The voice-over market is highly crowded these days; anybody with a microphone and a voice can enter the arena and publicise themselves on the web as a so-called “professional voice-over”.

As with any easily accessible marketplace, a flood of options is not always great for the end user. Quality, getting a professional recording and the voice-overs ability to deliver on time is far more important than having a million options to explore and consider.

As Google acts as a filter for billions of web pages, using a reputable supplier of trusted and accountable voice-overs is essential for homing in on a talented voice artist capable of delivering your project. A supplier or agent who has multiple voice-overs should be able to offer you a variety of options and their experience of the intricacies of voice hiring means that you have a professional and trusted company to be held accountable should anything turn out different than you expected.

2. Avoid Massive Voice-over Directories

Ok, you may find a talented voice-over for your project, however, being able to automatically post your job to thousands of voice talents in one go is not always the best idea. Many of these large sites have thousands of members because they allow anyone and everyone to join and pitch for jobs. Their business model is to let as many voice-overs as possible pay to join the site. In my experience, voice-overs who are established and credible avoid using these sites due to the overwhelming amount of amateur contenders.

3. Don’t look for a cheaper option!

Fact! If you get a quote for a professional job in this industry, you will not have to go far to get a cheaper quote. As I said earlier, the market place is accessible by anyone with a microphone and a voice. Opt for the cheapest contenders and you may well have to start again with one of the higher priced quotes. I have seen this happen so many times! As with most things, you get what you pay for and it is better to go with a respected company.

4. Treat the demo as the starting point!

So, you have found a voice-over and their demo reel sounds great and well produced. That is all you need to know… right? Wrong! There are numerous studios that will record and produce show reels for budding voice-overs. These can be fabricated to sound like previous jobs. This is not necessarily an issue, however, if you want to hire one of these voice talents you have got to bear in mind that the recording they produce without the assistance of a producer may be significantly lower in production quality than their professional demo / show reel.

The way to get round this is to use a reputable supplier of voice-overs. If you are dealing directly with the voice-over, ask them for an example of a recent job that is similar to yours and was recorded in their own studio. For example, if you are expecting them to record an audio book, ask them for an example of a previous recording. Their professionally produced montage of adverts, corporate narrations and on-hold messages may not necessarily demonstrate their ability to narrate your audio book in their own studio.

5. Be Clear and be fair

When requesting the services of a voice-over make sure that you are clear about your project requirements, your budget and your expectations. A good voice-over company should be able to explore the scope of your project and ask the right questions in order to get an accurate quotation from suitable vocal talents. However, it is your responsibility to give a clear overview of your project and its distribution / exposure. If the scope and involvement of the voice-over increases over the project’s duration, it is only fair that they may have to charge more than initially quoted. Ideally have a script or transcript available for the purpose of the quotation or estimate.

6. Allow a realistic time scale

This sounds obvious, however, it is a very common mistake to underestimate the time it takes to prepare a ‘ready to record script’, to listen to different voice-over demos, to record the first draft and to cover any re-records. For instance, it is no good rushing a finished script through at the last minute, 10 days after it was initially due, and then expecting a result the same day. Doing this right takes a pre-determined period of time and requires booking in advance. Any voice-over that is sat there waiting to record your script on a moments notice is obviously not busy. Good voice-overs are always busy and have to manage their recording schedule carefully.

7. Don’t believe the lies…

This is just talking into a microphone, easy money! Not true! A professional voice-over has had years of experience in talking at the right tone, pace and speed. The position of the microphone also has to be given careful consideration to get the tone and professional sound that is required. They make it sound easy, but it isn’t! This is a professional skill that develops over many years, and even the most experienced voice-overs do numerous takes before sending the version(s) they are happy with.

The recording is just part of the process…removing the noticeable breaths, gaps, plosives / pops (caused by b’s & p’s) and saliva noises requires skilled audio editing techniques that require years of practice or can require the skill of an audio engineer. Ten minutes of produced voice-over does not equal ten minutes of talking into a microphone!

Many long running voice-over jobs can be exhausting for the voice-over; this is because most voice-over narrations are done in an unnatural style. For example, you would not naturally talk with a permanent happy tone or a permanent smile on your face. Often, voice-over jobs require this for extended periods of time. If you don’t believe me, try reading this article into a microphone in a voice-over style and then listen back to your efforts.

8. Re-records don’t take 2 minutes!

Re-records can be very time consuming; it is best to avoid them if possible by triple checking your script before recording starts. If you miss as little as one word this can result in a line, sentence or even a paragraph having to be re-recorded. It can be difficult for a voice-over to recreate the moment and get the flow and tone the same as in the original take. It is near impossible to record one word and drop it in. Also, any new audio has to be blended into the original recording, which requires intricate audio editing.

