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ogeeitsme · 2 years

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Hello! I think I remember that you guys do voice acting. I was wondering if you have any tips for getting into voice acting, or any tips for someone who's POC specifically who wants to go that route? My friend has been thinking about doing so, and I've been trying to help her out with it so I thought to ask

Huh, ok, so I guess for context, we do this as a hobby! We really could have turned this into paid work (not by joining the big industy, but by charging for lines in general), but figuring out prices has been very weird for us- it's different from charging for art!

I'm going to talk about voice acting at home, not on set/at a studio. We're also more of a character voice actor, s if your friend is looking to go into advertising, narration, etc, our knowledge will be limited on that! But the general idea should be very similar if not the same for some things. (Some companies and businesses or paid work in general will let your record at home, etc.)

We're going to ramble, so I'll put this under a read-more

(Also, a lot of us actually contributed to this post over the last few days, so it’s possible we repeat a few things, or our first-pronouns keep changing. Hope it still makes sense!)

Under the read-more, we’ll talk Equipment, Getting started (Auditions), and Other random advice we threw in.

Equipment

Anyway, you first want to start with your equipment. In our opinion, what matters isn't the name of what you have- but the quality of your end product. If you're recording with an iPhone for example (which is said to have one of the clearest microphones for a phone), that's fine! We knew someone who recorded his lines using his headset microphone. There's this knowledge that headset microphones have really bad quality, and the brand he has is known for being very bad in our country: CDR King, but it was VERY VERY CLEAR.. I remember in voice calls, we'd be at awe with how crisp his voice was! If you're using what you have, just make sure you take care of your equipment- what matters is how it sounds in the end. I will say though, that what's more required of you should be good headphones or earphones, so you can hear what you sound like, you should be able to pick up any mistakes or your background noise (i applicable), the fuzz, etc..

We use Garageband, since it came free with our macbook. I’ve seen a lot of professionals use Adobe Audition. These are not requirements:

Get Audacity. As a voice actor, your job isn't to clean up your lines, but if you're working without professional equipment (AND even if you DO have professional equipment, get Audacity), this really helps with Noise Removal! It's free! You can look up "how to do noise removal in audacity" and there is a lot of information on how to use this thing. For every recording, we put it through Noise Removal in audacity, unless our director specifically tells us not to (we usually ask every director when we meet a new one).

Additionally, you can record in audacity, which is once again free! It makes voice acting so much more accessible to those that can only use what they have

But if you're here to look for microphone and equipment recommendations:

We haven't tried that many Microphones; we've only been voice acting since 2014, and have only had literally 2 microphones over the 8 years! We got our first microphone in maybe 2016, though? When we started taking things seriously, and got a replacement microphone in maybe 2019, which has been our current microphone ever since. I say this, because we might not be the best perspective to suggest microphones from! Stuff's expensive, haha.

Our first microphone was an AT2020 USB by Audio Technica.

In our opinion, it's a good starter microphone. It does it's job, but it's most for talking in our opinion. If you need to sing or scream, it might not be the best, but it did serve us alright. It was a USB microphone, which will not be as good as an XLR. We replaced it because its quality started to degrade (it couldn't handle us screaming). But, Like I said, if you take care of your equipment, everything can last you a long time. We know a fellow voice actor who owns an AT2020 USB right now, and his audio is crisp :-)

Our second microphone, our current one, is a B-2 Pro by Behringer!

We finally got a mic stand so if we start slapping our desk, it doesn't absorb our shock hahaha. The quality is much better, and it can handle us screaming and shouting without the audio clipping. It came with a pop filter that hugged the microphone, and we could switch between different microphone modes! For solo voice acting, you just need it set to taking in audio only from the front side.

Also, when looking for your microphone, I highly suggest doing some personal researches on what ranges microphones can pick up. Some microphones can not handle screaming, while others can. Some microphones are only for talking, some can include singing, some will better pick up lower registers, some can pick up higher voice betters, etc. It’s complicated, but it’s something we looked up because microphones are expensive. And we wanted to make it worth it!

The best microphones will always be XLR's, which means you'll need an audio mixer so you can actually plug it into your computer!

I have nothing to add here, finding the right audio mixer for you depends on your preferences: Do you want every dial possible, so you can adjust the different frequencies in real life and in real time, or are you alright with handling all that in post production (Audacity, garageband, etc.)? With that in mind, do you want a small mixer instead? That will take up less space, and is portable. The only thing you need to worry about is making sure it has a USB output so you can actually plug it into your computer.

The first and only mixer we've ever owned is currently a XENYX Q802 USB. It has a bunch of dials and allows us for more than one XLR plugged in- which we don't need hahaha. It does its job! We just have to replace our microphone wire because you can hear its age now.

