When it comes to finding the right voice actor for your needs, it’s a lot like hiring for any other job. You see the qualifications, ask them to come in for an interview, hire them, and collaborate on the job at hand. But how do you find the best voice actor for your voice over project?
Tricky.
Unfortunately, your prospective actor’s degree in performing arts doesn’t tell you how their voice will sound, or what their personality is like — or more importantly — what sort of work ethic they subscribe to.
The thing is: no paper or degree or work history with a local radio station is going to tell you what a voice is going to sound like. Their samples and demos will provide you with a reasonable idea but ultimately, they need to voice your script. And every voice is unique. Every voice actor’s approach to a read is unique – unless you direct them very specifically. There’s actually no universal product we can call ‘the voice over’ that every Tom, Dick, Shamila, or Sally can produce.
So how do you know who to hire? Is it the guy with the cartoon character impressions, or the woman who sounds like the Queen in the Netflix series?
Unique voices
It’s firstly important to address the fact that each person’s voice is different. There’s an innate difference in the tonal quality, body, resting pitch, vocal or timbral flexibility, and so forth.
Singers are classified as bass, tenor, alto and soprano. Aside from the range of pitches they sing in, the voice qualities and tone also varies. No singer sounds the same, and the same is going to apply to voice actors. Their vocal registers are divided into modal, falsetto, and whistle. And one of the most unique registers is vocal fry.
So when choosing your voice actor, just remember you shouldn’t expect an actor with a deep and rich, molasses-like voice, to provide a light, cotton-candy voice. It. Just. Won’t. Work. Trust us.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the actor.
Papers please
When looking for your actor, it’s important to know what kind of voice over you’re looking for. Is it narration? Is it an ad read? Is it a character voice? If you know what you’re looking for, you’ll be able to find an actor with credibility in each genre.
Voice123 makes it easy. We have filters to help you save time on your search, including: language, gender and age, purpose of the recording, time zones, payment methods and more. We offer a wide variety of professional voice actors who are ready to provide you with the voice you need.
As with most jobs, a decorated resume can be very appealing. Generally, good credibility goes a long way when it comes to providing good service. But be careful of hyperbole. It’s not uncommon. These days it’s not hard to check the veracity of a big boast.
Also remember that all seasoned pros started somewhere. Voice123 has some fine newbies too!
Samples
With a voice actor’s profile, you’ll see that they adorn their voices with adjectives like “warm,” or “friendly,” and “youthful.” Generally, a voice actor will meet their titles, but you will need to listen to the demo reels or samples.
Whether they’re demos or samples, listening to them is how you’ll get to know what a voice actor truly sounds like. But don’t assume they’re going to sound like that all the time. Typically, a voice actor will put up their best work, which often involves hours of editing for perfection.
By all means, you should expect them to sound like they do in their samples. Just recognize that samples and demos are sort of a highlight reel.
Hire a professional
There are people who will say they are voice actors — and they have the talent to be voice actors — but still aren’t voice actors.
What does that mean? It means that you want to hire someone who has professionalism. Not just wacky voices and accents.
A professional voice actor is someone who is: timely, available, organized, willing to collaborate, eager to help, and pleasant to work with. Even if the voice is excellent, you shouldn’t have to settle for less than that.
If you notice that your voice actor is: lazy, unresponsive, irresponsible, unwilling to cooperate or adjust, or seems more eager to catch the football game than to work, then it might be time to find someone else.
Prepare to collaborate
It’s likely your prospective voice actor will have questions about the job. Just prepare the details of the project ahead of time.
They’ll want to know how long they should expect to work, how the recording will be used, length of the script, how you’ll want the file (mp3, .wav…) and so on.
After all this, it’s just down to good luck and good intentions. Hopefully all the many gears click in the right place. And remember, your voice actor is going to want the project to go well just as much as you do.
We wish you the greatest success!
