James O'Connor

Accents are a huge interest, which is why i have included the word "cultural" in my short voice description. i've done the best i can with English, Mexican, Northern or Canadian accents, African-American accents such as great influences of mine, Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle, dabbled in Irish, such as Peter Griffin from Family Guy or even George Carlin performing his old Irish-Catholic routines. At times i'm certain that i have attempted someone else's imitation of someone else. Impersonations attempted have been people such as Hunter S. Thompsom, Richard Dreyfuss, William Shatner, Bill Hader, Seth Rogan, Don Pardo, Bill Murray, Jimmy Durante, Buddy Hackett, of course George Carlin, singers such as Fats Domino, Louie Armstrong, Les Claypool, Gene and Dean Ween, female vocalists such as Janis Joplin and Bjork, characters like Beavis & Butthead, Cheech & Chong, McLovin from the movie, "Superbad", Peter, Louis and Chris from Family Guy, Marge Simpson, Napoleon Dynamite, Cartman from South Park, Yoda, Kermit the Frog and Ralph the Dog, and also a few original characters such as "the 50's Newscaster", "the 60's Newscaster" and "Marblemouth", in relation to the Buddy Hackett voice.

...i suppose impersonations (including a few imagined) were the start of this interest. At first, since the age of single digits, it was a joy to attempt to immitate anything i heard on t.v. or radio. Basically i was into sounds; any sound. Tape recording was a favorite pastime in the single digits as well. Not only recording myself, but going around the house and recording any appliance, creaking door, or tool in the garage that made a noise was an enjoyable habit. At about age ten i had heard an old recording from a local broadcaster airing news about the 1967 Chicago blizzard, which then led to my interest in recording make believe newscasters on t.v. and radio, also interesting me in commercials and narrations. I had also discovered Wes Harrison, "Mr. Soundeffects" who performed many sounds with his voice and had recorded soundeffects for many older cartoons. He immediately became a large influence. Over the years, the interest in sounds of course interested me in a lot of music and wanting to try creating some of it myself. To be honest, however, sometimes i think i might have a better shot doing a musical solo with voice instead of an instrument. A current favorite would have to still be the imitations. Even though it may not be my specialty, i have attempted female voice impersonations as well, some of which i have tried within creating music. i have never done this professionally. The only training i've had were personal hobbies. The first hobby at about age eight was the 1969 Panasonic tape recorder my dad had given me. i had spent at least six years experimenting with it. At that time i had explored, as simply put, the existance of sounds. In the teen years my voice changed, and that basically freaked me out, and so i turned to musical instruments for a while to attempt to make sounds instead of voice. Lately, a dabble in the music, an everlasting love for impersonations (in spite of the adult voice) and a heavy load of vocabulary is how i try to keep my uneducated self as self-educated as i can on this topic. George Carlin has been the fullest impact on me as far as vocabulary and jotting random thoughts down, as well as comedy. This is a small, in-house studio capable of recording voice, converting to cd and uploading for travel, via the internet (cds can also be sent via snail mail.) It consists of older components; a 2001 version of Logic Audio Gold run on a 1997 Macintosh 7600/120 PowerPC. (certain effects such as delays and pitch-shifters are available on this software, but will not be used for any altercation unless instructed to do so. An equalizer may be the only feature used, to eliminate hiss or adjust volume if needed.) One Audio-Technica ST90 microphone will feed into a Tascam Portastudio 414 4-track cassette mixer by 1/4 inch jack, which will be used as a through and be fed to an Emagic EMI 2/6 Interface via RCA jack, which will finally deliver the signal to the computer via USB. This will allow recording single monoural voice tracks to be burned to cd. They can then be uploaded to my current computer for internet use, a 2007 iMac, operating on OS X, version 10.4.11, where they can be converted to MP3s and delivered through the internet. Most importantly, the aquired skills here, if they can be considered skills, we're not aided by the help of any schooling. If art is found within the individual, than Art school cannot teach one their own art. With that however, i can not necessarily say that there are any skills here. The learning has all come from personal interest and would have to be judged based on that, if at all. The decision to go through with this website is based purely on a similar interest, which is basically that i wonder if anyone would notice. Again, i have never done this professionally nor have i ever been paid for it. i work in a blue collar setting and the one thing that my present career has allowed me to do is test some of the material out to the other workers. However, a large portion of me has always lived around the world of everything audio. While video has always been a fear, audio has been a great interest. Voices on t.v., radio and the environment, and musical instruments are the largest influences on this interest, aside from the blessing of hearing.