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Before I explain what Audacity settings you need to produce the clear voice-over audio I want to give a shout out to the amazing team who made Audacity software. They have done an incredible job making such powerful and great software available for FREE. And I encourage you to use Audacity software as it perfectly suits beginner voice-over talent. 

And please do not forget to show your appreciation to the Audacity team if not right away, then at least after you start making money in voice-over using Audacity.

Download and install Audacity

Go to https://www.audacityteam.org/download/ to download Audacity for your operating system. After download completed install and open Audacity. 

Correct setup for Voice-over recording with Audacity

As mentioned with the right equipment Audacity is ready to use out of the box. If you use quality microphone and audio interface you save your time on audio processing and fixing issues. See this article to get an idea of what is the recommended setup for voice-over from home.

The reason I am stressing out the importance of using the quality setup is to avoid wasting time and potentially downgrading your work in the future. With Audacity, you can improve your recording and fix many mistakes at the cost of time and often losing the quality of audio.

But it is really unnecessary and can be avoided if your gain level is set properly, you use the correct reading technique and the recording equipment is chosen right for the job.

Select the recording interface

Regardless of what microphone you own or use you need to properly connect it to the computer where you intend to run Audacity. Once connected select your recording microphone or audio interface.

For demonstration purposes, I have connected Focusrite Scarlett Solo audio interface and Blue Yeti microphone to my laptop. Remember to select the correct device you intend to use, otherwise, no or poor sound will be recorded.

Set gain to the optimal value

On your microphone or audio interface set Gain level so your recorded voice peaks between -9 and -6 dB. Anything above -3 dB is considered clipping.

This alone is one of the most important settings that can make your audio recording experience much easier. 

Because I believe it is easier to avoid a mistake than correct it, I am not going to explain in this article how to fix clipping. But I give you an extra tip.

How to avoid clipping in voice-over. How to avoid clipping without changing the gain level. If you are required to record in different pitch levels let’s say you have a whisper and screaming passages in the script you can keep the same gain level on your hardware. Use this technique, for a quieter voice move your mouse closer to the microphone, and for a louder voice move your mouse a few inches further from the mic and turn your head so you are not facing it directly. That will allow you to perform as required and not to clip or be too quiet.

Record your voice-over

When recording your voice use the instructions I am providing above and on this website. Simply try to keep the distance between mic and mouse about 6 inches. If possible monitor and maintain a waveform about the same shape and size without clipping. If you made a mistake or lost a line in a script, just re-record it and continue. Mistakes and pauses are easy to remove. At the end of the recording session stay quiet and maintain silence for 3 to 5 seconds to record a room noise. You will need this section in the next step.

Audacity voice post-processing

Once recording completed it is time to finalize the production. You can choose to listen to your audio first to make sure the overall recording is done right. It means you should have enough of a good read to cover for issues if any.

Then there are a few manipulations I usually do with recorded audio for the regular no audiobook voice-over job. And I do them in a certain order because I believe in less is more when it comes to audio processing. Less programmatical changes to audio, more authentically it sounds.

Firstly, I do Noise Reduction. That is why I recommended recording a few seconds of a room noise at the end of the recording. These few seconds serve as a baseline for the noise reduction on the track. It is important there be no smallest spike in this background noise chunk. 

Select this section and click on Effect > Noise Reduction… the sub-window will open, click on Get Noise Profile. Now Audacity has your background noise pattern that includes a microphone self-noise. In the next step, it will apply on the whole track and even out similar noise distortions. 

Select whole track Ctrl+A then click on Effects > Repeat Noise Reduction. 

Next, I clean the recording by going from the beginning of the track to the end. Whenever needed I add space between voice and most often I remove excessive pauses.

I also remove the mistakes and replace the leftover noise like deep breathing or air gasping with about the same length of a quiet noise. Yet again repurposing that room noise from the end of the recording.

And lastly is Normalization. This effect will proportionally set the peak amplitude for your track. In simple words, it will set the highest peak to the defined level and then adjust the whole track proportionally.

To perform Normalization in Audacity select your track and click on Effect > Normalize… the sub-window will open where you select the checkbox Normalize Maximum Amplitude to. I recommend using the value close to -3 dB, -3.3 dB works fine. Then click OK. 

Now your track is ready to be exported into .wav or .mp3 file and delivered to your client unless something else is requested.

Fixing errors and voice fine-tuning in Audacity 

There can be scenarios when the recording level is uneven, then I apply Normalization to the portion of the track only. But most of the time post-editing is a quick and not an invasive procedure. 

It is obvious that not always everything goes smooth and some errors cannot be re-recorded and need to be fixed in software.

Also, your situation may require to apply compression of the recorded track to bring quite and louder passages to the same level. This would be the topic for another article.

You can learn from my course how to improve your recording technique so you have fewer errors to deal with.

I never get tired of stressing out the importance of quality voice-over demo. How do I define the quality of the voice-over demo? Simply, quality voice-over demo selling performance drives new clients to you.

The difference between a demo and professionally crafted demo specifically for you is your success or failure in voice-over. You truly can’t put a price on it.

It is obvious that this message could be understood differently by the beginner and established voice actor. And their abilities to perceive and implement this idea are different. Not everyone can afford to pay the price for voice-over demo a few hundred dollars at the start of their career.

But hopefully, everyone agrees that the demo is your best representative and tireless agent. If done right and if used properly. 

Studio voice-over demo production is expensive

The price for a voice-over demo of the highest production quality done in a recording studio can climb to $2000. And it is no surprise as there likely to be few people working with you. All are professionals and their time costs money. 

At some point in voice acting career, you may need their services, but probably not in the first few years.

What voice-over demo are you getting for the money you pay to a recording studio?

• You have a good chance to receive an outstanding quality demo. And it’s expected because you have a team of people working with you.
• You will receive experience working in a production environment. You will get to know the process of working directly with the sound engineer. It is a great experience to be in such an environment and get support and attention from the professionals.
• Networking with many people you meet can bring new opportunities and leads. Definitely keep this in mind and use the chance to present yourself to people in the industry.

What are the concerns of studio demo production?

• The high cost which not everyone can afford. Especially at the beginning of a voice-over career, it is hard to justify thousands of dollars expense prior to seeing any results from VO work. Maybe later you find benefits from a studio-recorded demo worse the price, but probably not for your first demo.
• The process of making voice-over demo in a studio may consume more time than you would expect. You will not get in front of the mic right away. Firstly you are going to be interviewed, then your voice will be tested and the script should be written specifically to your voice. And once you ready to record, it can take a few hours, maybe a callback.
• Once the demo is done it is done. But what if you find the market did not respond to it as expected? Maybe you would like to tweak something to meet some new trends? Making revisions are expensive and take a long time as you need to book a studio again. 
• And you have to work with them again because the quality and sound of the studio produced demo can be hardly matched from your home setup. You don’t want your demo to be like a Frankenstein sewed from pieces. 

Even the cost of making a demo in a recording studio can be justified, it should be well thought through in advance.

Save money and make a demo yourself

You can make your own demo completely yourself from home and virtually at no cost. But there are few benefits and caveats which you are going to come across.

To make a good voice-over demo from home you need voice recording equipment and skills to process audio.

• You learn new skills and gain experience as you go making your own demo is part of learning.
• You save money momentarily by repurposing the equipment you have or about to buy. The equipment for making a voice-over demo is the same as you going to use for work for your clients. So there are no special expenses, you would be buying it anyways.
• Demo done on your own equipment will advertise the working quality of your future works. Your future customer will hear the same sounding audio production from your demo and from your recording.

What are the caveats of making demo at home?

