording14:00 How COVID Changed the Voiceover Workflow16:00 Building a Freelance Voiceover Engineering Business19:00 Getting Into Voiceover Demo Production20:00 Making a Demo Sound Authentic—not Overproduced22:00 Music Choices That Can Ruin a Demo24:00 Henry’s “Palette Call” for Building Personalized Demos27:00 Why Demo Spots Need a Beginning, Middle, and End28:00 Mouth Noise, Perfectionism, and Over-Editing29:00 Mac vs. Windows for Voiceover Recording34:00 How Much Mouth Noise Should You Actually Remove?35:00 RX Mouth De-click and the Problem with Overprocessing37:00 Alternatives to RX and When Your Headphones Are Too Good39:00 Fix the Room and Mic Technique Before Adding Plugins40:00 The Wrong Mic, the Wrong Input—and Other Common Mistakes43:00 Henry’s Approach to Audiobook Production46:00 Punch and Roll vs. Continuous Recording49:00 AI Proofing vs. Actually Listening to the Audiobook51:00 Why Henry Takes a Premium Approach to Audiobook Editing53:00 Henry’s Favorite Tools: Pro Tools, Editus Keys, and Headphones58:00 Keeping Plugins Simple59:00 Waves NS1 and Noise Reduction1:00:00 Apollo C-Vox and Real-Time Noise Reduction1:02:00 More Audio Geekery—and an Invitation to Pro Audio Suite