AKG Celebrates 60 years, Growth of Podcasting in Ad Dollars, Rebel Alliance Theatre Beauty and the Beast auditions, Reflections on an Animation Audition, Musicality of Voice Over Demos, and feedback from Kara Edwards.
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AKG, Microphones, C 414 LTD, Podcasting, Advertising, Rebel Alliance Theatre, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, David Boyll, Adam Fox, Kara Edwards
Transcript of Vox Talk #14
Male: Episode 14
Stephanie Ciccarelli: You’re listening to VOX Talk. I’m your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli.
If you’re into voiceovers, this is the podcast for you. Every show features new and exciting pieces by voice talent from across the world, releasing two podcast episodes each week. Let’s find out what’s going on in the news.
Male: The Loop, informing you of news and current voiceover events.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Celebrating 60 years of innovation, AKG has announced the release of the limited edition C414 LTD large-diaphragm condenser microphone. This special version of the legendary C414 features hand-selected capsules and components for optimum sonic performance, plus a classic nickel finish and brass grill screen that evoked the first models of this historic microphone.
To learn more, go to hardware.broadcastnewsroom.com.
Moving right along, podcasting, now in it’s third year of mass media adoption is once again in the news this week with a report released by eMarketer which predicts that spending on podcast advertising will quintuple over the next five years, from a paltry $80 million base in 2006 to a $400 million market in 2011.
You can visit blogs.Voices.com/thebiz for more information.

To wrap up, the Rebel Alliance Theatre in Oshkosh, Wisconsin announced it’s on the lookout for local “beauties” and “beasts.” The theatre group will hold open auditions March 12th to the 15th for its May performance of “Beauty and the Beast”. Anyone 10 and over is encouraged to come out for the auditions. Rebel Alliance will cast seven male and five female parts, as well as two roles that could be filled by either a female or male actor.
So, if you have a friend or family member in the Oshkosh Wisconsin area, send them to www.TheNorthwestern.com.
Male: The Biz, helping you grow your voiceover business.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: This week in The Biz, David Boyll reflects on an audition for an animation role.
David Boyll: Hi, I’m David Boyll from San Francisco and this is about the power of improv and knowing your product. I recently auditioned for a really whacked out bizarre character for a PC adventure game. The copy was very bare-bones, typical for gaming copy and I felt like I needed to flesh out the character just a little. So at the tail of the script, I sung a little song in character just for fun. Now, I had always been told that improvs were a big no-no in gaming auditions but I did some research and felt like for this particular game, it was appropriate.
Okay, so cut to the chase. I get the booking and on the first day, right before the first take, one of the clients says to me, “David, none of the auditions we heard really got this character but your improv convinced us that you could do it.”
Now, if you know me, you know I love throwing down the improv but if you’re going to go off the page, do your research and pick your spots. But when the situation calls for it like in a radio dialogue piece or comedic monologue, sprinkle it in. It really helps bring characters to life. Thanks for listening. This is David Boyll.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Thank you David for that inspiring piece.
If you would like to be featured in this segment, e-mail your MP3 commentary to [email protected]

Male: Tech Talk, walking you through the technological landscape.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Here’s Adam Fox of Defiant Digital with some sound advice.
Adam Fox: Well, hi again folks. It’s Adam and welcome to another edition of Tech Talk. Now a lot of us have computer experience and a lot of us have experience doing voiceover tracking in a studio done by another producer. Today, we’re going to talk about crossing those two things over as home studios become more prevalent in our business.
So although this segment could actually go under either a business category or a technical category, let’ talk about the technical stuff. Now, I get a lot of demos from people and they ask me to look at their demos, listen to them and give them any pointers that I might be able to give them on their technical skills, how their voice sounds and how the overall package of the demo is going to hit a producer or a prospective client and because I do a lot of production of other voice talents’ demos, I kind of find this rhythm and I seem to find the same things popping up in voice talents’ demos that are sent to me for evaluation.
