Sound: Voice Over’s Friend and Foe

Posted on July 2, 2017 by William Williams

Abstract color sound wavesVoice Over is unique artistic performance because it is entirely produced with sound.
There are other performances of sound–a live rock concert for example– that depend on sound but they have other aspects that contribute to the experience: costuming, lighting, pyrotechnics.  But voice over is only sound.

Think of an audiobook.  The setting, the weather, the characters, the plot and the emotions are entirely conveyed by the reader’s voice. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

But as you create a voice performance you’ll find that some sound is your friend.  And some sounds are your foes. Continue reading →

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Voice Over Audition: I Care! I Don’t Care! Cure Audition Separation Anxiety

Posted on June 27, 2017 by William Williams

Voice Over Audition Happy and SadSo you raise your voice over audition up properly, give it the finest preparation, a positive attitude and an engaging personality.

You sigh and you heart beats faster as you send your mature baby out into the world.  You have such pride and great hopes for its success.  And as you leave the casting studio or press the upload button…

You slam the door and think “get out of my life! I never want to listen to you again!”  What’s up with this? Continue reading →

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Why WHY Is the Most Important Word in Voice Over

Posted on January 19, 2017 by William Williams

Why Question Mark Voice OverThe first WHY is inside you

This is the first WHY you need to answer. Why do YOU want to do voice over? Do you like to communicate? Do you enjoy it when your listeners “get it”? Are there ideas that you feel strongly about?
Do you like the logic of the presentation. Or the feeling you can inspire.
You see, your INNER WHY is what will drive and motivate you to succeed in voice over. Because that WHY is really WHY you do this.

Continue reading →

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Why I like Voice123.com for Voice Over Jobs

Posted on October 4, 2016 by William Williams

woman reading a script for voice123I’ve talked about my Three Legged Milking Stool voice over marketing strategy. One leg of that strategy is using Online Casting to begin marketing your talents. The two biggies in this “pay to play” universe are Voices.com and Voice123.com. You’ll hear pros and cons of these sites but they’ve both been around for over ten years so they must be doing something right.

I consider both to be the “minor leagues” of voice over but in a good way. They are a non-critical arena to learn to hit the various curve balls you may encounter in the voice over business. You can practice self-direction, auditioning, recording, editing, taking direction, formatting finished files, uploading files and… getting paid. Continue reading →

Posted in Auditioning, Marketing, Voice Over Business | 2 Comments

What Is Microphone “Gain” in Voice Over Recording?

Posted on May 30, 2016 by William Williams
gain knob

This one goes to 11

There’s a term that has moved from the domain of electrical engineers to the everyday world of the home voice over studio. Unfortunately the “techie” baggage the term brings with it confuses or even frightens many aspiring audio engineer/voice talents.  And that term is “gain”, specifically microphone gain.

So what is gain and how do you control it to produce the best voice over recordings?

Continue reading →

Posted in Equipment, Home Recording, Professionalism | 5 Comments

Normalizing Voice Over – The Last Thing You Want to Do

Posted on February 25, 2016 by William Williams
Normalizing Digital Recording of Voice Over

Tame those “spikes” in your audio with Limiter effect

When you’re recording voice over you want to use my “Goldilocks” theory of recording: Not to Hot or the sound will clip and distort.  And not too Cold or your voice will compete with the noise floor of the recording.  And you want to err on the conservative side of a lower recording.  So you often end up with a recording with a lower volume than the optimum.

Many talents try to fix this by “Normalizing” the final recording.  But if there are volume “spikes” in your waveform, normalizing can have little effect–or actually turn down the volume of your recording.  This video shows how to do it properly by adding an effect called a “Limiter”.

Posted in Auditioning, Equipment, Home Recording, Voice Over Videos by William Williams | 3 Comments

Fluent Reading For Better Voice Over

Posted on February 12, 2016 by William Williams
Fluent Reading starts young

Fluent Reading is Important in Voice Over

I’ve been teaching voice overs for twenty years and every student begins with the same declaration: “I can talk and I can read, so I can do this”. One of the first things we discover is that half of these talents can’t read. Now, I don’t meant they read like in the first grade, “See Spot run. Run, Spot, Run”.

I mean they can’t get through a sixty second ad without stumbling on words, missing words or substituting words. Some aspire to read audio books in their career. Well, trust me, if you can’t nail a sixty second spot, you’ll never get through a 257,000 word Harry Potter book. Continue reading →

Posted in Animation, Auditioning, Commercials, Narration, Professionalism | 1 Comment

Does Singing Help with Voiceover?

Posted on January 11, 2016 by William Williams

Singing helps voiceoverPeople come to voice over from a variety of different backgrounds. Some come from the broadcasting world. They bring clear enunciation and solid reading skills. Others come out of on-camera or stage acting. They have and edge when it comes to voice acting, which is a required skill in modern voice over performance. Still more are cartoon or game junkies. And they have an acquired reservoir of of characters stored away in their mind. But what about singing? Continue reading →

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Here’s Why You Don’t Want Voice Over Jobs

Posted on November 3, 2015 by William Williams
It Ain't Ditch Digging

OK, voice over ain’t ditch diggin’

What? Are you crazy? Of course I want jobs!

Whaddayatalkinabout?

Well, in most voice over jobs you work as a private contractor.

So unlike in a job job, you may have several different employers each week.  And several different bosses.

A steady stream of these jobs is the life blood of a voice over career. So jobs is a good thing, right?

But if you are just chasing jobs, you need to change your focus. Continue reading →

Posted in Auditioning | 7 Comments

Create Winning Voice Overs with Your “Non-Verbal Toolkit”

Posted on August 16, 2015 by William Williams

There’s a myth about speech that has been around since the Egyptians invented hieroglyphics. And that myth is that somehow you can take all of speech and condense it down to written words on a piece of paper.

Actually I think that 70% of speech is what I call nonverbal. What I mean by that is it’s not the words that you’re saying but how you say them that conveys most of the information.

So to be good at voiceovers you need to understand and control your nonverbal toolkit. This video explains what it is and how to use it to produce winning voice over auditions and jobs.

What techniques do you think contribute to a winning voice over?  Leave a comment below.

 

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