9. Expect a variety of fees

Voice-overs are like actors, the more well known they are, the more they charge. If they have just got the gig to do a long running series of ads on mainstream TV, it is unlikely that they will still be working for small fees. Furthermore, all voice-overs have different career structures and are able to charge whatever suits their industry position and current timetable. For this reason, it is near impossible to get a ballpark figure that applies to all voice-overs; it is nearly always necessary to get a quote per job based on the specific job details. A good provider of voice-overs should be able to efficiently get the job details and match your budget to the most appropriate voice-over(s).

10. Give Feedback…but be nice!

It is common for clients to be very communicative during the quotation and recording / production stage. However, it is not uncommon for the client to go quiet at the end of a project when they have what they need. This is ok, although the client that the voice-over remembers well into the future is the one that takes the time to pass on their appreciation and thanks. A simple thank you over email is nice and takes no time at all. If you let the voice-over know how pleased you are with their work they will be more likely to go the extra mile when you need their help in the future.

Finally…

If you consider all of the points above, you should be able to manage your or your client’s voice-over requirements very successfully and above all, you should enjoy the creative process of choosing and using a professional voice-over.

Written by

Lee Pritchard

Media Music Now

© Copyright 2008

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If you need any help or advice regarding using voice-overs in your project, please feel free to contact us directly or through www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/contact/ Advice is free!

Also, if you are considering hiring a voice-over in the future please consider using Media Music Now as your provider. It does not cost you any extra as the fee is arranged between us and the voice-over(s). Our voice-over section is at www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/Media-voices/

We look forward to reading your comments

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The point of an infomercial is to educate the viewer whilst having a strong bias on advertising / selling a product or service. A great example can be found on shopping channels such as QVC.

Music and voice-overs can be used to enhance an infomercial.

High quality royalty free music can be suitable for an infomercial, however, if a brand message needs to be communicated or if you require exclusive use of original music, you may wish to hire a composer to write a custom piece.

Voice-over, high quality royalty free music & custom written music is all available on Media Music Now

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The Composer directory is a fresh approach to the conventional style of an online directory. You will not find huge lists of composers in alphabetical order. The Composer Directory, hosted on Media Music Now is concise and limited in numbers. Currently we have 42 registered members, 27 already on the site, and I see no reason to over crowd the listing. The directory is a good mix of different types of composers and producers ranging from hip hop to classical to orchestral. We will only source new members if we experience a shortage in a particular genre or skill.

We aim to make our money by adding a modest project management fee to each project. For this, we will add maximum value by helping every step of the way from initial enquiries to creating a brief, through to the production schedule, dealing with payment through our ecommerce system and delivering master recordings with the necessary licensing.

For the client, we will be a secure, professional and reliable way to source top class composers and producers. For the composer, the directory will be quite exclusive due to the limited number of members and intends to provide a steady flow of enquires and commissions.

As an addition to our current business model of high quality royalty free music, voice over and audio editing service, the custom music element to Media Music Now adds an exciting new dimension and endless possibilities for the future.

To view the Composer Directory click here >

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There will be a film trailer style narration throughout the demo from a professional voice-over and the trailer demo will be published on the main directory page to demonstrate the skills and talent of the composers. It will also serve as a great promotional demo for sending to companies and potential clients. I will try to incorporate a snippet of each composer’s work into the demo. It is going to be freakin’ cool!

I am going to wait until the composer directory is launched before doing this as by then, everybody will be onboard and all the demo tracks will be in. Yes, that is right… no more registrations after launch day! Once the directory is live, it will be rare that new composers are added; the only time this will be considered is if we have a shortage in a particular genre. If you are on the fence, thinking you will wait until it is launched to see what it is like or you may join if it is good, then the unfortunate news is… come launch date, 26th May 2008, only a week from this Monday, it’s too late! You need to join the Composer Directory before the launch date, otherwise you will miss out.

The range of talent that we have onboard so far is excellent, from hip-hop to orchestral and loads in between. I am looking forward to the directory going live so that we can get started on the demo! Yippeee!

P.S. There are still places, click here to register.

P.P.S. Don’t forget…from the 26th May 2008, there will be no registrations and no more places.

Here are links to all composer directory information to date.

http://www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/blog/2008/03/27/information-about-joining-the-composer-directory/

http://www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/blog/2008/03/28/the-composer-directory-is-in-development-let-me-show-you/

http://www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/blog/2008/05/03/this-is-an-update-for-you-about-the-composer-directory/

http://www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/blog/2008/05/13/bbc-media-city-inspire-new-composer-music-producer-directory/

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In brief, I strongly believe that you should use an audio watermark on any of your music that you publish to the web. If you don’t, it could well be used without your consent or knowledge, and you could be losing out on valuable licensing fees, which I am sure would contribute to your continued creativity.

