Joel Keen

Midwestern USA (no accent), Southern USA (various levels of drawl, etc), Deep-voiced "announcer", Authoritative, Whisper

I have worked in media-related jobs for 35 years. Those experiences have included: Radio (On-Air and Production Director), Broadcast A/V production, Voice-Acting and various Voice-Over/Post-Production assignments. While I don't do "impressions", I have been called on to create "character voices" for a number of scripts, and have a certain flexibility that is an asset. Most people hire me for the "silky, smooth, deep resonance" of my natural speaking voice, however. I can take that "voice of authority" up or down a notch, depending on what is required. Almost all of my training came "on-the-job", although I did graduate from a Radio course (from the now-defunct Tennessee Institute of Broadcasting) at the age of 18. I later took a course in Recording Technique, and was considered such a "natural", the school's director wanted to hire me to teach one of the courses. I declined. As my radio career "blossomed", it became obvious one of my strongest assets was the ability to read copy in a wide variety of inflections and sound very natural doing so. I branched out into free-lance voice-overs for video productions in the late '80s while working for the local cable franchise producing programs and commercials (many of which featured my voice as the narrator or announcer). I have a modest home studio comprised of a Mackie mixer, several microphones (Shure SM7, Rode NT1-A, Sennheiser 421 and others), M-Audio Firewire 410 interface and Yamaha HS-80M monitors (plus a long list of musical instruments). I also really like my Sennheiser HD-280 headphones. My platform is a PC running numerous programs such as Cakewalk's Sonar 8.5, Adobe Audition (still my preferred waveform editor)and a host of VST plug-ins. My control room has a very nice, natural sound for voice work, and the larger tracking room can be employed if a more spacious area sound is needed. I am considering adding a Mac (or a "Hackintosh" PC) to be able to offer "Sound Connect" as another transfer option. I am currently a subscriber to "YouSendIt", which allows upload of large files and sends e-mails to recipients with a link to download the files. I have learned to respond well to direction, and am willing to try "new things" with my voice if the director can coach me in the direction they want. My editing skills rank up there with my voice-over abilities, thanks to the many years producing commercials and promos in various radio jobs (and program production for the local cable TV franchise). Learning how to get "the sound" has been an integral part of my self-training, and something about which I continue to strive to educate myself. I am also a musician, playing guitar, piano (keyboards), drums and saxophone, and have provided soundtracks and beds for some of my voice projects.