• Lack of constructive criticism from unbiased professionals. Your voice acting performance and production needs a review. Someone from outside must listen to your demo and give you feedback. You can’t form a good enough opinion on your work as you can’t hear your voice the way others do. 
• Designing and producing voice-over demo all by yourself will take a long time to prepare which delays your time to market. And thus you miss some opportunities.
• Making a voice-over demo is not a simple process of recording your voice saying different phrases. Making a voice-over demo is rather a multi-step process that involves many aspects of any skill and in-person cooperation.

Voice-over demo production is a very important and specific task. Think of it as it is your business card, it is your ticket to the sale, like it is your agent working for you tirelessly day and night all over the Internet. And if you think of it that way it will become obvious, you can’t underestimate the importance of it. 

Any mistake on your demo will be taking work opportunities away from you and devalue your cost. If you don’t want it to happen to you, get professional help.

How do you do a professional voice over demo?

Getting help from someone who has experience in voice acting and demo production is what you need when starting your voice acting career. 

Hiring a professional to make a voice-over demo seems to be a balanced option. You get the best balance of price/quality/time and it suits the most beginner voice actors.

See how hiring professionals to make voice-over demo benefits you.

• Balanced quality/price is the best option if you take a VO career seriously.
• Professionals will take you through the steps of making a demo process that you would miss or not able to perform properly. Like making script up to your personality, coaching and directing your performance, helping you to assemble the demo reel.
• A demo producer will make sure your demo is done right and done in a timely efficient fashion. So you are avoiding a long time project and what it can potentially become if you’d be working on it yourself. Remember the time to market is important.

Things to remember when choosing the right professional to work on your demo.

• You need to work with a proven professional, or you risk getting little to no benefit. Make sure you’ve seen previous records of successful work from this person.
• It is reasonable to pay some amount of money for professional help ahead of time. Normally payment is split and you should not pay all amounts ahead of time.
• Make sure you have revisions included in your agreement. It will serve you well if you notice some issues with the demo later on. Which can happen to everyone with a lack of experience. Or if you see demo is not performing as you expected. If a number of people listened to the demo fairly high, but you don’t see it bringing a new client to you. Then the market may want something else, that revision can be useful.

What is a voice-over demo to you?

Your demo is an investment in your career which for sure will pay back and many times. 

For an affordable price, you get a professional with experience personally working on your demo reel. And you gain an important networking benefit to whom you can refer to in the future and get more help. 

I would recommend you approach making demo responsibly and not underestimate that powerful tool of your future career in VO.

Work with the best to be the best!

For me, it could be challenging to describe to you how to tense a throat, move a jaw and tongue placed, move but I will try.

To change your voice for character acting you need to practice it. Voice changing is about skill and not so much of a talent. Practice impressions of other voices, musical instruments, animal sounds and you will develop that skill in your voice.

To master any skill takes a long time. A lot of boring practice and unfortunately with impressions this means spending a lot of time on your own talking to yourself. If you think of a place to practice it could be a shower, a commute in the car. Beware doing it on public transportation, may not be the best suitable place. 

The idea is to use any possible opportunity to exercise the impression or character you want to be able to perform. Better practice in shorter periods but often. The longer practices can drain you too much and will not help that effectively built a muscle memory.

Practice purposely and targeted. Once you found what you do best with your voice, keep improving and developing that voice. Your body needs to remember how to perform that specific noise to the particular character or impression, then move to learn another character. 

Because it is required to set your patience for a long time training. You may not acquire consistent performance very quickly. But don’t give up early. Keep exercising and looking for what you can do best with your voice, keep improving.

It is also important to train as at the time of real work, you need to be able consistently to deliver that character impression working with a voice which is not common to you. It is actually hard to deliver quality if you want others to pay for it.

While practicing, it is a good idea to seek feedback. Better from someone who understands it, who is a professional. You need to hear constructive criticism early and you need to take it without offense. The earlier you improve, the better you become.

Voice-changing training techniques

Don’t be shy to look and sound stupid. Because you may feel this way. Changing voice for acting requires a lot of mess around making noises and faces. But it is for a reason. You must pay attention to which muscles involved to make this or that sound.

Start practicing in front of a mirror. You will see that doing a certain voice is not only vocal cords and tongue job. It often includes your face mimic, your body movements and your emotional state. Training character voice-over while watching yourself in a mirror helps you get into the role and naturally deliver better performance.

Perfectly helpful would be if you have any theater background. But even without it, you can do great. Relax, get ready to look ugly, dum, funny or gross, like if you’d be doing an old lady witch voice. Sometimes you have to make that gross face to make that voice.

Do change your face mimics, stretch your neck or shorten it pushing head between your shoulders, play with a jaw position and keep making voices. Also, it is a good idea to record it all on the microphone so you can listen back and recognize which character you can do best and which did not go well and you need to change something. 

It’s all about imagination, playing, having fun and being open. Very helpful would be the following exercise. Have the characters images printed or displayed on a monitor and create voices for them. Start from giving the character name, and them the traits, habits, age, etc. This will let you understand how your character laughs or cry, how they handle anger or show compassion. It starts living inside your brain, and when it is time to perform the play comes out naturally. 

Once you played a bit with your voice and discovered what you can do good and what is not that great yet. It is time to take character acting seriously and consistently do exercises to train your voice. Trained voice will withstand longer-acting still delivering outstanding performance. Trained voice broadens your abilities to do more different noises to craft better characters. 

(link to my course)I recommend you get great training in voice-acting designed to teach you the techniques most important in your early start-up career.

Once you know your character and discovered what noises can your mouth produces, give the character a fitting voice. If you think of it, it is very exciting to give a voice to a character. It becomes interactive and sort of bring life to the creature. Whether it is a robotic voice, little girl voice, creepy old voice, rough gangster voice, metallic robot voice, echoing mountain voice even AI assistant will become more alive with a voice.

To be capable of performing a wider range of voices, you need to learn and practice techniques for a whole lot of your body parts. Yes, making different voices requires more than tongue and vocal cords positioning as mentioned above. 

Body movements are going along with good character impressions. If your character is funny and energetic for you being jumpy and spontaneously moving while voice acting can also be very productive and helpful. It will help you to enter the state and act like you are that character, and your body will help you to the rhythm it tight. 

Also singing or onomatopoeia different objects will help you to discover and learn new sounds. Which you can use for scaling the variety of voices.

Character voice examples

Every character voice has some signature tone or a special way of sounding. Envision your character or better have a picture of it. Think of its personality and apply it to yourself. You must do it very well.

Acting is very important here. So regardless of what you are a tiny lady, you must be able to become a Grinch or if you a guy in 40s you have to be comfortable making the voice of Liza from Simpsons. Good for you it is not done on camera, so don’t be shy. 

In your career, you may be required to make many different character voices. Use different techniques and approaches for the best results.

• To make grand, god-like, majestic voices you need to inject growl into the voice. 
• To make higher-pitched voices for small characters not just make voice higher, but making voice shaking will add to the character’s tiny and fragile structure. Always consider the look of a character to make a matching voice. If you stretch your neck of the shoulders, you see how your voice changes even if you are not trying to act, just speak. Small creatures can be nervous, shaky, uncertain you become too. Use your physicality to shape the voice.
• Elderly like gnome or dwarf character voice would need your voice pitched, shaken and stretched. 
• The deep-pitched voice you talk deeper and slower. Talking with confidence and maybe even impersonating a bigger figure of yourself may help. You inflate your breast and act like this. Sit your head deep between the shoulders and act.
• The “snooty” voice to make need you to speak with a precise and slow pace. Focus on your words and perhaps make that ending “s”  in the words whistling. Keep your nose higher and head tilted a bit.

How to craft character voice

To better understand a character’s voice acting, think of it in simpler terms. Like it is a cookie recipe, change ingredients to get different flavors. Noise, rhythm, pitch, and accent are your key ingredients to many custom voices.

