0566 – Why Some Presenters Go ‘Headless’

2022.07.20 – 0566 – Why Some Presenters Go ‘Headless’

The case for not wearing headphones

Some voice-overs don’t wear headphones when they record their spot, so they can be more ‘in the moment of the copy’ rather than feel as though they are ‘performing’, and monitoring their melody, pitch and breaths. The thinking goes, and I totally understand this, is that if you are giving yourself feedback and tweaking your performance every moment, maybe convincing yourself you sound great or poor, then you are not ‘connecting’ with the copy and helping it sound believable. It’s also easy to have the ‘I’m in a recording booth’ attitude, rather than the one-to-one engagement of ‘I’m having a conversation with just one person who’s really interested in what I’m saying’.

If you do this, record a few takes, then listen back on studio speakers, work out what you can do differently and then record a few more.

And it’s certainly true: in the studio you should be concentrating on communicating, that is, what you are saying not what you are sounding like.

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