Take some time to judge your own work

I recently uploaded a Fauxdition (that’s a fake audition) to Internet Voice Coach.

I joined that site recently and I must say that it has been a great help for a student Voice Actor! Tons of articles and advice and interviews. You can upload a sound clip for them to critique roughly once a month, and they have an audition contest each month.

The contest is sorta fun for a newbie. First you have to try to record something that sounds vaguely professional, then you have to work over the file, clean it up, turn it into an MP3 and then upload it. Good practice all the way around!

Anyway, I recorded a bunch of different takes on the audition script, and then just saved them on my computer and spent the next several days chasing my kids around the house – completely forgetting all about the recording.

Went back yesterday and listened to the clips — and it was GREAT! I came to the clips completely cold, having forgotten most everything about them (Early Alzheimer’s, I know) and it was almost like listening to a total stranger!

I could easily identify things that sounded amateurish (yeah, most of the clip, I know) and also things that I liked. It was a completely different experience from listening to your recording right after you do it.

So why don’t you practice with some scripts and record your efforts and then let them lie around for a few days before you listen to them? I think you will be surprised.

And yes, I know you can’t do that in real life — but we are learning here! Cut yourself some slack!

VOICE OVER MICROPHONE SELECTOR | Edge Studio

If you are interested in buying a microphone, this is a fun little machine to play with. I wish they had a few more mics in the mix tho…

VOICE OVER MICROPHONE SELECTOR | Edge Studio.

The Porta-Booth Pro – Your Recording Studio at Home and on the Road

Well, Harlan Hogan, who is the McGyver of Voice Overs, has come up with a new product. He had worked up the Porta Booth, a traveling soundbooth for your microphone, several years ago and everybody loved it. Now he has re-worked his idea and turned it into something pretty remarkable! Give it a look:
The Porta-Booth Pro – Your Recording Studio at Home and on the Road.

Microphones

Keep in mind that we are just starting out and are really not in need of a Neumann U87 or some other such magnificent specimen of the old-world microphone-makers art!

On the other hand, the microphone that came with the computer is NOT gonna cut it, even for us newbies.

Recording Software

If you are going to get serious about Voice Acting, you are going to have to be able to record your voice, and sooner or later you are going to have to be able to send it to people, probably as an MP3 file. That means you are going to have to get up to speed on some computer audio software.

Home Recording

Being a Voice Actor nowadays is a little different from the past (at least as far as I understand it). Once upon a time, VA’s had an agent and that agent set up auditions, and the talent went to a studio somewhere to audition. In fact, I think that a lot of the big names still operate that way.

For most of us starting out now though, things will probably be a little different. Many of us will start auditioning, and with luck booking jobs, before we get an agent. We will find these jobs online at the many casting sites and forums and even general sites like Craigslist. What we won’t be doing is traipsing off to some $500 an hour studio to lay down a couple clips in the off chance we will book a $150 job! (I know, I know; you spent 2 years, thousands of dollars in class fees, and countless hours reading aloud to yourself in a coat closet just so you could get a shot at making $150.00!?! — hmmm, how much does it cost to go to Hamburger U. again?)