How is my voice-over demo completed?

After your voice-over demo is recorded, it is sent to the Post Production department, where it is assigned to an engineer for pre-processing, along with the specific notes that were taken during the recording session.  There, the demo is edited and processed, and music is put underneath each spot, creating the first version of your demo. This preliminary version is sent to me, where I review the demo and make suggestions and changes.  The engineer then implements those changes, and sends the entire session back to Post Production.

At that point, it is assigned to either Oliver Gebhardt or me for mastering.  Every detail is examined and corrected, creating a leading-edge voice-over demo, and it is sent to our VP of Production, Claudine Ohayon, who reviews it and again makes suggestions regarding every detail – order, volume, pace, intelligibility, tone, and music are all examined. It is then sent back for final processing.  When that process is finished, it is posted into your student folder and sent to you.

Constructing a Voice-Over Demo

What will my demo sound like? Why do all the spots run together? Why are there so many/few sound effects? Why are words and phrases missing from my demo spots?

Such A Voice uses a time-tested formula of 5 commercial demos and 4 narrations to create two demos. This is typical, but as you know, our programs have options, so you may be doing an audiobook demo, animation demo, documentary demo, corporate demo, or any number of variations. Some may only do one demo, others may do three, but typically, it’s a commercial and narration demo.

We monitor industry standards and trends to make sure that we are on the leading edge of VO demo production. SAV subscribes to several different licensed music libraries and sound effects libraries to ensure that your demos will be current and contemporary.

We never speed up your voice in Post Production. We do adjust the pacing by cutting pauses, breaths, and spaces between words. We adjust the timing to coincide with musical cues. The spots are cut together tightly for a reason.  Those hiring voice talent listen to a lot of demos, and it’s important that the demos have a forward momentum, especially in a commercial demo, where we strive to present your best performances in a dynamic, quick, and interesting format. For that reason, we try to limit a commercial demo to under 60 seconds, and a narration demo to under 1 1/2 minutes.

Perfecting Your Voice-Over Demo

Our main objective is to create a demo that gets a talent searcher’s attention and books you work. It’s important to realize, that while we simulate actual commercials with popular products, you are not actually selling these products for the purpose of your demo, you are actually selling yourself. The talent searcher is looking for a voice for his/her product, and will be imagining your voice reading their copy. Your demo will be one of hundreds that are listened to, so we try to make sure you will be noticed, with your best reads, offering the greatest contrast up front. Anything that doesn’t move your demo forward is removed (for time and quality considerations). The spots are pushed together to get the most information in the least amount of time, presenting the best demonstration of you and your range as possible. Every word is examined, every take, every piece of music is adjusted to be the perfect fit.

This is your first demo. It is a snapshot in time. It is certainly not the last demo you will ever do. As you go through the process of getting work, you will learn things, you will add range and depth to your repertoire, you will become more confident – much like learning to play a musical instrument. You should keep learning and growing throughout your career, and as you develop, you will want to display your new skills at each level.

If you want to get an idea of what your demos will sound like – listen to other demos!  You can visit the Such A Voice website to hear them or search the internet for VO demos to get a sampling of what other voice talents are doing in the industry.

If you’re interested in hearing more about our voice-over demo process, head over to our Facebook page to see what our students are saying!

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The start of something new can be both exciting and nerve-wracking. It’s a similar feeling to stage fright; no matter how many times you’ve nailed rehearsing your lines in front of the mirror and told yourself, “I’ve got this,” you still have some worry that something may go wrong when it comes to showtime. Starting up your own voice-over business doesn’t

Mistake #1: Not having a business plan that is realistic and workable, with reachable goals. – Angela Castonguay, Head Voice-Over Demo Producer

Your business plan needs to be realistic, something you can work with and find success with. Angela says, “If you don’t have a solid plan, it’s like driving to a new vacation destination without a map; it’s going to take forever to find your hotel.”

Mistake #2: Focusing too much on landing “the next client.”  – Heather Costa, Chief Fulfillment & Content Officer

New leads are important, as they can become long term clients, but there should be a greater emphasis on your repeat clients. These are the clients who you work with more than once. They keep going back to you because they see success from your services and most importantly, they trust you. As Heather puts it, “The repeat clients are the ones that will give you the stability and success of a long-term career. Creating strong relationships and nurturing your existing clients is key when running a business.”

