Ordering Voice Over Services Online: A Guide for the Nervous

by Victoria Feinerman⁽³⁾
Victoria's Voice

Your Concerns

For some people, ordering services online is a new and frightening experience. They wonder whether the service provider is legitimate, whether they will receive a quality product, and what they will do if the product is unsatisfactory.

If you're ordering a voice over online, you may feel you have even more reasons to be nervous. You cannot hear the final product ahead of time, so you do not know whether it will be worth what you pay for it.

These are all legitimate concerns.

The Solutions

Let's look at the solutions to these issues:

Is this service provider legit?

Any service provider - voice talent or otherwise - should have a client list and testimonials. If you are concerned that the provider is running a scam, try contacting one of the clients, or Google the service provider to search for complaints.

Am I going to receive a quality product?

The voice talent should have some online demos that you can listen to. These should give you an idea of their vocal abilities.

Will the sound quality in the final product be up to par with the demos on the voice talent's website?

This is a tricky one. Many voice talents record their demos at a outside studio, but record project at their home studio. In this case, the sound quality you hear on their website may differ from the quality you hear in the demos.

To ensure that you get the same quality, you can:

Ask the talent where they recorded their demos. If they recorded the them at their home studio, you can expect the same sound quality for your project.

If they recorded the demos at an outside studio, move on to
Ask the talent to record a custom demo for you in their home studio. This will enable you to hear the sound quality you will get on your project.

Voice overs aren't cheap I've got a lot of money riding on this! What if the voice talent screws up? How do I get the voice talent to fix it or refund my money?

Ask the talent about their recut policy. A recut is a rerecording of part or all of a voice over. Most talents will provide a recut free of charge, if they made a mistake of any sort in the voice over.

I can't direct the voice talent if I'm not there in the studio. Will the voice over sound the way I want it to?

It is important to provide the talent with direction, before they start recording. Tell the talent what tone of voice you want, what pace they should use, etc.

When you write the script, include instructions to the voice talent. Put words that should be emphasized in bold or italics, and if you need longer pauses write that in the script, too.

If you made a mistake in the script, or if you later decide to change the direction, the voice talent will usually provide a recut at a discounted price.

Note that you can always ask for a free custom demo before hiring a voice talent. This will give you a good idea how your project will sound, and it will give you a chance to request changes in tone, cadence, etc.

Summary

When ordering voice overs online, always do the following:

Check that the voice talent has a respectable client list and/or references.
Listen to the voice talent's demos to assess vocal quality.
Ask whether the demos were produced at the talent's home studio, to assess sound quality in final product
Ask about the voice talent's recut policy.
Ask if free custom demos are available.

Victoria Feinerman is a professional voice talent based in Israel.

She specializes in technical and medical voice overs, and has extensive experience in news and telephone systems.

Article submitted Friday, March 13, 2009 & read 117 times.

Victoria Feinerman is a professional voice talent based in Israel.
She specializes in technical and medical voice overs, and has extensive experience in news and telephone recordings.
She has been working in voice over since 2001.

Victoria's Voice. It's everything you're looking for in a voice over.

Leave your comments through Blogz:

» left by Chiradeep (2 years 329 days ago.)

Good article Victoria!

Keep writing...
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» left by Connor Davidson (2 years 324 days ago.)

I always must be careful on the internet. Especially when money is involved.
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