Noise can help to craft gangster, bandit or wolverine voice. It requires some graveling, this kind of phlegm in the back of your throat. It sounds sharp and raspy. 

Rhythm can be used to distinguish different character types. Various pauses’ timing is specific to different personalities. Use them too. 

Pitch is what makes voices so different. Simply changing it, you can sound whatever between a mouse Jerry to Elmo.

An accent adds to fit better the character’s origin. Many different languages have distinguished accent. For example, Britain accent in America perceived as soft at the end and rolling fading from word to word.

In contrast, the Russian accent would be more like strong cutting words ending, R sounds always like R in rocket nor like R in a car. You get the idea.

Pitch, accent, noise, and rhythm what you play to craft a character voice. Different character voice requires a different recipe. 

Your homework to come up with the list of different characters and for each craft a recipe to describe and impersonate such character voice.

Pro Tip! To further improve character acting try adding voice defects like sizzle, lisp or stutter ads more personality to impersonating a character.

I have a detailed break down to simple components of different voice types you can do. You will learn how to use simple changes to produce up to a hundred distinctly different character voices in Voice Character Generator module of Blueprint To Voice-Over Freelance

Using Audacity software to improve character voice 

Using audio editing software is one of many skills voice-over freelancers must-have. In some cases additional sound effects are very welcome to include in a demo, also background music or effects add to the overall atmosphere. 

But be aware it is not always required when you do work for hire often time you asked not to do any post-editing, This is for production to do themselves as only they know what exactly they need a voice to be to fit the project. 

Yours is to deliver a clean recording and them to do a variety of mixing to fit their needs. However, if the project requires you to deliver a post edited job, or you are working on a type of project where you have multiple roles, be ready to fulfill a sound engineer role. 

Depending on the environment where the action is taking place, different sound effects must be used. Like if you playing a character being in the cave, or on a stadium, or on the highway, or underwater.

Audacity is a great tool to use to further add changes to your voice and create an ambiance.

Become amazing animation voice actor

Impressions of characters are predominantly a memory listening and observation-based exercise. It is a skill, not a talent. The depth and range of your voice may limit you to what voices you can accurately cover at that moment in time.

But over time practicing your voice will develop that tone deeper or higher. Have a growth mindset, if something didn’t work right away seek what you missing, find another approach, give it more time and practice until effort will bring fruits.

Try playing with your voice to discover your abilities. Repeat after other characters. Watch your favorite animation show and repeat after characters or try to speak like them. See how good you are doing and when found the best match, keep working towards this direction.

Here is one more tip. Try making different voices and noises to make yourself laugh. Record yourself playing and joking around, then listen to it, or play to someone to get feedback. Pick what you liked and keep developing that style of character play.

Do your research, do not only rely on your imagination on how a particular character should sound like. Search for examples and get inspired, little preparation can make a big difference. 

It is all about the acting what makes you sound special, in fact, your character voice performance is 90% of acting and only 10% of voice qualities. Act like the character voice you making, the rest will follow.

The report is built with the goal to provide the most recent and relevant data to the voice performers to help them justify their efforts and serve as a point of reference in the conducted business.

This report helps you understand the landscape of content production and trends of what vocal qualities that creatives and producers are seeking out. Starter voice talents can find useful statistics for the past 2019 and voice-over industry forecasts for 2020 in this report. 

2019 Voice-over industry report

The report is free to share if the appropriate link provided to the source.

Download and scroll through to see how the voice market is huge and what potential it brings to the new talent like you. Of course, if willing to consistently show the effort and follow friendly advice provided on this website.

Industry Snapshot & Commentary

The industry was doing good in 2019. Particularly it was driven by new eras content delivery models like streaming video and podcasts, increased volume advertisements through social media and such. 

Digital ad spending surpassed traditional advertisement spending. By 2023 this number has the potential to exceed two-thirds of total media spending. 

Broadcast media ad spending in 2019 declined more than expected losing TV radio ad 3.4%. 

Combined linear and digital ad spending grew by 5.1% bringing 6.6% more revenue.

In the US linear and digital ad revenue showed opposite trends in 2019; linear declined 2.3% and projected trend in 2020 to continue shrinking to another 4.3%, while digital ad revenue grew in 2019 more than 16% as mentioned surpassing linear ad spending in absolute numbers,  in 2020 it will keep the trend growing in two digits numbers estimated 11%.

World stats showed the same trend shifting towards the digital understandably at a slower pace than the US.

Audio product over the Internet was consumed by over 80% of Internet users in 2019. And streaming services like Spotify and Pandora through their channel targeting were the main advertisement providers for the brands.

The trend in the industry continued for brands to broaden their resource base hiring freelancers directly.

Independent gig workers and contingent gig workers are striving the more than ever in the voice-over industry. The reason is not the only advertisement and animation markets show solid growth in 2019 as years before. It is also thanks to increasing demand from smaller content creators adding video content on streaming services like YouTube, making more podcasts, publishing more audiobooks titles, and e-learning content.

E-learning content added more demand for narrated video and also performed voice acting on camera.

This trend will continue in the future as many more people shift to online ways to study new subjects.

Voice-over Sales and Historical and Forecasted Growth

Revenue Insights & Benchmarks

Animation voice-over jobs were the most popular among new freelance voice talents.

Voice-over Historical and Forecasted Growth Pay

What compensation employee talents or union workers receive?

 Per union SAG-AFTRA, all rates grow on average 3% each year with predicted 3,5% in 2020

Average Payroll at brand companies

Pay per Employee vs Freelancer in a voice-over

Wages for working at the studio at least 1 hour expected base $450, working 4 hours-day normal load expected base pay is $900. If working harder 6 hours performing in more than 1 voice, then expected base $1700. The same work by voice-over contractors should be compensated at a +50% rate.

For comparison, audio post-editing and misc jobs like extra rehearsals, and paid callbacks are paid at $30-$40/hour

Voice-over industry forecast for 2020

Digital media distribution allows more specific and personal targeting and consists of an enormously diverse number of content creators. That rapid growing trend constitutes a higher number of voice projects with a lower average budget compare to traditional linear production.

More opportunities for smaller studios and self-represented performers than ever before.

If you haven’t started doing voice-overs yet, it’s time to seriously to consider it. Yes, it is more than just talking to a microphone, it requires attention and involvement in a script. But you will work in a very comfortable environment from your home and you get paid for it. 

Don’t delay, start today!

To start a successful voice-over career, you need the right mindset. In voice-over, it is about understanding the difference between reading text to the microphone and delivering the message to listeners. Understanding clients’ needs and working on project success. Spending for adequate equipment and investing time to learn new voice techniques. Seeking the ways to promote yourself to move your career further actively.

You

You got this idea to try yourself in voice-overs. You may want to make a few extra dollars added to your income. Or you a kid or teenager who wants to make your own money instead of asking parents for allowances. Or maybe you are a stay-at-home parent or for any other reason staying at home person who has time and wants a working solution on how to use the time while at home, and start making money. Or you a parent who wants to get a child to the acting industry. 

Whatever reasons you have, it is your motivator to start a voice-over journey. It will become your responsibility to take voice acting business seriously and deliver promised quality voice-over to the customers. 

Doing business as a freelancer in voice-over no doubt exciting. You are making money from home. Any day. But it means that you are working any day. Customers from different time zones all around the globe will contact you at the time of their convenience. You will be waking up to an inbox filled with requests, and you may be sending them audio files late in the evening. It all depends on your schedule. It is not bad; it is what it is. 

People cooperating from other countries know that their messages are answers delayed, and don’t expect your reply when you have midnight. It will become a matter of your habit to do the first thing in the morning to reply to work-related inquiries. Sometimes the timely response can make a difference between you having a job or audition or not. All you need to stay consistently available for customers who want to work with you. If you can’t work now or can’t give them your full attention at the moment, do not delay communication. Letting them know your availability will hold their interest to you.