Before the pandemic, we were able to try a friend's audio mixer, because we recorded singing for him, and his audio mixer made our recordings so CLEAR without noise removal, but we were using the same microphone. IT WAS CRAZY. It was a Focusrite Scarlet (If you forget the name, searching "scarlet audio mixer" helps. It's a very small thing, and we know two people who own it! Very worth it.

Stepping In To Voice Acting (Auditions)

Like with any acting gig- go to auditions! This may be physical, or online. On Youtube, Twitter, and Tumblr, searching "casting call" and "auditions", then filtering by most recent, should help you! If you like certain medias, you can also type in the name in the search bar. For a huge majority of our voice acting ‘career’. We found casting calls via Youtube.

Otherwise, I highly recommend Casting Call Club, and joining discord servers surrounding casting calls and voice acting :-) For a long time now, we’ve been using CCC and Youtube to look for casting calls, but with Discord now existing, there’s plenty of servers out there. And just the other day, we found a casting call on tumblr!

Other Stuff (We throw random advice)

After that, the rest is just taking care of your responsibilities as a voice actor. Be on time, and respond to messages!

Unfortunately, we can’t give advice on how to price your work, we don’t have enough experience on that. but as usual, don’t go below minimum wage unless you’re totally fine with that. This is a service work, so just like how physical actors will have varied prices, it depends on your reputation and experience.

Editing your audio is literally not supposed to be your priority, unless you want to do that and it’s something you’d prefer than have someone else edit. If anything, the most I would suggest any voice actor do, is noise removal; But you shouldn’t be adding your own reverbs and echo’s unless, once again, you’re alright with that. I say this, because a voice actor’s job is to come in with your lines, give good takes, and leave. Just because you’re able to record at home, doesn’t mean you should be doing literally all the other work for every single project. That’s your director’s problem, unless you offer it

Don’t record more than 3-5 takes per line or paragraph. It will give the editor a headache, and it’s useless if all 5 takes will sound the same, anyway. What we do, is that after we finish recording a whole session, we go to audacity for noise removal. While we do that, we also listen through the whole recording to remove any useless takes to keep things quick and precise. this is Extra work, but a personal choice so we can look more professional and to-the-point.

If you need to scream for the line, then scream! Whisper screaming does nothing. Voice acting is not just saying the lines just because; you still have to be in character.

It’s ok if you’re not friends with the director or other cast members. It’s never an obligation for you to hang out in the cast servers. if you feel like you’re being forced to participate in a project server, that’s personally a red flag. You are allowed to say no to roles or events, this is especially if you are doing this as a hobby, or for free.

Voice acting needs you to be unafraid to be silly and goofy. Even if you’re introverted outside of the booth, you need to be able to show as much emotion with your voice when called for it! Allowing yourself to let loose means you can act for almost any role.

Speaking of the above, find out what you can do, and run with it. While we do original voices for characters of original works or creations, we actually started out with doing impressions of MLP Characters. To shorten the story, we’ve always wanted to play Fluttershy roles growing up, but the Fluttershy role is honestly oversaturated with voice actors who aren’t always the most accurate. Turns out, we’re extremely good at Twilight Sparkle, but originally never wanted to voice her. Thing is, No one ever voices Twilight Sparkle, it’s surprisingly in-demand since no one can do her much. Obabscribbler described us recently as one of the best Twilights out there. Even right up there with IMShadow :-). If you find your niche, it’s ok to run with it, even if you never originally planned to do that. Maybe something you never liked originally doing, was something plenty of other people of needed.

But if you feel stuck, practicing outside of your comfort zone will always be the best recommendation.

Lastly, take care of your voice! If you feel a sore throat coming on or a cold, immediately get as much rest. Your voice box is your tool, and you will be out of commission literally until you fully recover.

Also, I just realized that we didn’t include any advice for POC.. We’re Asian (Filipino), and I unfortunately don’t have a lot to add. I suppose this is because as a voice actor, you’re behind a curtain so no one will see you or your skin and features. I will say though- you can make it as a voice actor no matter who you are or what you look. As long as you’re a decent person, you can go anywhere and do anything. What matters, as a voice actor, is your skill. I say this as someone who voice acts at home, and does not go to physical auditions where people can see my face.

Your luck may especially come from those who are specifically looking for voice actors of color. If you want, looking for characters that have your ethnicity or accent might be something you’d be interested in! We personally just go after characters we want to voice, and it’s just a bonus if our ethnicity and background might match the character :-) (See: we voice a lot of non-humans haha). After all, you are supposed to be the character, unless the character was specifically molded after you. The different voice acting communities we’ve been in have been extremely diverse! The world is truly your oyster

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