Mistake #3: Trying to do it all.  – Joleene Derks, Marketing and Career Advisory Coach

While this is your own voice-over business, it doesn’t mean that you have to be doing everything alone. You may be a master of the voice-over world, but web design and social media management may go right over your head. The best way to prevent yourself from burning out is to ask for help when you need it. Simply put by Joleene: “Outsourcing is okay.”

Mistake #4: Having false expectations. – Brian Thon, Live Class Instructor

Brian followed up with a great example of a false expectations scenario. Say that you have an amazing website that showcases everything that you want people to know about your business. You then expect that your mailing list will grow and your inbox will be flooded with messages. Although it’s beneficial to have a professionally designed website, it doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll be getting a lot of inquiries just by having one. Brian suggests sending your website link out proactively as part of your marketing plan because relying on random site visitors to contact you is likely going to be a long wait.

Mistake #5: Don’t market yourself until you have the goods to sell. – Rosemary Chase, Voice-Over Coach

And by goods, Rosemary means that you must be able to record your reads properly when submitting an MP3 audition and you must be able to offer very different takes of the script.

Mistake #6: Making a homemade amateur demo. – Lisa Foster, Live Class Instructor

This one relates to mistake #2: trying to do it all. Leave it to the demo production pros to help you out with creating your demo since that’s their specialty. An amateur demo stands out easily to professional voice-over agencies (and not in a good way), so you’ll want to make sure you have a professionally produced demo.


Mistake #7: Not continuing to practice just as much as you did during your voice-over training. – Tia Sorensen, Voice-Over Coach

Practice, practice, practice. You probably hear that a lot and there’s a good reason for it. It can be easy to let that slide as you’re putting together other necessary pieces to your voice-over business, but you have to keep your skills up so you’re prepared when those auditions and jobs come along.

A new start can appear to be challenging before it even begins, but think about it like this: once it’s showtime, the passion and fire within you will come alive and you’ll be reminded of why you do what you do. Don’t forget about what inspired you to have your own voice-over business in the first place. Keep that drive going and keep this advice from our staff in the back of your minds when starting your business. Best of luck to you as you begin this exciting process!

We always enjoy hearing your feedback, so join the conversation and see what’s trending about Such A Voice!

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You may have been told our

There are a couple of things that can propel you into the vast world of VO that many of our coaches (who are all voice actors and were once in your shoes) have suggested.

• Throw your ego out the door because there’s always room for improvement. Ok, keep your ego intact because you need it for your self-confidence (which is a must in the VO industry) but don’t assume because you’ve taken a few workshops that you have the chops now. You need to train and practice on a regular basis, just like an athlete, just like a musician, just like a professional chef. Beyonce didn’t make it to the top and then just stop and let the fruits of her labor work for her. She still practices, rehearses and continues perfecting it all. Laying down some cash for proper voice-over training with coaches may feel costly at the time, but you have to consider that those sessions will pay for themselves after you’ve had a few job offers, which ideally you will if you keep working on improving your skills. A voice coach will take you out of your comfort zone and help you to grow as a voice actor in ways that you wouldn’t otherwise on your own. The best part of working with a coach is that it’s fun!
• Make it happen, don’t wait for it to happen. Well, there’s some waiting involved after you submit auditions of course, but I’m talking about being proactive and sharing your enthusiasm for your new career endeavors with everyone. The more people who know you’re getting into voice acting, the more likely you are to find work. Networking is huge and although you may cringe at the idea of it, again, it’s a step outside your comfort zone which can potentially bring results. This can also mean getting your business cards made, launching your website, your business Facebook page, and your LinkedIn profile. It means cold calls and emailing prospective clients. Prepare yourself for rejection and take it with a grain of salt when it happens. Remember that a rejection doesn’t mean you don’t have talent, it means you didn’t fit the voice description of what the client had in mind.
• Setting realistic goals helps you with time management. It can feel overwhelming to embark on a voice acting career. If you’re anything like me when you feel overwhelmed you shut down and don’t accomplish anything except accumulating a YouTube history of funny cat videos. Now as entertaining as that is, it’s not going to bring you anything but guilt later on for not getting anything done. So, set goals for yourself and I’m talking realistic goals. Not goals like- Send auditions this week. No, that’s too broad and too vague. Get detailed with your goals and ask someone to hold you accountable. This could be the voice-over coach that you’ve invested in. Setting goals will ideally teach you how to organize your time as well. What helps me is to use my Google calendar as my guiding light. I write my goals into the time and day slots that I want to get them done. When I do that, I usually achieve said goals. If I just think it and assume I’ll get it done, it doesn’t happen. In that case, what gets done is more accumulation of cat videos. With setting goals and practical organization of your time, it can be helpful to create a routine for yourself so that you’re dedicating a set amount of hours each day to starting your voice acting career.
• A professional demo and high-quality equipment are key. I cannot stress enough how important a professional demo is. Imagine you’re interviewing someone for a job and they show up in ripped jeans with their hair askew. Would you hire that person based on your first impression? Unless it’s for a heavy metal music booking company, probably not. Your demo is your prospective client’s first impression of you. If there’s background noise or the sound is muffled or you’re popping your p’s too much, that’s going to reflect poorly on you and what the client assumes your capabilities are. Get into a studio with a producer and director so that you can take advantage of their expertise. Don’t forget that we can help you with that too!