You need to invest money. For many people, it could be something they have never done before. Therefore it can be challenging to accept that fact you need to buy voice-recording equipment. 

I was not an exception. I emphasizing this fact because the equipment needs to be purchased must be right for the job and professional. It doesn’t mean you must buy the most expensive, the least costly is fine. But not the cheapest. 

The differences, reasons and recommended setup is explained in Microphone setup for beginners to a voice-over from home. I want to emphasize that this step must be done, and better do it right from the first time, so you don’t have to pay twice.

Platforms

You find first voice-over jobs on VO marketplaces where customers come to hire freelancers. There are many websites marketplaces to find VO work but only a few worth attention. Those were overviewed in Top websites to find voice-over work. 

Each platform allows you to get a job, and some will allow you to connect with a client. They have different approaches and business models, and you need to be familiar with what can you do on one platform, which may not be allowed on the other. It is very important to learn their policies if you want to succeed and not waste your time. Accept their rules and conduct your business in accordance.

You will get a chance to prove yourself what you capable of. Build your profiles to promote your strength. Communicate clearly to avoid not fitting projects. You will have to determine your voice-over profile and accept jobs fitting your voice. Otherwise, your reputation could be hurt, and customer trust won’t be established. You need to grow a proof of your best voice capabilities. Guided instructions on how exactly to increase your income and build the credibility of your profile are given to everyone who joins Blueprint To Voice-Over Freelance

Follow the trends in your branch and keep your profile updated. Stick to a particular kind of voice-overs, like narration or character play, and grow your name in this field.

When you gain proof in a particular area, customers will be looking specifically for you. You will be able to raise your rates above the average and enjoy more interesting bigger jobs. But before that happen, you will work on establishing credibility and building your proof based on previous jobs. 

Clients

Being a beginner freelancer in any craft, including voice-over, you need to build credibility and proof working with almost any client. You will start from lower rates, smaller projects, and customers who want to save money but demand high quality. And that’s fine. You must have in mind that every client is important and treat them equally regardless of project size or money amount you earn. Simply keep them happy and thrilled to leave you the best review. 

That should drive your motivation at the beginning, which will pay you back afterward. Having excellent reviews from previous customers will be your proof and simplify your life in the future.

So brace yourself and get ready to meet all kinds of customers. They may be asking for extra fast delivery; they may have not speaking well your language; they may be asking for small extra favors. They may not be bringing best-paying projects; you must never sacrifice the quantity for quality. Regardless of anything, you must always take the best care of them, so they feel like they treated above the standard. And they won’t have a reason to leave you a bad review.

If you strive for the best quality and communication, you easy climbing above most of your competition and start getting better and higher-paying jobs. 

More prominent clients look for proven resources; they don’t want their projects put at risk. The feedback you earn from the past projects shows them you are the right person to hire. You have to make sure you are capable of delivering what you’ve promised. 

If you say you can do character read or change voices, make sure you train this treat and proven to act fo different roles sustainably. Invest your time in learning the techniques and practicing. Invest in coaching.

Team 

Being a freelancer voice artist means frequently being all team in one person. 

That includes being a sound engineer. Knowing how to set up equipment and recording space is required to know at least at the basic level. You need to know how not to make mistakes. Your familiarity with the software you are using must be at a good level to perform processing recordings, working with audio files, adding effects, overlaying tracks, etc. 

Master your process, so it becomes an automated action. Then doing necessary pre-delivery manipulations, gains, equalizations, clearing from unwanted sounds should not take a long time. It will be a big time-saving difference between your first jobs and then.

Being freelancer also means you are your own marketer. You need to know how to promote yourself using all available resources at all places where your potential customer can be. It includes the freelance platforms you are using. By understanding how they work and what they offer, you have to know how to maximize your exposure and utilize their capabilities. 

Use all the available resources and space to talk about yourself, to post your demos, etc. That is the crime not to use these opportunities to talk about your skills at a place where customers look for talents. 

Keep in mind to effectively use that given space, you should think like a client. Use the keywords describing the best you wish to be discovered for. Different platforms can use other approaches and have different kinds of customers regularly searching for voice-clients on them. 

Definitely read the terms of use. It is a bitter pill to swallow when you see the effort you put into building your brand being gone. You can be restricted from any voice-over marketplace if you not following an important rule or haven’t read a crucial paragraph from their policies. Being from another country or in a younger age category can stop you from continuing business on the platform.

At some point you will want to make your own website, that is the right thing to do. It is not that hard (link to how to www), but it also must be taken seriously. It is yours. So you can and have to use it whenever you can. Even everywhere else the others can dictate rules, your website is yours, and the rules are yours. You are not limited for short demo and a few characters long descriptions. Talk about your passions, show all of your talents you have all the space to impress. 

Your website is a place where you send customers who want to know more about you. Send people met offline, not to your Fiverr account, but to your website. Make them your clients, not someone else clients. Share your www whenever it is not prohibited; on social media, professional sites like Linkedin, forums.

Grow your own database of clients; they are one most valuable asset after your own voice.

The journey of becoming a voice-talent is not long or hard. It is done one step at the time, and I gladly guide you through these steps in Blueprint To Voice-Over Freelance

You will see how in a relatively short period of time from a newbie in VO, you go to a real actor.

Start now – there is no reason to wait any longer!

How do you go about making a demo that stands out and puts you ahead of the crowd? A few basics pieces of advice often enough to achieve this result. Use the quality recording equipment, narrate from soundproof space, show your best voice skills, and deliver the message to the listeners. 

In today’s world, your demo can be available 24/7 all year round for anyone who is searching for voice talents. It represents you to every potential client from any place in the world where an Internet connection is present. When your demo is out there, on your website, on freelancer marketplace, or on a roster of any voice specific site or agency, it stays there and speaks for you. 

And when someone plays it, what will they hear? What kind of impression are they going to get from your voice? 

There is nothing that helps to justify the lower sound of audio; no one would explain an excuse that noise in the background from your neighbor drier machine spinning or a garbage truck on the street. Any inconsistencies in your voice or quality of the recording cannot be explained to a client. And not only because you are not there at the time of listening to your demo. But because every second of a demo playing, the decision is being made by whoever listening to it. 

The clients are making decisions most of the time within a few seconds. They move quickly across the list of many voice talents, and they don’t like to spend time on particular audio longer than needed. 

Don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t mean the demo must be short. If the client spends a long time listening to your demo because your voice is good, or because the demo provides the variety of your voices in a different type of voice-over. It is a good sign. 

A client may choose to spend a longer time on your demo to the end just to listen to your voice longer. And it is a good sign. On the other hand, it is far less beneficial when a client searches for something particular in your demo, or expects it there but can’t find it. In this scenario, your chances to successfully pass the audition are going down. 

Think of what people will hear when listening to your demo. Your demo has to impress right from the start and hold listener attention and interest until the end. And in the end, your listener should feel the emotions you’ve passed to them through your best performance, and through the atmosphere demo creates. As you may guess, the appealing voice-over demo is more than a voice sample.

Great demo ingredients 

To customers like your demo, it should showcase them your voice performance and qualities and be in a well-arranged scenario. It also means nothing should be distracting, no speaking errors, no overprocessing, no low sound, or clipping. All it can be summarized in a set of actions to perform and set of elements to avoid. 