I’m just going to discuss today just a couple of simple things that I see and maybe this will help some of these newer people that are just getting into the business.
The first thing I see is that the voice talent who might put their own demo together or maybe not go to someone else to produce it, when they put the demo together, they’re trying to put a wide variety of subject matter together in the demo to give someone a very broad spectrum of what this person’s voice can sound like. Now, that’s good. However, there is a certain way to put things together so that it doesn’t pull the producer’s ear when they’re listening to it.
Let’s go into a classic song structure as an example. The first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to have an intro then you’re going to go into verse one and then the chorus and then you’re going to go into verse two and then the chorus and you may have a bridge and then you’ll outro on the third chorus. I mean that’s just the most basic formula for – like say, a popular song.
Now, what this does for the listeners, it gives them a musical journey to follow. Well, the same can be said for a voiceover demo. How, you ask? Well, let me tell you.
What happens is you get your voiceover demo to a producer. They’re going to be listening for a certain set of things. They’re going to be listening for vocal quality, tonal quality. They’re going to be listening for of course, the audio production but moreover, they’re going to be listening to see what story you’re telling them with your audio demo. Now what I see from people sometimes is they’ll take people up and down and up and down on this journey.
Now from a producer standpoint, sometimes, it’s easier to be taken on this journey if we’re gradually guided through it. What I personally like to here as a producer is I like to hear the journey start out soft. You start out with your slower stuff, your softer, more emotional reads then you gradually move into the medium stuff. This is your factual stuff. This is your conversational reads and that kind of thing and then you’ll leave them right at end of it. You bring it all the way up and you give them all those hot leads that really excite you and really make you feel like, “Wow, this person is selling me whatever this product or service is.”
I find that when you’re guiding someone through that journey, from a production standpoint, you’re going to tend to make more of an impression that way. It’s like driving a car. If you’re going to drive up to 100 miles an hour and slam on the brakes and then get it up to 100 miles an hour and slam on the brakes, that can be pretty uncomfortable for your passengers, right?
But if you take your time and you start with the low end stuff and you start to really gradually work your way up all the way to the top end stuff that’s hot, that producer is really going to understand a couple of things about you.
Number one, that person’s going to understand that you have an overall sense of aesthetics. They’re going to understand that your interpretation is very strong. Your interpretation not of the individual spots but of your demo as a whole and they’re going to appreciate the fact that you’re presenting them with an overall picture of themselves that’s presented in a very easily comprehensible form.
We could go all day about what kinds of relations this makes, books and movies and music and all those other kinds of things that we could tie and relate to our particular discussion we’re having about voiceover demos today and if you have any questions, you can always reach me at AdamFox.Voices.com or shoot me an e-mail at DefiantDigital.com
Take care of yourselves, people and we’ll talk to you next week. Bye for now.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Thanks Adam for another fabulous segment. If you’re new to the podcast, be sure to go back to previous episodes and listen to Adam’s three-part series on how to make a commercial.
Male: VOX Box, answering your voiceover questions.
Stephanie Ciccarelli: Today, I received a comment to the VOX Daily blog from voice talent Kara Edwards. She writes, “I am really enjoying the podcast. Thanks for including so many great voice talent. I’ve really learned some great things.”
Thank you, Kara for your kind words and for acknowledging your colleagues. In the spirit of Kara’s comment, I’d like to invite you to send in a piece for the podcast or a short clip of audio feedback to play in the VOX Box. Remember, this is your podcast, so get involved.
If you want to reach us, there are many ways to make your voice heard. You can leave a comment on the VOX Talk blog, send in your thoughts via e-mail or call our hotline. To leave a message to air on the VOX Talk podcast, dial 1-888-359-3472 ext. 117. Well, that’s it for today’s episode. See you next week.
Links from today’s show:
AKG 60th Anniversary
Podcasting Advertising
Rebel Alliance Theatre auditions for Beauty and the Beast
David Boyll
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