There are numerous ways that people can steal your music on the web and once they have it, they are very likely to spread it on peer-to-peer or social network sites as free to use music. These people may not even understand that you spent many hours composing and producing this music and that you earn an income from it. Other people may understand but have no respect for it. I have experienced this first hand too many times!

An un-watermarked track is easy bait to a thief so protect yourself against it. Not only are there a number ways of recording music from a web browser, there are many scraper sites out there that find mp3s on other people’s websites and use it on their own.

To negate the possibility of this, you can take the very simple measure of getting a voice-over to record a professional sound file as a watermark that you can mix into your music track.

All you need is a couple of lines… something like “This audio is copyright… for more information please contact www.MyWebsite.com”. You can include your own name, band name, company name, telephone number, whatever you like really.

Once you have this sound file, simply use your audio editing software to create a protection track. This is just a silent track with your voiceover sound file repeated every 10 seconds or so. You can then mix it into your music track(s) that you are planning to publish to the web and create a watermarked version. People can now download and share this as much as they like, it will be clear that the track is copyright and the cherished property of a talented artist / producer.

If they really want to use your music without the watermark, they won’t mind contacting you and paying an appropriate fee. And if they use it with the watermark, just see it as free advertising.

You may be thinking that you can’t afford a voice-over and editing software. Well, there is an open source editing software that is free, called Audacity, for mixing your protection track and music and as for a voiceover, my colleague, Anthony Richardson, a talented UK voice-over, can record you a simple two-line sound file for just £12GBP+vat when you mention this blog post or my name, Lee Pritchard.

“A very small price to pay for peace of mind.”

Anthony’s site is www.overvoice.co.uk

Get Audacity Here >

Click here to see a previous post about Audacity

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From: Media Music Now
Contact: Lee Pritchard
Tel: +44 (0)845 652 2173
www.mediamusicnow.co.uk

*** For Immediate Release ***

MANCHESTER, UK, 13th May 2008

Media Music Now is about to launch a new service aimed at TV, Film and Digital Media professionals. The new service, known as ‘The Composer Directory’, is a select group of trusted music composers and producers available to be commissioned for custom music projects. The online service is set to open its virtual doors on 26th May 2008 and was inspired by the news of BBC departments heading to Media City, Salford Quays.

With the news of many BBC departments heading for Manchester, Lee Pritchard, a local entrepreneur and founder of Media Music Now, decided that it was the right time to integrate a Composer Directory into their already established music services business.

The directory is purposely designed to comprise of a select number of trusted composers. To maintain the quality and service, all composers are auditioned before inclusion and production projects will be managed by Media Music Now.

“Although the Composer Directory service will be available globally via the web, having a physical base in the city of Manchester makes the prospect of networking exciting, especially with Manchester set to become the home of the BBC in the North. Although still being built, Media City promises to be an excellent venue for media companies and I plan on Media Music Now having a strong presence at Media City.” explains Lee Pritchard.

In a digital online world where there is an abundance of fragmented choice, ‘The Composer Directory’ promises to offer a refined selection of composers & music producers in a variety of genres with a focus on quality & service. Already trading online since 2005, Media Music Now offers high quality Royalty Free Music, Audio Editing Services, a Directory of Voice-over artists and coming soon, ‘The Composer Directory’.

Companies interested in chatting about any aspect of the imminent directory are encouraged to contact Lee Pritchard through the Media Music Now website www.mediamusicnow.co.uk

At this time, there are a few composer places left, for details go to www.mediamusicnow.co.uk and navigate to the Composer Directory.

#

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Anyway, we are now committed to a date when the Composer Directory will go live; this date is Monday 26th of May. Although a little later than initially planned, everything will go live smoothly, profiles will be complete and there will be some great page content too. Most importantly the Composer Directory will be an integral section of the Media Music Now website.

Already, we have had a number of enquiries about the directory even though it is not yet live… a good sign!

Thanks to everyone who has worked hard to send great profile material, it makes all the difference. If you are yet to send your info, please do so asap, we need to get your profile created well before the live date. Speaking of profiles, if you are not yet on board but would like to be, there are still a few places left if you want to be part of it!

Anyway, I will update you all again soon.

Regards
Lee Pritchard
P.S. Places are limited, don’t miss out, get your place here
http://www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/custom_music/register/

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It has often been said in business, that your clients are your greatest critics. This is very true. In this case, when we conceived the idea of adding an on hold service to Media Music Now, (some 18 months ago) we had not generated any on-hold business prior to creating a demo and therefore our client was correct in their assumption. The demo had indeed been created using our own script.

Since that time, we have done many, many packages for numerous clients in the UK and across Europe. We had been really busy producing audio that we had overlooked the fact that the demo was very much out of date. Although this was not intentional, it does give a very narrow view of what we have actually done in terms of on hold music and on-hold voice-over.