Some of the technical aspects are covered in great detail in other articles like equipment choice Microphone setup for beginners to voice-over from home and soundproofing recording space How to soundproof recording space for voice-overs

The technical part of making a demo in a nutshell:

• Get a good-quality mic. Do not use a headset or USB mic. XLR microphones give you the best sound quality that you should be aiming to get eventually. It is not the end of the world; if you have an excellent USB mic, just remember to upgrade when possible if you are serious about voice-over career.
• Soundproof your recording space. It is extremely important to treat your recording environment with foam panels, clothes in a closet, blankets. Have something to dump an echo and background noises in your recording space. Your demo reel should be your best quality work. It should demonstrate such a quality level of a recording that audio quality directors expect from you. 
• Setup properly your equipment. Make sure everything is plugged in and appropriately adjusted. Do some short recording run using different voice loudness and tones and play it back to yourself to make sure the recorded audio level is not too low or too high.
• Use professional voice recording software. You should be well versed with at least standard terms in audio editing, like clipping, decibels, equalization, floor noise. If those terms are unfamiliar to you, see some of my technical articles on this site. 

Let’s get deeper into the creative part of making your voice-over demo.

There are two main ways to approach your voice demo creation. One is to do it yourself, and another is to get help from professionals. These approaches are fundamentally different and provide you with different outcomes. If you choose to work on your demo alone, you definitely can do it, but you are also risking to make many mistakes. And not just some technical errors but also arrangement, script, and performance miss. 

The final product may sound to you good enough, and audio can be reasonably error-free, but it will lack the spirit of professionally done work. That could cost you progressively a lot if you’d take into account how many missed opportunities it can cause. One would never know how many people listen to the self-made demo and move away choosing another talent because of amateur errors. 

Compare it to the effectiveness of professionally done demo; the difference may be tremendous. You can try such an experiment yourself, search for voice talents, and listen to as many demos you can. And make your judgment.

So does it mean that you have to avoid mastering your own demo? Definitely not! Making your personal demo may be the only option for many talents who are just starting their careers. If you want to give a try to voice-over and you trying to keep your expenses low, go ahead and craft your demo yourself. 

Just remember to revisit and upgrade your demo when it is the right time. Proof yourself that you can make money in voice-over, and if you like the results, go to the next level and become a voice-over professional.

To commit to the higher level, you need to re-think what you are doing in voice-over. It requires a significant mind shift. You should now treat it not as a hobby but as a business. And business requires investments. 

Investing in a professional voice-over demo is one of the best things you can make as a voice professional. Your demo promotes your qualities before you have a chance to meet the client. And if it does well, you are going to get a job assured before you talk to the client.

So how to make a demo that promotes you the best

Don’t let yourself hold behind from starting in voice-over. If you have no money to spend on professionally done demo, do your demo yourself. 

In the beginning, you need to get moving, and a lack of finances for the professional demo should not stop you. So make the best quality demo possible with given resources and use it to get your first clients. If that supposed to be low budget customers from Fiverr, go for it. Get your first orders, gain confidence, money, and experience, and then improve your demo to get into a higher league. 

Getting script for your demo

To begin making a voice-over demo, you need a script. How do you get a script for the demo? Simply go google the sites where you find libraries of VO scripts. And it works fine if you are just starting; such scripts also useful for practice. Try them and see how you perform a particular text. 

But keep in mind, this won’t make you unique many others are using the same scripts as well. In this game, it is about uniqueness; it is about a signature style that you have. And that is why people choose you. 

Whether that form your own production style, whether it is through the way you deliver the script, you will develop a signature. And people will gravitate towards that. And that what you want. 

If you are copying the same things that others use in free access, then you are not really unique. 

So, where to get scripts and how to do this? You can pay someone who can develop the script for you to best show off your voice qualities. Or you can go find old magazines or old ads and compile the script yourself based on the copyright there. If you’re a sports person, bodybuilding, makeup, fashion, whatever. Find an ad there and read it like it is a radio commercial. You can find multiple ads there, which fits you just great. Coming up with your own script is ridiculously easy. 

If you are concerned about copyright when using a spot from a commercial that ran on air or tv. To rephrase it, replace the names of the brands with generic words or not existing names, and you good to go. 

There is a website out there ispot.tv where is an extensive database of commercials to get your inspiration from. When you go browsing through the commercials, avoid choosing the most famous ad for your demo, because it is familiar to everybody. And your performance likely won’t compare to the original.

Think of your favorite cartoon or other show and re-master and tweak the script to have a unique copy, not word-for-word copy. When composing a script, remember you need to expose the best qualities in your voice. 

Voice-over demo length

Reasonably demo length can vary depending on the purpose. Generally, a demo reel needs to be short. Less than a minute. Some of the professional voice-actors have demo reels that stretch up to 2 minutes. And that is because they are already getting work. And when someone goes to their website to listen to them, they interested enough to listen to all of them. These clients tend to listen longer, ensuring the voice that they hear right fit the project.

When you are just starting out, you are dealing with the casting directors who sometimes listen to hundreds of demos every day. Giving each demo 8 seconds chance to impress on average. 

Your demo reels should absolutely not be longer than 1 minute 15 seconds. Make cuts to fit enough your voice samples into that short time. Because again, casting people are going over hundred of demos, and most of the time, they do not spend more than 20 seconds per audio. 

If they don’t hear what they need in your audio very quickly, they cross out of the list. So frontload your demo reel with your best voices once you are most confident with it. Bring in staff that grabs their attention, make them want to listen to the rest. Absolutely the best thing to do is to keep it short and put the best staff at the front.

How to read for a demo

Poor read is the biggest problem I can point out from listening demos of new in the VO business. It’s most often caused by a lack of listener feedback in a self-directed recording. You need a professional or at least someone to listen to your voice and criticize it before you post it online. 

Newbies rarely can catch their own mistakes, even when listening back to their own voice-overs. Without proper guidance, their voice tends to have one-dimensional sounding. Even if you be changing voice speed faster or slower and changing the loudness, but besides, it is recorded in the same sort of dimension. 

That is shouldn’t be in a demo where you want to present the variety of your voice capabilities. 

What often is overlooked and missed in by new talents is the emotional association with every script included in the demo. And that is exactly what matters the most to the clients. It is a key factor in getting a job secured. 

Emotion – is a secret of a successful voice-over. Answer what emotion you want your listener to feel and retranslate it through your voice to the listeners.

Think of who you are in the script, who are you talking to, where are you at? It sets the context, and what comes out of it, what you want your audience to feel. And if you have to make them fill compassion, excitement, whatever the case is. You have to feel it first. And if you can them fill something, the chances of booking the job skyrocketing. 

The emotional part is different from mechanics. Spacing, pausing, and reading pace is also essential. 

And there are places where you need to tweak and change pace and put emphasis. But you shouldn’t make them your primary focus. Otherwise, your voice will be heard like one out of a crowd, nothing special and easily replaceable by somebody else. 

But if you’re living breathing human being with an opinion and a point of view. With an emotion, you can express. That raises you above the rest. This puts you in a place where you can get more and better jobs from better clients ant those get paid higher than the market average. 

To get the emotions out of you to your reading, you must associate yourself with it. Imagine yourself in the place of action that script talking about if it is a retail store think of what you like in this store. That alone can help you to see yourself there, enjoying the goods they are selling. 

Think of what meaning it has for you and let a smile come to your face and excitement rise in your chest. Remember that feeling and proceed to the script reading precisely in this state. I can bet the feelings in your read will sound so authentically; nobody is going to tell that you’ve got paid for that.

Furthermore, when you got the emotions right and let them drive your reading. The mechanical part of a read like punctuation and emphasis and other of that staff takes care of itself. There may be a need for tweaking and spacing the audio, but 90% is the genuine emotion that identifies a successful voice-over. If you understand it, people will be compelled to listen to you. They will in to hear what you have to say, and you will get hired more. 

Most important, when you follow this concept while mastering your demo, implement it on your auditions and implement it every time you do the daily voice-over work. You want to make people believe what you saying when they listen. 

