Making A Living With Your Voice

It’s not VoIP yet, but a number of agencies are connecting voice over talent with talent seekers needing people for speaking roles for radio, TV, narration, audio books, etc. Most of these agencies let you upload a prerecorded audio demo file. If you receive work, there are a variety of ways to deliver the product, including overnight delivery of a CD/ DVD, download via the Internet, or emailing the finished MP3 file (or whatever format).

However, there is the potential for integrating soft VoIP clients with an application that lets people do voice over demos straight from their computers into the talent agency’s online database - one that clients can search to find a suitable talent for their project.

Finished work, of course, would require higher quality than a demo. With high-speed, reliable Internet access, and a good microphone and sound card on an applicant’s computer, the actual work could even be done with asophisticated CRM (Customer Relationship Mangement) VoIP application that monitors the entire process, delivers files to a client, and then pays talent through an online payments processor such as Paypal. (Note: I find my home Wi-Fi connection generally unreliable. If you are going to use Wi-Fi, here are ten tips for boosting your Wi-Fi signal.)

Increasingly more people have home recording studios. While these may not be the sophisticated setups you find in a professional studio, with the reduced costs of fast computers with large hard drives, as well as professional soundcards, some home studios rival the quality of a semi-professional rackmounted system. My own first professional soundcard originally sold for $1700, but I picked it up for only $800, new, because it was being discontinued for more powerful models.

Still, you don’t need to get sophisticated for demo recordings. You could use one of several applications for recording from Skype. Alternately, you could also use a variety of tools or services, such as Gabcast, to record a podcast episode, then copy the recording to your voice over profile.

There is also my fave audio recording package, which is surprisingly high quality for being free, and can accept Cubase VST plugins: Audacity, rumoured to have been written by professionals in the audio software industry for musicians and vocalists who couldn’t afford expensive software.

So if you’re thinking of making a living doing voice over work, you have a number of ways to record yourself - with or without VoIP - and get started..