To rectify the situation, and I must thank my client for the heads up on this, we have now compiled an additional demo using excerpts from some of the recent on hold packages we have created for clients. The audio is three minutes long demonstrating a good range of on-hold work that we have done to date.

I have made this available here as a playable and downloadable version so that you can listen and see what we have been doing and can do. You will also find our original demo there too.

Please feel free to download the track and let your friends, colleagues and clients have a listen.

We are happy to work directly with your business to create you a custom on hold package with custom voice-over and music or alternatively, we are happy to work as a supplier to you if you are a telephony hardware provider. We deal purely with audio and do not have any dealings with telephone hardware. If you are interested in finding out more about using us as your on-hold music and voice-over supplier, please contact us through the contact page on Media Music Now. You might be surprised to learn how affordable on-hold music and voice-over is through Media Music Now.

Enjoy the new demo! Your comments are welcome as always.

If you need any further information about our on hold services please visit Media Music Now.

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What I tend to find is that many on hold sections are distorted, too quiet or too loud. Now, you could just blame the supplier of the music on hold package for their lack of quality. However, as a provider of these packages, Media Music Now are experts in audio production and audio quality, but we do not know much about telephony hardware. Likewise, it seems that providers of telephony hardware know little about audio production or audio file formats. The result is that very often we produce high quality on hold packages but are requested to convert them into an audio format that the hardware provider deems suitable. In many cases, this is fine as we can convert to many formats with no problem at all, but occasionally, we are asked to convert the on hold package to a file type that is actually so compressed that it distorts the quality of the music and on hold voice-over, before it is even added to the telephone system. Once added to the system, the audio is further degraded by the bandwidth limitations of the telephone network.

In our experience, it is better to put the highest quality file possible into the system to start with. By doing this, the only degradation that is introduced is the bandwidth limitations of the telephone network. We find that MP3s or 16 bit, 22 kHz wave files provide the best audio quality on the end of the telephone receiver.

Many telephony hardware providers will argue this point and say that the telephone network degrades the quality to four bits, 8kHz anyway and for this reason they don’t need a higher quality audio file. I would have to say I really disagree with this. In my opinion, it is like taping a really old tape on to another really old tape, it doesn’t sound very good at all.

My view is that some of the highly compressed file formats they request make the audio sound very distorted before it even goes on the telephone system. With the added distortion/limitations of the telephone line, the final audio that the listener hears can end up excessively crackly or distorted. In my opinion, if you are spending money to have a bespoke on hold music & voice over package produced professionally, the last thing you want is it to sound distorted and poor quality.

I firmly believe that putting a higher quality file in the telephone system to start with, makes the delivered quality to your caller much higher and much more acceptable to the ear.

In conclusion, start with good quality in your telephone system to avoid distortion, crackle, bad volumes levels and any other audio anomalies that cause a bad listener experience. Granted, the telephone system will limit the quality anyway, but having the sound the best it can be will always present a much more positive image of your company.

For information about Media Music Now’s music & voice-over on hold service go to
http://www.mediamusicnow.co.uk/telephone_audio/

By Lee Pritchard

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I was aware of this practice, however, I thought there would be new ways of proving ownership of copyright with digital and online technologies. For those who don’t know, I will just explain the point of the posting practice.

The idea is to post a sealed copy of your work to yourself to prove that you own the copyright. This is proved by date of the postal mark and you keep it un-opened unless you need to prove, in court, that you created the content first. Obviously, any fraudulent user will not have proof of ownership from an earlier date than you.

I remember doing this many years ago and unfortunately when the envelope arrived the date was actually ineligible. Fortunately, I had the foresight to include a page from a daily newspaper in the package.

Anyway back to my point, I did not think this advice was still be going around and surely it makes more sense nowadays is to e-mail it to yourself using a free e-mail account. When something is sent using an online e-mail account it is automatically stamped with the date and time that it was e-mailed. I would of thought that this would be sufficient evidence and just as valid as using the Postal Service. To be honest I think it would be easier to forge the date on an envelope than it would be to forge the date in an e-mail account hosted by Yahoo or Hotmail. I guess the only thing you would have to watch is that the account doesn’t go dormant as the free ones do when you don’t use them for a period of time.

Another thought of mine is to use these file transfer sites that allow you permanent storage of files. You could basically upload your content and the upload process would time and date stamp it.

If I was trying to protect my own Copyright in this day and age I would probably put my music in as zip file along with a scanned image from the front page of a daily newspaper including the date, the headline and lead story.

Whichever way is best to do it it’s still boils down to the same conclusion. If somebody tries to steal your Copyrighted music you need to take legal action and go to court if needed. This should be done as a matter of principle or if the fraudulent use is making money from the material to claim some of the revenue. In any case your evidence will be the fact that you can illustrate ownership at a time before the fraudulent user can.

Anyway, at this point I should make it absolutely clear that this is just my considered opinion and I am not a music lawyer or copyright attorney.

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