Post-production voice-over demo

While music isn’t ultimately required, but the right music will definitely enhance your voice samples to make them sound even more professional. You should use purely instrumental royalty-free music. When using music, be sure to balance it that your voice is in the forefront.

And what one wants to hear when they listen to your demo. It is an impression. And the impression comes not just from a voice in your voice-over. A lot of it has to do with the production of it as far as the sounds effects of music that is chosen. It matters how is it your voice is processed and balanced with that.

The music has not been overbearing; the voice should not compete with the sound effects. Your voice should dominate the demo and kick through the accompaniment music. It all takes a lot of work, so follow the critical parts of post-processing.

• Quality recording. You need a noise-free recording with a good signal without distortion or clipping.
• Creative editing. With digital recording, each take can be combined into one final take, which sounds seamless. 
• Music and sound effects. The music should be appropriate for the spots but not overpower your voice. It is a VO demo.
• Correct sequencing. Begin with one of your best spots and demonstrate contrasting attitudes on each spot, so it presents your full vocal range, and it should flow to encourage a client to listen all the way to the end.

Instead of conclusion

You need a demo that can help you to get an offer when applying for voice-over jobs. If you practiced enough and you are confident you can make your demo, then get an opinion from a professional on what you have crafted.

It is better to disappoint the VO coach than a potential client And if you can, by all means, get a professional involved and helped you make a demo that stands out.

Key components to get voice-over work with no experience: 

• Equipment. Quality tools and mastered process
• Demo. Your best agent to get the job
• Exposure. Appear before client on the significant marketplaces
• Impression. Appealing profile, with right portfolio selection
• Experience. Professionality in communication, speed
• Success. Customer satisfaction with delivered work
• Recurrence. Persistence in discovering new opportunities

Get Quality Equipment for voice-over

You need the right tools to do the job right. This saying is based on common sense, and it perfectly applies to voice-over jobs as well. When you have no or little experience, having the right tools become even more critical of quality audio work. 

I learned it the hard way, when I tried to start doing voice-over using a $50 “professional microphone” bundle from Amazon. That setup couldn’t ever work, but that time back there was no one to stop me and teach what equipment I should buy. And I just tried to keep my expenses on a low end. At least until I prove to myself, there is money in voice-over freelance that I can make until I am ready to invest a more adequate amount of dollars in equipment. 

Before that, I spent enough time fighting high noise introduced by the mic itself, trying to shield cheap XLR cable using aluminum foil for food. And literally baiting my elbows when chasing RMS level in Audacity to pass ACX quality requirements. Finally, I came to the conclusion that no matter what I do, it will not be possible to deliver perfectly sounding, not heavily processed audio to a client’s love if I keep using a cheap hardware setup. 

Quality Equipment must be purchased from the start. Otherwise, it will be a false start. It shouldn’t be an expensive setup, but it should capture your voice and deliver a clear signal to your computer without adding any noise. I am explaining how to choose the right equipment at a reasonably low cost without a negative effect on voice-over quality in this article Microphone setup for beginners to voice-over from home. 

Not only the electrical components of your setup are important. The place you are working in also has significant importance on the produced audio quality. You must have your recording place as soundproof as possible. And of course, you must know how to use voice recording software efficiently and adequately. That includes the technique for post-processing and correcting recorded issues. You put all the systems, including yourself, in a test when you start working on your demo. 

Produce Professionally Demo

Do you need a few different demos for each voice-over style you can do or you need all in one demo. Commercial, narration, audiobook, announcement, character, corporate, education, the list goes on, and each style may deserve its own demo. What approach to take will be dictated by the situation and your readiness. I suggest you review the article where I go into more in-depth detail on the demos How to make a voice-over demo that stands out. 

You may hear somebody suggest do not do your own demo. Hire professionals, go to the studio, and pay for it. That way, you will get a top-notch quality demo that speaks for you. 

I am saying do your own demo! For many reasons. 

If you go, get a demo from a professional studio where a sound engineer will work for you using equipment that costs thousands and thousands of dollars. Professional studios are designed to control and manipulate sound to the way they want to be recorded. That’s all great. Your customers will love the demo and hire you to do a voice-over for them. But will you be able from your home setup to match audio quality at the level as recorded in the studio? 

And if the customer will notice the difference? Then you over-promise by promoting your self using demo made in a studio and under-delivering by selling audio made from in your closet. You certainly do not want this to happen, because that how you lose your customer and credibility. 

You need to practice to master your voice-over and audio processing to the level that you would love, and that would appeal to the clients. Making your own demos is the chance to learn and master your skills, both voice-over, and post-processing. 

By making the demos yourself, you will learn and polish the process. You are going to gain confidence, and most importantly, be able to reproduce the same sounding audio for auditions and voice-over orders as in your demo. Practice processing your audio fast, and it will pay off when you participate in a custom audition on pay-to-play sites or if you want to be among the first on voicebunny.

Try it and don’t worry, I am helping to make your first demo as a part of the course I am teaching. If creating your first demo sounds hard for you, or you stack, or maybe you need to know a professional opinion, remember you have my assistance included in Blueprint To Voice-Over Freelance for free, or we can work on your demo together.

Gain exposure with free resources

Now when you have your demo, voice recording setup, and you know how to process of recording and how to do post-processing of your audio. What next? It is time to find clients. 

Make your feet wet by starting from a free marketplace like Fiverr. Arguably it is the best place to start with. The orders there are usually smaller but diverse. And the customers there are not expecting much for the lower price range, so there is not much pressure on you. You should be able to deliver voice work to their satisfaction. 

Once you see the initial success, on Fiverr, proceed and setup a profile on Upwork and other free to play web resources where you can get voice-over work. You find a bit of advice on what are the Top websites to find voice-over work. 

Also, research local multimedia companies and consider contacting them. Personal connections are always more powerful than cold calls. Find people working for these companies on LinkedIn and request connection. Don’t send your demo as an attachment unless requested to do so. Rather send a link to SoundCloud for example. Make sure the person can clearly see where the link will lead them, do not use the shortened URL. Otherwise, many won’t click.

Make great first impression

Do not underestimate the importance of first jobs, build credibility on the platforms from the beginning. The customers like to see proof of your competence, and they trust the reviews. Aim only on 5-star reviews. I go over the customer feedback management in my course Blueprint To Voice-Over Freelance.

On Fiverr from the start, you set price from $5 to look competitive to the customers. You have to stay in a low price range until you build some credibility based on customer feedback. As you get more and more 5 star reviews, you will be re-evaluating what price you charge per amount of words, and where your starting price point starts. Soon you will get out of the lowest rates pool and start rising.

Besides your demo and rating, the overall profile appearance is crucial. You need a few great headshots for your profile image and for thumbnails for your demos. 

On every freelance or voice-over platform, your profile must be complete. Fill all the categories and fields. Communicate clearly about what is your promise to deliver. Utilize the keywords that your potential clients would search for. Make sure to have an error-free copy.

Show your experience  

When communicating with the client, always stay professional. Do not fall into a friendly attitude even when client allow themselves to do so. Show the customer how you value their business, and they will appreciate your work even more. From the beginning, set the action for success. 

Make sure to read the order description and notes sent along with the script. Ask the right questions when in doubt. When customers see you involved in their project, they are more favorable to you. Before recording, go over the script and make sure you understand and feel the message they want you to express.

Satisfied client your success

Always perform at your best, so customers see you are over-delivering. When possible, send customer variations of the recorded voice-over, so they can choose which fits better their needs. That will make them feel appreciative. 

Always deliver your work on time. If you are slipping off the schedule due to sickness, overbooking, or other circumstances, send the customer a heads up and inform them. They will rather understand and feel with you when you notify them ahead of time, then if you do not deliver on time, then anything you say may sound like an excuse. 

