The Gift of Gab: What is room tone?

What is room tone? Should you have it? Can you have too much of it?

Room tone comes up a lot in the voice acting world. But what does it mean? And how do you know if you need it, want it, or have too much?

What is room tone? - 3:08

Hey guys! Thanks for joining me for another edition of The Gift of Gab.No, this isn’t the Home Decorating issue—I just had some guests in from out of town, and as I was making up a room, it hit me: one of the What Is topics you might not know yet, especially if you’re brand new to voiceover, is room tone. So… let’s talk about it.

We’ve been doing these videos based on my book, V101—so convenient that it just happens to be right here. Inside the glossary, I have a bunch of information created specifically to help beginners understand industry terminology. That’s exactly what sparked the What Is series.

What Is Room Tone?

Every single environment—every single room—has its very own tone, its own acoustics. It’s the natural sound in a space when it’s quiet. Nothing mystical, nothing unusual… it’s just a normal part of the audio recording world.

(Also, my cats apparently really want to help explain room tone. That’s fine.)

When you’re just starting out in voiceover, it’s super common for a studio, a new agent, or really anyone booking you for a session to ask for room tone. This is simply a recording of the open space in your booth or your recording area. Literally, you turn on your DAW, hit record, and… don’t say anything. You’re capturing the sound of the empty room.

Why Do They Need It?

Room tone is used to:

• Match the noise floor when mixing multiple actors

• Smooth out imperfections in your recording

• Help clients establish your noise floor so they can determine the quality of your studio setup

Noise floor is a slightly more in-depth topic, but in short:A good noise floor = your studio is solid and ready to produce high-quality audio.A bad room tone = the audio is unusable, and your studio needs more treatment.

Keep Learning

Thanks for joining me for another edition of The Gift of Gab! The What Is series will definitely continue. Don’t forget to check out my book V101, and for more helpful beginner info, head over to my website GabrielleNistico.com and take a look at the Get Started section.

704-674-8294 / GabrielleNistico.com / gabby@voiceovervixen.com

Gabrielle Nistico, Gabby Nistico, The Voiceover Vixen, The Business First VO Coach, #VoiceoverVixen #VoiceOnFire #BusinessFirstVOCoach Voiceover, Charlotte, North Carolina, post production, editor, post-production, fix it in post, producers, sound designers, writers, pre-production, pre production, voice over, audio, gain, interface, room tone