voice over

When’s the last time you heard an announcement or commercial that stuck with you? Did the voiceover sound happy? Reassuring? Warm?

Did it sound female?

If you’ve observed that many of the voices we hear in the media are female, we’re here to tell you that you’re on to something. Gone are the times of the good ‘ole boy’s club—nowadays, more and more companies are turning to female voiceover help. Let’s take a look at why this is.

The (voiceover) future is female

First thing’s first: there is compelling evidence to show that listeners warm up more quickly to a female voice compared with deep male voices. A 2014 study performed by the University of Glasgow found that participants rated female voices and higher-pitched male voices as the most trustworthy.

It’s also possible that female voices resonate more strongly with consumers who often tend to be female themselves. It’s been over ten years since the Harvard Business Review declared that women “drive the world economy,” a phrase that came from the fact that women serve as the primary purchase decision-maker in most spending categories.

So what does this mean? If you’re starting to think about your next voiceover project, you should seriously consider hiring the help of a female professional.

A professional? Can’t I just record my own voiceovers?

If you’re in need of voiceovers, it can be tempting to take the DIY path. Not only is cutting-edge software and hardware more accessible than ever before, but there is no shortage of videos out there that give us that boost of “you can do it” confidence, for better or for worse.

While a YouTube tutorial can be an excellent help for restringing your guitar or deep-cleaning your bathtub, there’s a lot at stake with voiceover acting. Even you have a “great announcer voice,” creating a high-quality, ready-to-go can be deceivingly complex. It’s not that we don’t think you’re capable of great things—but voice acting makes the list of tasks that are better handled by professionals.

This is because, whether you’re looking to advertise a product or deliver an important message to the mass public, your implementation must be exact. If a voiceover delivery falls flat, it can backfire and have disastrous consequences for your company or organization.

Bottom line: you’ll do yourself a favor by investing in the peace of mind that comes with using a reliable voice actor who will complete your project in a professional studio and deliver a ready-to-use product created with industry standards in mind. Voiceover actors are professionals, training for years to perfect their craft. They’re ready to help you.

While any professional voice talent will bring something different to the table, you should consider looking into using a female voiceover talent. You’ve got science on your side.

Pivoting, changing, and reinventing. All industries have used at least one of these words to describe the impact of the pandemic, and the voiceover industry is no exception. It’s been a challenging year and a half, but thanks to technology and a little out-of-the-box thinking, it’s easier now, more than ever, to find just the right voiceover talent for that upcoming project.

Great talent is everywhere

Remember staying home, binging Tiger King in one weekend, making sourdough bread, and finishing the next puzzle in your stack? Me too. I also remember noticing that top casting directors, who would normally only consider talent based in New York City and Los Angeles, were now open to hearing auditions from voiceover artists like me who are based in other areas (Buffalo, New York represent!). Looking for talent beyond specific geographic locations increases the chances of finding just the right person for that next project.

Studio quality at home 

More production studios, post houses, and engineers are realizing that there are voiceover talents with true professional setups at home. Brands like Pillsbury, Panera, and Hoover have brought me on for projects that I’ve voiced in my own professional home studio. For the past decade, I’ve recorded, edited, conference-called, and participated in live-directed sessions from my StudioBricks OnePlus booth with a Neumann TLM-103 and a Sennheiser MKH-416 Shotgun Microphone, an Audient id14 Interface, and a MacPro Editing Suite.
I’ve even been able to provide pristine raw audio that’s ready to mix via services like SourceConnect, ISDN, ipDTL or CleanFeed and I’m comfortable editing my own audio for industrial projects like e-learning or explainer videos.

Problem-solving on the fly

I’d love to think that technology works great all of the time, but let’s be real — whether collaborating on projects on-site or remotely, there are times when things don’t go quite as planned. Voiceover artists who have their own professional setup at home know their equipment inside and out. They become their own in-house tech support to troubleshoot their equipment and come up with solutions so that the end result meets (and exceeds!) the client’s standards.

Case in point: During a scheduled live-directed session with a client on the West Coast, the power went out across the entire Eastern seaboard. They were supposed to be recording me remotely through SourceConnect, but after I realized it wasn’t a problem with my router and that actually thousands of people were without power, I quickly set up a Zoom meeting for the entire team to join. They listened in and directed me while I recorded the session on my side and uploaded all of the takes to send to them after we finished. Ultimately, the session went perfectly — I was able to deliver exactly what the engineer needed to build the spot with my takes.

In a world that encourages DIY-ing everything, there are just some things — like voiceovers — to leave to the experts. Here are four reasons to hire a professional voice actor (and not Janice from accounting, although she is a very nice person) for your next project:

1. Keep listeners engaged
   With the rise of online learning, assisted audio devices like Siri and Alexa, and podcasts and audiobooks, audiences expect a certain level of quality to keep them engaged. Professional voice actors prepare and practice the scripts so they can get the intonation just right, know when to pause for emphasis or dramatic effect, add excitement or energy as needed, and take extra care to pronounce all of the words correctly. They make sure all of the details come together to deliver a recording that makes dense and hard-to-understand topics digestible and enjoyable to listen to so that the content sticks.
2. Ensure great audio quality
   Many professional voice actors who work from home have their own professional home studios. Personally, I record from a StudioBricks OnePlus booth with a Neumann TLM-103 and a Sennheiser MKH-416 Shotgun Microphone, an Audient id14 Interface, and a MacPro Editing Suite. (See my setup here.)Getting great audio quality isn’t always easy, but working with a voice actor who uses a professional setup at home guarantees that you’ll receive a high-quality audio file that your engineers will be happy to use.
3. Save on time and effort
   No more spending time asking Janice from accounting to re-record the audio and add just a little bit (or a LOT bit) more personality and excitement or asking if she could maybe soften her p’s and b’s. Hiring a professional voiceover artist means you’ll be working with someone who takes the job seriously and has the training and experience to turn around the project quickly so that you can delegate the task and check it off your to-do list *cue the choir of angels*.
4. Keep your brand, on brand
   Picture the Geico commercials and I’ll bet you can hear the voice of the Geico gecko. His voice has helped to establish Geico as a friendly, relatable, and cheeky brand that customers can trust. Strengthen your brand voice (literally!) with the talents of a professional voice actor. Even better, establish a consistent brand voice to use throughout your commercials and marketing videos so that your audience comes to recognize the voice and the brand.

Whether the project is a commercial, training video, e-learning module, announcement, or product launch, working with a voice actor adds quality, professionalism, and peace of mind. You’ll be glad you left it to an expert to get the job done right!