When delivering your work, make sure to let the client know that you are open to doing a revision if they find anything wrong with the audio or if delivered work doesn’t sound right to them. 

Make sure the customer is walking away all happy. It is better to resolve any issue before they take an opportunity to write a review. You can find more tips and strategies on how to deal with the customers in different situations shown on real examples when you look into the course Blueprint To Voice-Over Freelance.

Persistently grow and improve

Stay persistent in searching for new clients. There are always places to go and market your services and new businesses in need of the voice-over. Keep discovering. 

When working with every client keep high delivery standards. Leave them satisfied with your work. It is always easier to get work from an existing customer than to find a new. That’s why you have to stick to producing top quality work and provide exceptional customer service. Always.

In the meantime, train your skills and master production process.

Put at work all of your skills. Can you do various voices? Market it. Can you do accents? Let them know. It is an advantage. Speak different languages? Make a separate demo for the second language.

With the whole Internet at the tips of your fingers, you can think globally!

Instead of conclusion.

From the beginner’s point of view, it may look like a sailing ship in dark water. There are many components to take care of and many steps to take. Some are very time consuming, and some need to be done right from the first time. As a novice in voice-over business, you don’t need to worry. All the common obstacles were discovered and worked out in the Blueprint To Voice-Over Freelance

voices

Let’s start with www.voices.com, this voice acting jobs platform with headquarters in London, Canada. This site covers North American accents as well as European accents. It has a wide range of voice jobs available, from game work to corporate videos. It also has an Escrow system, so you don’t have the hassle of invoicing people.

In other words, the client pays Voices before you do the work. You automatically get paid if you do a good job. If you don’t, the client receives their m back. 

The platform allows registration for free. You can create a profile and post demos to get better exposure. If you are not using their Premium subscription only, which is $499 per year, you see very few invitations to auditions.

Generally speaking, voices.com is not very suitable for beginners. Wait until you have some proof of your success before joining a paid subscription. But go ahead and register on the platform for free as soon as you have a demo and few jobs done.

voice123

Next, I would call www.voice123.com. It has an awful lot of North American accent jobs, but a decent amount of British accent jobs are posted here as well. So it’s worth Brits subscribing. The site doesn’t have an escrow system, it merely puts you in touch with the client direct, and after that, you’re on your own. 

So it’s a bit of a pain that you have to invoice. However, you do get the full contact details of the client, to make more money from them afterward!

It is good, and it is risky. You should know that it is not recommended to deliver your completed work without some sort of payment or written agreement.

You can register for free on this site and use it as is. The algorithm on the website finds you in the client’s search if your profile is complete. So it is worth to keep it up to date and provide as much information as possible. 

Through their free version, you can get more audition invitations than through the free subscription on voices.com.

the voice realm

www.thevoicerealm.com There is an American and a British version of this website, and again, it has an escrow system. You don’t even have to bid when auditioning, because they have an excellent professional price list for the type of work that you’re asked to do.

You can actively look for auditions to do, or you can click the “in-studio” button, so people who find your profile know you’re available right now. It is crucial to make sure you are filling out your profile as accurately as possible to get the auditions the best matching your voice profile. 

That will determine a lot of your success.

The Voice Realm is yet another freelance platform that has over 5,000 registered voice-over artists. You need to fill the online form with all the details and submit them along with a demo. Once submitted, it can take some time to hear from them as they have a waiting period. If you get through, you will hear back and publish your profile on the site. That is something different from the other websites where no gatekeepers on registration.

This platform compared to some others, does not expose so much information about clients. And the jobs are more suitable for the narration style of voice. There and not many of a character type jobs. Consider this when joining. But do register there, because it is another place where you can get exposure for your talent.

Create your profile and use all the space and word count allowed to promote yourself. It is free!

bodalgo

Next on the list, bodalgo.com is based in Germany. There are many, mostly industrial film producers, who need to make their German language productions in English. They also could ask for a British accent, or more likely a “neutral” accent, which is a light North American accent!

There is no escrow, so you get the advantage of creating a relationship with the client direct once you get the job. Some nice variety of roles can come up on this site, and outstanding value projects as well.

Even it is free to use the website, you take it seriously. Please pay attention to their requirement for voice talents to have some kind of a formal voice training. Free membership allows you to have a profile and be searchable by the clients. 

However, the design of the website made, so clients are posting the auditions, and only those talents who paid for premium can go and actively participate in these auditions. It is a very similar model to voice123.com does, but mostly for European clients.

Even the number of auditions is smaller than on voices.com, it is worth to set up and complete account there to get free exposure and potentially some clients.

vo planet

Adding one more pay-2-play website to the bucket www.voplanet.com, this was a massive site in the first part of the century, until it went into decline and closed. But with a new owner, the owner is really on the raising up and has some excellent high-value network jobs to audition for.

This website functioning on a similar model as voices123 and bodalgo. You can register for free and get contacted by the customer if they choose to browse through the database of the clients. Or you pay a yearly subscription for a premium account.

Voplanet also practices the same approach as thevoicerealm.com; they declare to accept only professionally trained and experienced voice actors. So it is worth to gain some experience and perhaps voice-over training before approaching them. But it is definitely worth it because it is yet another place to market your talent for free.

summary on pay-2-play platforms

There are more pay-2-play sites with voice-over jobs, but for the purpose of this article, let’s limit the list for a few. You can see these sites working in one of the two models. They either put together clients and talent. It is a strategically more preferable model because you can build direct relationships with the customer. But those sites leave you on your own to deal with disputes, payments, etc. For the beginner, it could be too much to deal with until you develop a procedure of how to avoid sticky situations. And there will rise some, as you meet bargainers who often target such platforms.

The second model is what voices.com and thevoicerealm.com implemented. These platforms do not disclose much about the client and the original price they paid. So you are not growing your client base but their. On the positive side, your earned money being protected by the escrow system. 

I do not recommend paying a subscription on either of these websites for a newbie in the voice-over business. Almost all of them require year membership paid upfront so that you won’t get a sense of the usefulness of these sites to your business, but as a beginner, you need to come up with a hefty amount.

Not all of these sites will have a satisfying number of jobs for your profile. You may be wanting to do more type of character voice works, but most of the projects on the site could be narration type of work. Or you may not see a sufficient amount of auditions posted for your age, but you still require to pay the same membership fee as the others who are in a more demanded category. 

What I do recommend you is to do register on these websites for free and use them as a staging to exposure yourself. And you should use it at maximum. They all allow the customers to browse their database for free, so there is a chance to be discovered and eventually hired.

Obviously, it would be best if you didn’t rely on them from the start of your career. Further on, as an intermediate voice talent, you decide to try using their paid memberships, and see if that makes financial sense. From the start, look at free to use freelancer marketplaces with the strong presence of voice clients. 

fiverr

So what about the free sites? The www.fiverr.com freelance jobs portal is essential for all voice-overs to enroll on. In the early days, you literally had to produce a voice-over for only five dollars, but the system is now such that you can add on all sorts of extras, that people will often want more than simple recording so that an average job will be more like $50. You can make a fortune on Fiverr if you play its game right! This is no brainer, you must be on this platform, and even more, you should start your voice-over freelance on this platform. I do a profound dive guide on how to use and succeed on Fiverr in my course Blueprint To Voice-Over Freelance

voice bunny

Moving onto www.voicebunny.com. Voicebunny is free to enroll, but it is a rather strange voice site. They have what is called “Speedys,” where they send an email out, the first three people who reply get the work!

They don’t have very big jobs on there, but when working regularly, it all adds up! The site is acting as a middle man. They do not let you communicate directly with the clients. Instead, voicebunny team members manage communication and pass everything through their employees. 

