Voice Talent Makes Stuff Sound Better

When you begin to think of it logically, you know how important it is for your audio project to have the best voice behind it. After all, voices are powerful. Even though they often take a backseat in our minds to a person's appearance without the perfect voice, looks ain't nothin'. And if the voice talent is all you have to go on – for instance, in a radio commercial – then the voice becomes the most important thing in the world.

A person who knows just how to use their voice can control another person just by talking. This is a startling concept the first time you consider it, but when you think about some of the most famous voices in the world, you will understand just how correct that is. Consider, for example, the actor Michael Wincott.

He's an attractive guy, but of course in the world of acting that doesn't mean a whole lot. It's just too common. But this guy gets role after role after role based on the power of his voice. He has a voice that can keep you looking over your shoulder, long after the movie is over, because you're just a little worried that the latest Michael Wincott character may just be lurking in the shadows. Remember the movie, The Count of Monte Cristo? He was the warden with the whip and the gravelly voice. Fans of the movie weren't quite sure which was more frightening, the whip – or that voice. That voice is what gets him work.

Consider, also, Clint Eastwood. Of course, that unflinching, squinty stare of his is something to write home about. But what do people do when they're doing their best Eastwood impression? They give some love to the stare, but mostly they love the way he said, “Come on punk. Make my day.” Like Wincott, Eastwood has a gravelly characteristic in his voice. But once upon a time, he knew where all the pauses were supposed to happen, and that made him something worth watching. He was worth watching because he was worth hearing.

Another actor who made great use of his voice was Marlon Brando. Now this guy had a nasally cotton-mouth voice that, untrained, would have been unpleasant. But he became an actor. He learned how to speak. He took something that stood out and made it a trademark. The rest, my friend, was timing. When he said, “I made him an offer he couldn't refuse,” as the Godfather, he didn't just say a cleverly written line – he said it with emphasis. With weight. What we are responding to isn't something these guys do because of who they are. They've been schooled. Therefore, when they said those lines, the audience never knew what hit them. But they knew that it was important.

Of course Michael Wincott, Clint Eastwood and Marlon Brando won't be available for your commercial, but they make great models to study when you are learning how voices affect audiences. You want to use some of the same principals in selecting your voice actor, or in deciding whether to use one. You are not the only one with a message for the public. There are thousands of other messages out there as well. You will have to seduce listeners, and that means getting and keeping their attention. A powerful voice can do that.

Have You Ever Seen A Voice Actor At Work?

Have you ever seen a Voice Actor or Voice Actress at work? If you have you’ll notice that even though it’s only their voice being recorded, they will utilize their hands, face and what ever other body parts are necessary to create the mood, not only for themselves, but for the listeners. Even such subtle effects as nodding or shaking ones head can often be ‘felt’ in the final work.

The subtle variations in sound as the head moves away from the microphone and back, away and back are not consciously picked up, but are a subtle reverberation shift in the final product.

This is all part of creating the mood of the piece. Professional Voice Talent will use every instrument available to insure the piece is not only believable in terms of character, but understandable and accomplishes the goal of the client. It is their job and responsibility to do so.

If you are someone looking to break into the world of being a Professional Voice Over Talent, take the time to train yourself, train your breathing and voice to be the best of the best. With the abundance of competition, only the VOPs with the most professional and polished product to offer will get the good jobs in the end.

Tips for Creating Online Voice Audio

If you are looking to create audio for some copy (narration, audio book, or other set-length piece of material), you may have no time-constraints at all. If this is the case, there are a few other factors to think about in the audio recording part.

If the material is to be posted online, consider that the size of the download can affect the speed of retrieval for the end user. If you cannot reduce the size of the file to acceptable levels, you can choose to break the audio into sections (or chapters) for individual downloads.

Also choose how the data is to be stored, or what format you want it sent to you in directly from the voice over artist. Most people choose to receive it via email in MP3 format or FTP to a website via MP3, WAV, AIF, WMA or AVI/MPEG audio. But most VO Professionals can also simply burn a CD and send it to you, or schedule an ISDN phone patch session.

If the material end-product is to be recorded onto CD for distribution, keep in mind the average space on a CD is around 700MB, or 80 minutes (the equivalent of about 12-16 songs). If not all material will fit on just one CD, you can obviously use more than one CD, in which case you should balance the material on the CDs so there’s not one 80 minute CD and one 20 minute – preferably have two 50-minute discs.

Pro Vs. Amateur Voice Overs

When creating a work of spoken art and selecting the “voice” that will represent the target product and/or service, it is of the utmost importance to consider the length of script that will be recreated.

Voice artists of today are all very different. They have different ranges, tones, pitches, volumes, different styles and accents, different timbres and moods and it is imperative that he/she be matched integrally to the piece of work. You would not, for example, hire someone who specialized in high-speed auction-style (or disclaimer-style) speaking for the purposes of recreating a delicate story or somber mood. You would also not choose that person for most narration or anything longer than a few seconds. Although they will be highly skilled in their niche, the actual act of doing a voice over will not be their forte.

For lengthier productions (30 seconds or more) it is wisest to consider actual “voice actors” as they will be the ones trained in recreating and speaking from particular emotions in order to portray the actual mood required. Especially if the oration is geared towards selling something, given that the vast majority of purchases are made on emotional decisions instead of logical ones, it is absolutely vital that someone trained in that art be the one doing the speaking. You need only watch the television ads for a few minutes to see shining examples of professional vs. non-professional creations.