If after reading this article, you’re still feeling apprehensive and not jazzed enough, here are some books that I recommend to get you off your tush and into the world of voice acting!

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

You’re a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero

We always enjoy hearing your feedback, so join the conversation and see what’s trending about Such A Voice!

We also provide more tips about how to get started with your voice acting career on our YouTube channel. We even have a video for this post, so you can hear the blog author, Bekka Burton, in action. Check it out below: 

                                                                                                   About the Author

Bekka Burton is a copywriter, scriptwriter and copy editor at Such A Voice. She’s also an English Language teacher forcing fun grammar activities onto unsuspecting students in Barcelona, Spain. She’s currently studying an online Diploma course for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Trinity College in London and will be pursuing a Master’s in Linguistics in Fall 2018. When she’s not studying, writing, editing or teaching, she’s sure to be found hiking mountains, reading books, and eating her way through many European cities.

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There’s this old saying: “Only learn something once. After that you’re a total expert and will be lauded as a genius in your field.”

Just kidding, that would be ridiculous. How about this one?

“You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way.” -Marvin Minsky

Ah, better.

My Origin Story or That Time I Googled Voice-Over

When I first decided to pursue a voice-over career, I was on a break from work. I was miserable in my job. Life circumstances had left me in a rut with little direction. I needed something I could be proud of. Something that was mine. It was time to pursue voice-over, but there was a big question that I had to ask: How do I become a voice actor? I ended up asking Google this question. Seriously, that’s all I did. That led to a link for Such A Voice and then some amazing conversations with lovely people about voice-over coaching. Finally, I told my husband I was going to invest in a voice-over training program to become a voice actor. I will never forget it because his face was excited for me, while his brain was probably thinking, “What the heck is she doing?” But, I had that tone he knows so well that meant: “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.” Shortly after, I began my voice-over coaching with Bill Sleeper for my commercial and narration demos, followed by an audiobook demo produced by Michael Yurchak.

After that, I never had to learn anything ever again and ended up building a whole career on learning all of the information one time!

I’m kidding… remember the first part of the blog post? We’re doing that again. Look alive.

I received incredible voice-over coaching from the SAV staff. They gave me an amazing foundation and a wealth of knowledge that I still use everyday in my work. I’ve built a successful voice-over business that I’m proud of. If I had relied solely on my voice-over coaching sessions and never sought out any other knowledge, I would be in a very different place.

If you’re serious about taking a passion and making it your career, your life, and your purpose, it requires a lot of you. Here’s the oversimplified version: you are introduced to a skill, you love the skill, you train in the skill, you do the skill for money or accolades. People say “Wow, look at their mad skills!” What you never hear is people saying, “Wow, look at how they keep improving their skills and investing in continued education like a serious professional!” However, that’s kind of the most important part.

