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Recent Posts
- 6 Skills You Need for ACX Audiobook Voice Over
- ACX Audiobook Narration Voice Over – Yes or No?
- Eliminate Room Echo from Your Voice Over Recording
- Speed Up Your Voice Over Editing Using Keyboard Shortcuts
- Reading in Voiceover: Improve Your Speed and Accuracy
- Should You Edit Out Breaths in Voice Over? Yes… and No!
- Breathing in Voice Over: Do It Right!
- Voice Over: Be Conversational not Announcy
- Voice Over Job? Watch the Word Count
- Pickups Hints for Voice Over Editing
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Recent Comments
- Dan on Control Voice Over Home Studio Echoes With Moving Blankets
- William Williams on What Is Microphone “Gain” in Voice Over Recording?
- Jon Kramer on Eliminate Room Echo from Your Voice Over Recording
- Travis Williams on What Is Microphone “Gain” in Voice Over Recording?
- Peter Abraham on Should You Edit Out Breaths in Voice Over? Yes… and No!
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Secret Voice Over Microphone Technique
Posted in Auditioning, Equipment, Home Recording
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Misleading Voice Over Advice-The Uglier Side of Voice Over Experts
I produced records in the 90s and I had a recording studio. Often voice over talent would ask me to record their projects and from this I developed an interest in voice over. So I asked an actor acquaintance I knew how to being this career. “oh, that’s impossible to get into!” she said. “I tried it and couldn’t get an agent blah, blah, blah…”
In spite of this advice I put together a demo and began directly marketing my skills to ad agencies and video production houses. “they’ll just throw your demo away… blah, blah…” Soon I was narrating all the videos for Princess Cruises. From this experience I landed an agent.
“Hey!, I got an agent”, I said enthusiastically to my acquaintance… Continue reading
Conversational vs Announcer Voice Over Styles
You only need to read through a handful of audition descriptions before you run into the word “conversational”. Or you may find the direction more negative such as “no disc jockey or announcer”.
As voice over styles evolve, there is a trend toward a more natural, personal read. But what exactly is this “conversational” sound and how do you achieve it? Here’s how to perfect your conversational technique. Continue reading
Posted in Acting Skills, Auditioning, Commercials, Narration
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Sound: Voice Over’s Friend and Foe
Voice 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
Posted in Auditioning, Equipment, Home Recording
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Voice Over Audition: I Care! I Don’t Care! Cure Audition Separation Anxiety
So 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
Posted in Auditioning
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Why WHY Is the Most Important Word in Voice Over
The 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.
Posted in Auditioning, Marketing, Professionalism
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Why I like Voice123.com for Voice Over Jobs
I’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
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What Is Microphone “Gain” in Voice Over Recording?
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?
Posted in Equipment, Home Recording, Professionalism
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Normalizing Voice Over – The Last Thing You Want to Do
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”.
Fluent Reading For Better Voice Over
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
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