No client base grows for you, no building your brand, no exposure. I would think twice before I go spend my time on their site.

voiver

www.voiver.com is worth enrolling in; it’s based in Spain but accepts North American, African, and European and Australian accents, and if you’re lucky, you could get quite a few regular jobs from this one. You are setting rates in Euros.

The website makes money on added small amounts to your quote. Your prices are final to you. Like most of the free sites, you simply create your profile, fill up all required fields and questionnaires, describe your voice and services using words as a client would use when searching for a matching talent, upload your best showreels, and hope for the best! 

Also, the voiver uses an escrow system, so customers pay upfront, so you need not worry about getting paid for your job.

voice crew

And the last of my favorite free sites has to be the www.voicecrew.com, based in the USA. They don’t usually have huge jobs, but they have an awful big database of clients who return to them again and again, and with all this kind of thing, the little tasks add up over the month. It is nice to have such a website in your voice-over map of work.

casting call club

castingcall.club is a free website for voice-over talents with the option of using paid membership. I didn’t include it between big pay-2-play sites as they at castingcall.club have a slightly different business model. They do allow you to use their website for free and have a profile page with a demo reel; it even searches engine optimized, which works great for your exposure. And their membership is far smaller than the others. It is worth to use their platform at least for free for a start, and then move on as you build trust. 

wrapping up the review

The list can go on; there are many more websites you can find a job or a client. But I need to stop somewhere, and maybe in the future, I will update this list. 

I definitely going to be doing an in-depth review for each of these sites, so stay tuned.

Being informed and prepared saves time and money. And it would be best if you had both of them. And I understand, working on that number of websites can be a bit overwhelming for the beginner. The good news is you don’t need to be on all of them. At least not from the start. 

I recommend starting with the easiest one, which will give you an experience, where you test your skills and learn to work in voice-over with the clients without being afraid that any early mistakes can affect your career.

I have a step-by-step guide on how to build a voice-over business on Fiverr to attract customers, how to price your work to make customers order from you, and how to build-up 5-star ratings consistently.

Start with Fiverr to gain experience and build skills while serving customers from across the globe. 

In the beginning, the last thing you need is wasting time and resources on experiments. I’ve myself waisted probably 3 months going rabbit holes researching voice recording equipment and watching countless review videos. If I’d ever had someone directly told me here one, two, three is what you need to go and make money, I would gladly take that advice.

Now I am in the position when I can save your time and tell you straight forward those things.

Given or take, you can expect 10-15% amounts fluctuation based on the season and items chosen. I am not going to dictate you what equipment to get, but I strongly encourage you to follow my advice if you want your dollars spent right and only once.

Yes, I’ve been trying to save money buying a cheap microphone bundle for $50. That allowed me to learn it hard way, that a miser pays twice. I am not just ended up burning more time in research on how to make a crappy microphone work. I’ve also ended up spending money again buying a new decent microphone.

You won’t make the same mistake if you follow my advice. For each position, I will provide reasoning on why it was chosen and not something else.

For those of you who are a little bit more curious and have some extra time to wander around instead of following the VO career path, there going to be in-depth articles on each subject.

Home Voice-Recording Booth

I haven’t paid a penny for mine. I was able to use my walk-in clothed full of clothing on hangers and on shelves.

One of the shelves serves as a holder for my tablet with a script. And it works perfectly fine. If I had a shallower closet with kind of bi-fold doors, I would’ve used the same way. Investing 0 dollars the clothes inside the closed and threw blankets over the side doors would give me enough soundproofing for a reliable startup booth.

Now, why is there is $300 cap for the recording booth in the table above? It is for those of you who have an empty room with nothing inside.

These dollars are meant to be spent on acoustic panels to treat the naked walls. You can use them to split the room, divide its space, so you don’t have to deal with a cave-like echoing. It’s done by using blankets hanging on background drop stands. By choice, you can craft a sound vocal audio booth for mic only.

Microphone and Hardware

The most exciting part here is a microphone. I view my mic as a jewel of my recording setup, and everything around is a shell. Maybe it’s just me, but I really adore my Rode NT1. Yes, that’s the mic of choice.

I believe everyone who is serious about starting a voice-over as a side gig or career must begin with this microphone. I promise to explain my decision in another post. Microphone choice for beginners to a voice-over from home.

Here I just tell you that, this microphone is for sale for budget money but gives you the level of sound wast the majority of people indicate as professional. Oh, yes, and hardware a stand and mount and cable, all that included. You can have Rode NT1 microphone bundle with a mic stand, XLR cable, SMR shock mount, pop filter for less than $300

No matter if you ever spent any money investing in the tools. It is time to do it now, as without the right microphone no voice-over job can be done well. And if you are thinking of cheaper microphones, just remember my words from above.

Audio Interface and Fantom Power

These two are essential components if you want to have a professional home recording setup. If you noticed, the microphone is connected through XLR cable. And I doubt your computer will have an XLR port. That’s where the audio interface comes handy. Microphone XLR plugs into it and the interface is connected with a computer over a USB cable.

But that is not the only function of an audio interface. Besides connecting professional equipment with a computer, it improves the recorded signal before passing it to a computer. This offloads computer audio processing work. This significantly contributes to the quality and level of recorded sound. 

When using a built-in or USB microphone, the only way to gain the recording level is through the software in your Operating system. Well, this can have limitations and may negatively affect your audio beyond a specific boundary.

Having a dedicated audio interface allows you to use professional tools and tune signal levels using hardware acceleration capabilities instead.

It also powers your microphone, allowing it to function. For the purpose of a home studio and one recording periphery device a.k.a microphone, you are good with a single interface device Scarlett Solo.

There is pretty much nothing to think about when picking an audio interface. The one recommended will meet your needs.

But if you want to go a little fancier, choose Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd generation version. It has a new cool feature called Air. When turned on, it gives you more amplified higher tones, which may become handy.

Computer or Laptop

That precious setup we assembled should be plugged into some computer to save recordings.

Generally speaking, any computer or laptop will work for your voice-overs. If you already have one, you need no worry about spending money on a new piece. Even an older laptop will serve your voice-over jobs.

The issue can arise from the location of your computer relatively to your mic. If it close to each other, then fan noise from a computer will be picked up by a microphone and ruin your work.

Luckily you can solve it easily. That XLR cable you received with Rode NT1 microphone is pretty long. 12 feets length is enough to extend mic and computer apart of so the fan sound is not interrupting your work.

The best would be to keep them in separate rooms. If you want to use the monitor for reading a script from it, you may need to find a longer video cable. That way, you can keep monitor inside the recording booth and a case in another room.

But what if you have a laptop and you don’t have a spare monitor to separate them. Consider digging into BIOS and tweaking fan settings. However, that’s is not a viable solution.

Perhaps, you can spend some dollars on a separate monitor with a longer video cable or on another computer or a laptop. I dedicated $300 in calculations, that should be plenty for a used piece.

Recording Software

Audacity is the way to go. It was my choice when we started voice-over with my son, and we never regret the decision.

Regardless of what OS you running MAC, Windows or Linux, they have versions for these platforms.

Audacity is open-source, free software. Yes, it is free to use. Still, I strongly encourage you to show your appreciation to the developers and donate the amount of your choice. Maybe after Audacity help, you make some dollars. You can use the amount suggested up above. Just don’t forget. 

And yes, it is a professional software and that how it looks like. This software has so many features and extensions you will be amazed. And you barely use half of them in your day to day work. It literally has an overwhelming number of settings, and it easy to get lost in them.

You can search the Internet or deep dive into documentation of this app. But if you prefer to save time and learn exactly what you need to process recorded audio and make it up to quality standards, check out my article Audacity for voice over 101

Finally, you have a complete professional recording setup to work from home. No, it is not totally free to start making money in voice-overs. But the investments are super low if you follow my advice. 

And you are definitely going to get back invested money very soon if you follow the blueprint I teach in my course