Natural Talent is Not Enough

When I was four years old, my grandma signed me up for piano lessons. We discovered I had some natural talent. I had a knack for timing and musicality. By the age of eight, I was competing for a chance to tour with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. There were hundreds of competitors and only seven finalist spots. I played my Mozart Concerto for the judges and totally nailed it. I vividly remember walking up to the finalist list they posted on the bulletin board at the end of the day. If I was a finalist, I had to stay and perform again. If I wasn’t, I got to go to the zoo. I was an alternate, and all of the finalists were present, so I got to go to the zoo. My eight-year-old heart was thrilled because, ya know, penguins.

I competed for several more years before deciding being a pianist wasn’t my ultimate goal, but let’s focus on those four years between my first lesson and my trip to the zoo. I had natural talent, but that alone wasn’t getting me anywhere near that competition. First of all, I had an amazing teacher. She gave me the tools, provided me with honest constructive criticism, and encouraged me to grow, but even that alone couldn’t develop my skills. It was the hours, and I mean HOURS, of practice time and music theory study. It wasn’t always pretty either. Most of those hours were spent playing scales and chords over and over again to build dexterity. It was going through countless flashcards to remember time signatures, note values, symbols, music history, etc. It was playing one line of music with a metronome, increasing the tempo little by little. This usually ended with me laying on the piano bench sobbing while my grandma made me a grilled cheese.  So, let’s drive all of this home.

Devour Voice-Over Knowledge

Soak up all of the knowledge you can about voice-overs and this industry. Take what serves you, let go of what doesn’t. Your needs are going to change. It’s just like reading your favorite book at different times in your life. You will find different lessons as you grow and gain experience.

Where do you find this info? If you’re in a Such A Voice Demo Program or are a VO Pro Member, you have access to a lot of information from VO experts. Watch the videos, listen to the bi-weekly teleconferences, and read the blog. Go back to all three of these resources and do it all over again. Don’t let it go to waste. In my opinion, one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your voice-over training is to ignore these materials. Listen to podcasts by VO professionals, read VO books, budget in additional
voice-over coaching sessions to keep your skills fresh, attend conferences, find voice-over workshops in your area, and take a local improv class. Invest, absorb, repeat.

One of the most motivating things I ever heard was on the ID10T podcast with Chris Hardwick. I’m paraphrasing, but he made the comment that even people like Steve Carell and Tina Fey, while they had natural comedic talent, had to train for years to become who they are.

So, I leave you with this question: Who do you want to become?

Enjoyed reading this content? We’d love to hear more of your feedback about our blog.

We’re also on YouTube! Check out the video for this post:

                                        About the Author

Tia Rider Sorensen is a voice actor and writer in the Salt Lake City area. She got her start with Such A Voice in their VIP program and has since completed over 50 audiobooks, several corporate and explainer videos, as well as some commercial and animation work. You can see more of her work at www.tiasorensen.com.

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What are the different types of demos?
There are many different types of demos: promo, eLearning, animation, video game, foreign language, live announce, corporate, explainer video, telephony (voicemail/IVR), documentary, trailer, ADR/looping, museum tours, and TV narration. But, this isn’t an exhaustive list. Within audiobook demos, there are non-fiction, fiction, and children’s audiobook demos. Within commercial demos, there are automotive and pharmaceutical, to name a few. There’s also a new trend of 6-second commercial demos. These demos showcase your ability to create a mood quickly. You can drill down to even more specificity within genres if there is something that you are interested in voicing. For instance, you could develop a medical narration eLearning demo if that’s your desired niche.

Why are different demos needed?
If you only wish to do commercial and narration work, you really don’t need any genre specific demos. If you want to be competitive in a genre that requires a certain voice-over skill set, then that’s where you’ll need a demo to showcase what you are capable of. Let’s take eLearning. You need to be able to show that you can train the learner in an engaging and natural way – and show that your range is capable of doing that! Ultimately, you want to be perceived as an expert, or at least highly knowledgeable, in your area of interest. When you have a demo in that genre, you show that you know what you are doing and instill confidence in your potential client.

