Chris Bess

Scottish, Chicago, Minnesotan, Missourian, Irish, Old Jewish Men, Tired Old Men, Southern Gentlemen, Loud New Jersey Guys, Raspy Rednecks, Goofy, Big Dumb Goofy Rednecks, Big-Voiced Eastern European types, American Nerd, English Nerd, Surfer Dude, Australian Punters, Small Girls, Cheesy Morning Radio Announcer, Matter-of-Fact Announcer, Ted Knight-style announcer, Fifties-era "This Just In:" Announcer, Snippy Female Bureaucrat, Barney Fife-ish, Jimmy Stewart-ish, Angry Korean, Self-effacing Japanese Broken English, Herve' Villechaize, Kermit the Frog-ish, Pompous Talk Radio Guys, Limbaugh-ese, Andy Griffith-like Carolinian, Joe Pesci types, Antonia Banderas wanna-bees, Walter Matthau,The Godfather, Estelle Harris, Lounge Singers

My primary experience in V/O has been in the music industry, adding lead and backing vocals to a variety of styles of songs ranging from Rock, Country, Standards, Swing, Blues, and Novelty recordings. CD's featuring my backing parts include: I Hear Music in the Air--Judy Woodall--(2011) Liquored Up and Lacquered Down--Southern Culture on the Skids (2002) All You Can Eat--Noises Dad Makes (1999) The Secret Circus--Swing Set (1996) I'm Drunk/Hey Brother Pour the Wine (7" single)--Mojo Nixon & the New Duncan Imperials (1993) Loserville--The New Duncan Imperials--(1993) I have done "traditional" V/O work for the United Way of St.Louis for a small sampling of radio and television spots. This is the work that currently interests me the most, and I'd like to pursue it further. I've been a professional and semi-professional musician for over 20 years, recording not just vocals but also generous amounts of keyboard, guitar, accordion, bass & percussion parts as well. While in college studied Audio One and Two, and did both announcements and minor v/o work for the radio station. While never an official member, I have also worked with several regional improv troupes including the Transactors of Chapel Hill, NC, and the Network of St. Louis, MO. My home studio rig is quite modest: A Korg Hard Disk Recorder, and a couple of microphones including a Shure SM-7, an SM-58, and an Audio Technica PRO-35. I have, believe it or not, recorded entire albums using these simple tools, one of which has generated more than 40,000 dollars in royalties for me over the years. Mastering and tweaking of any recordings I have made have been handled by outside sources, most recently at Sean Murphy's Roman Numerals Studio in Durham, NC. His equipment list includes: presonus studiolive 16.4.2 motu digital performer 7.24 apogee ensemble firewire various software compressors, equalizers. limiters. de-essers, and mastering suite.(waves,psp,wave burner) various fet and tube wide diaphragm multi pattern microphones.(chameleon,oktava,m-audio,cad,mxl) As I mentioned before, I've been a professional and semi-professional musician for over 20 years, recording not just vocals but also generous amounts of keyboard, guitar, accordion, bass & percussion parts as well. I've also made a modest career of creating music that is frequently licensed (via my Administers at Pravda Music Publishing) to cable TV and indie films as background music.