Now Hear This! - 2008, July

[JoeActor]

Thanks Jodi!

Hey Dave - I like your Gilbert better than mine... more attitude ;-)
Funny on the lead-in words. My voice coach keyed me in to doing those. I have one for each defined character... Sometimes I trim them, but I was a bit "what the hey" on this one.

Dunno Piotr, but I'll have a listen.

Happy hunting,
Joe

[Diane Havens]

It's been a while since I landed anything on Voices, but this past week -- TWO!!

One is still in negotiation, but here's the other -- a fun one. Direction was: 1950's style black and white video presentation using some stock footage of ladies dressed up in the high end fashions of the 40's and 50's. The voice needs to have an articulate, high society sound with some driving energy to it.

[Jodi Krangle]

Diane, you *rocked* that audition! I can SO see why you got the job! Would love to hear about the other one when you have more info. :)

[JoeActor]

Hee hee! Fun one Diane - Kudos on the gigs!!!

Joe

[voicy1stef]

Here's an audition --Psychiatric Hotline--that I recorded and got ready to send off...BUT, by the time I got on the site the listing was gone. Anyway, also I've been experimenting with my Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 8 and have discovered the "Dynamic" option.

Originally this was all recorded at the setting as you hear on the first half of this demo.

But, NOW, for the sake of experimentation, I've taken this recording and used the "Dynamic" option on the last half of the recording -- just for my own learning experience, -- to contrast and compare.

[JoeActor]

Hey Stef,

It's a noticable difference, but I think I like the first half better.

I usually err toward as little processing as possible. I believe the "Dynamics" options are performing a sofware compression on the audio. It can be good in moderation, but can also distort the quality of your voice. JS (and maybe Colin) has commented on use of compression somewhere on the forum, so you may want to poke around.

Oh, I should mention that I'm using SoundForge 7. The tools I use from time to time are normalize and noise gate, but only when needed. Best to have a good raw audio to start, then do a bit of clean-up.

My 1/50th of a dollar,
Joe J Thomas
www.JoeActor.com

[voicy1stef]

Thanks so much Joe, for your feedback. Having discovered this new 'toy', I was wondering if it was appropriate to use it for auditions. So you'd suggest just carrying on in my usual way?

I've got normalize on the Audio Studio, but I don't know if I've got 'noise gait'.

But I tend to agree, it's best to do good raw audio, with regards to vocal technique, sound, etc. and then tidy it up. But I'm also happy to have feedback to know if I'm heading in the right direction to winning auddies!

Cheers for now....

p.s. I'lll have a poke around later for 'compression' topics!

[Emorgan_Voiceovers]

Ok, here is one I did for NM State Fair. They wanted a totally dry, Tom Bodet read. This is just one of 6 spots, but it was kind of fun.

[voicy1stef]

Hey! Nice voice, accent and pacing. Well done!

[JoeActor]

Eric - that was one Bodet-ious read!
Definitely in the zone...

Joe