How do you market with different demos?
The first step in marketing with your genre specific demos is to find the exact “buyer” for that type of voice-over work. You don’t want to send an eLearning demo to an advertising agency or a children’s audiobook demo to a VOIP (telephony/voicemail) company. The second step is to contact the buyer, introduce yourself, and let them know that you specialize in their type of work as evidenced by the demo you are sending them. You are speaking each other’s language (in a way) and creating a connection because you “get” each other – you work in the same genre and you are offering yourself as a resource for them.
You could send a commercial or narration demo to these companies too, however, with a niche specific demo, it makes you stand out more & gives the client the exact type of read that they specifically hire. On a side note, I spent my first 6 years working in eLearning without an eLearning specific demo. But…when I created an eLearning demo, my marketing became exponentially more effective.

Your demos are your resume. When you have a demo in the genre you are marketing yourself, you create credibility. During the coaching and recording process of the demo, you are getting some great practice for working in the genre, which is an added bonus. By having a genre specific demo, you’re giving yourself an advantage in getting the audition and possibly even the gig!

Check out our VO Pro Membership and the Such A Voice blog for more content like this!

Don’t forget that we are also on YouTube. Check out the video for this blog post:

Tell us how we can make our blog even more valuable here.

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For this week’s staff spotlight, we’d like to introduce you to Immanuel Gebhardt, one of the members of our post-production team.

SAV: Hi Immanuel! We’re excited to have this time to talk. Tell us some fun facts about yourself.

Gebhardt: Hi, thanks for the opportunity! I’m 18 years old. In my free time, I snowboard and skateboard. I’m also a producer, engineer, and the studio manager at Soundloom in Burlington VT.

SAV: Can you explain more about your role here at SAV on the post-production team?

Gebhardt: When I get a client’s ProTools session, the audio is completely raw. I edit out the background noise, any mouth and breath noise, adjust the pacing, add music and sound effects, and create tight transitions from spot to spot.

SAV: What got you interested in the work that you do now?

Gebhardt: I’ve always been interested in music/production/engineering and after becoming fluent in Pro Tools, I realized working for SAV would be a perfect opportunity —  it combines many of my passions and it’s a job in the audio industry.

SAV: What do you like to do to relax after a hard day of work?

Gebhardt: Sit down on the couch and watch The Office with my roommates.

SAV: What’s the best single day on your calendar?

Gebhardt: FIRST DAY OF WINTER

SAV: What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?

Gebhardt: I think everyone should go camping at least once. People need more of a connection with nature, especially if we actually plan on saving this planet!

SAV: What’s something you’ve been meaning to try but just haven’t gotten around to it?

Gebhardt: Brussel Sprouts! “YUCK,” just kidding. I’d love to try snowboarding in Japan, just haven’t gotten around to it yet!

SAV: What fad or trend do you hope comes back?

Gebhardt: MYSPACE

SAV: What song or artist do you like but rarely admit to liking?

Gebhardt: My roommates listen to Kenny Chesney and it’s starting to grow on me.

SAV: What are you looking forward to in the coming months?

Gebhardt: I’m looking forward to a trip to Bozeman, MT to see family and snowboard.

Tell us how we can make our blog even more valuable here.

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As a voice-over artist, your voice-over demo is the most useful tool you have in getting your voice heard and allowing potential clients and agents to have a comprehensive understanding of what you offer as a unique and capable voice talent. When you think about it, your demo is your calling card, business card, and resume all rolled into one! That’s why

Here’s how to create a compelling voice-over demo:

Get up to Speed

It’s important to become familiar with industry standards and understand the reasoning behind them before creating your voice-over demo. Most demos are around 60 seconds long these days. One reason is because people have shorter attention spans than ever before. Another reason is that there is more content being made nowadays and potential clients simply don’t have enough time to listen to longer demos in order to decide who they are interested in working with. Making sure your demo fits into the voice-over landscape shows clients that you’re in tune with what’s going on in the industry.

Focus on Genre

It’s important that your voice-over demo showcases one specific genre, as opposed to being a compilation of different genres on one demo. Voice seekers are busy, and they don’t have time to wade through a long montage to eventually see if you can master the style they’re looking for. That’s why having a genre-specific demo that accurately showcases your current skill set in that particular genre is a must for any voice-over artist.

Commercial and narration demos are common genres to focus on initially, and will remain staples of your demo arsenal. As you grow in your voice work, you may want to create specialty demos in other genres. These include animation, promo, audiobook, narration, and foreign language.

Great Content

When selecting scripts for your demo, make sure the copy is strong and allows you to shine as a performer. Choose marketable content that accurately reflects your capabilities. Ensure the spots you choose are evergreen, meaning that they can be used months and potentially years down the road without the content feeling dated.

Show Your Range

As a voice actor, you’ve honed the ability to create a variety of different reads and interpretations. Your demo should showcase your best performances, showing enough range and versatility to capture the listener’s attention, hold it, and leave them wanting more.

Quality Matters

Your demo should reflect the level of professionalism and quality you aim to offer your future clients. In keeping with a high standard of excellence, it’s optimal for your demo to be professionally recorded in a studio. The most marketable passages with the strongest performances should then be selected, ideally by a post producer with experience in the industry. Finally, an audio engineer should bring their expertise to the table, adding music and sound effects, and ultimately editing, sequencing, mixing, and mastering the demo.

It’s easy to feel nervous about creating your voice-over demo, especially for the first time, but if you start out having these key points covered, you can feel confident that you’re ready to create a compelling voice-over demo.

Check out our VO Pro Membership and the Such A Voice blog for more content like this!

About the Author

Claudine Ohayon is an Emmy Award-winning director/producer, commercial and promotional voice talent for brands like Verizon, Listerine, and MasterCard, native Brooklynite, published photographer. She was also the live announcer for the first ever televised Hollywood Film Awards on CBS.

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To start, let’s talk about what a voice-over demo should consist of. Your goal should be a recording of 60 to 90 seconds depending on the type of demo. Short and sweet is always better.. To demonstrate your range and skill, you’ll need at least four or five different scripts. Your voice should be paired with tasteful licensed music, and mixed and mastered so that it sounds just like a professional finished product. You need to grab your listener’s attention and blow them away in the first few seconds. For this reason, you’ll want to record this demo at a professional recording studio that knows how to do voice-overs, with a voice-over producer directing you.

Many artists make the mistake of trying to record their own demo. While recording a demo on your own might save you money, it most likely won’t get you work. Think about it, if you’re the person deciding on who to hire for a voice-over job, you’re listening to a lot of demos. Normally, these folks only listen to the first few seconds of each artist and if it hasn’t grabbed them, they move on. If you listen to a bunch of demos done by professionals and then hear a recording that was clearly done by a voice-over hobbyist in a home studio, it’s going to pale in comparison, no matter how good the performance was. Also, if you’re thinking about trying to make your own demo, ask yourself a few important questions: do you have licensed music that you can use? Voice-over producers  do. Do you know how to mix and master your recordings using compression, equalization and the post-production effects needed to make your demo sparkle? A good audio engineer does. Becoming a professional starts with a crisp and polished demo. . Don’t make it on the cheap, and don’t cut corners, the real cost will be a lack of jobs..

Getting the scripts for your demo is another thing to consider. If you listen to any professional voice-over demo, you’ll see that people are using real ads and well-written scripts. Seek out people who actually write copy and have them write your scripts for you.. Writing your own scripts, much like recording your own demo, is an avoidable mistake that we see far too often.

Depending on what kind of job you’re trying to land, there are different kinds of demos that you want to record. If you want to demonstrate how good you are at doing commercials and selling products, you’ll need a commercial demo. If, for example, you want to do voice-over for documentaries, you’ll want a narration demo for that. For most Such A Voice clients, we suggest that they start by recording both a Commercial and a Narration demo. One to show how well you “sell” and one to show how well you “inform.” As voice-overs have continued to grow and become more specialized, demos for niche markets like video games, audiobooks and cartoons have proven to be invaluable as well. Basically, you want a professional recording of you reading scripts related to the work you’re trying to get. Sending your commercial demo to an audiobook company would be pretty silly, right?

Here at Such A Voice, we’ve been helping people record professional demos for the last 30 years. We’re so pleased that so many of our students have had wonderful success in their voice-over careers. If you feel that you’re ready to start your own voice-over career, reach out to us today to find out more about how to record your own professional voice-over demo.

Find this useful? Check out our VO Pro Membership!

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I have been coaching students toward making their career-launching voice-over demos for over five years now, but the last time I recorded one myself was fifteen years ago, when I officially launched my own VO career. Since recording those initial commercial and narration voice-over demos (and subsequent promo and audiobook voice-over demos) way back when, I have been fortunate to perform in thousands of recording sessions. And by culling excerpts from a variety of those gigs, I have continuously updated my original reels and added new ones to my portfolio. But a few weeks ago, I was presented with an interesting opportunity to record a new voice-over demo from scratch, and thought the experience would be a great one to share with those of you getting ready to make your own voice-over demos.

I am on the roster of a studio with a client that produces a lot of projects for fragrance and fashion brands. They suggested that the studio create a new, specialized talent voice-over demo category that could showcase industry specific spots, to help facilitate casting future projects. So, the studio asked me to record a complimentary Fragrance and Fashion voice-over demo. It was a win-win situation. I would get a free voice-over demo produced in a niche I didn’t have much experience, and the studio would build a new category of voice-over demos to improve their business. The session went great and was a lot of fun. And, though not totally comparable to a first-time voice-over demo recording session, it put me in a mind to offer some helpful tips.

Arrive early to relax and prepare. Whether or not you have had time with the voice-over demo scripts beforehand, it’s important to never be rushed – or rushing. In my case I arrived early, in part, because I had not been sent the scripts and wanted some time to review them. Either way though, it’s a good idea to give yourself some chill time before the session starts. Sit quietly and contemplatively, relax your body and mind. The more at ease you are the better you will be able to access what you need for a great performance. This is not a novel idea, nor unique only to a voice-over demo session, but when you’re getting ready to perform a range of things in a single session it becomes all the more important. Having that interior peace and calm allowed me to focus like a laser on the diverse group of voice-over demo scripts.

Bring what you need to be comfortable. That means different things to different people, but for me, feeling the first pangs of a cold on a chilly winter day, it meant a lot of warming layers for the transit and a bag of Throat Coat tea. This stuff can be liquid gold when your throat isn’t cooperating. And since I had just come from a previous booking on a medium-length narration job, just having it as insurance against fatigue or phlegm was important.

Be flexible and listen closely to your director; but be comfortable doing your own thing. Once in the session, the producers and engineer had me watch videos to provide the specs they wanted for each script. Then we talked a bit about direction so we were on the same page. And, once in the booth, I started each first take with that interpretation, then tried out different approaches on subsequent takes. A few times those first takes were spot on and ultimately what they ended up using, but a few other times we found that flexibly evolving the direction yielded the best reads. By playing around, having fun and letting my instincts guide me, I was able to perform some solid takes that, while not a total departure from the producer’s’ initial direction, were uniquely mine. Even if you have very little experience this should always be your goal.

Be a good egg in the studio. Whether it’s the first or fiftieth time you’ve worked with someone, help make their job as easy as possible by being drama-free and not annoying. Because of my years of experience, there were times I wanted to pipe in about this or that but simply held my tongue because it would not have been helpful. I just remembered that there is always a bigger picture at play for them and simply let my work do the talking for me.

Which brings us to the last point: project confidence but not arrogance. I did my best to impress with dynamic performances and efficiency (never underestimate the importance of saving time for your client – and for you, to get on to that next audition!), but was humble and gracious throughout. Even when the producer exclaimed at the end that “you were really bringing it today, Alan!” I just smiled and thanked him. For most people, quiet confidence goes a lot further than braggadocio. There are a lot of talented people in this business, and I never forget how lucky I am to be part of it. The many years between voice-over demo sessions reminded me both how far I’d come and how some things never change.

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Alan Schwartz is a nationally recognized voice over talent who has served as the voice for Sprite, Verizon, Smirnoff Ice, and “Alex” from the Mac Operating System, among others. You can find more of his work at ajsvoiceover.com.

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