After a quiet winter there definitely seems to be a lot moving around again. When I say summer, strictly speaking it is still spring here in blighty, but that’s climate change for you.
Not “everyone is making millions” busy, but there is work around. I’m seeing a real mix of jobs lately — corporate narration, YouTube channels, phone systems, explainers, game characters, training material, odd little app projects.
One thing I have noticed is that clients seem less interested in the old-school booming “radio voice” now. Most people just want somebody who sounds believable.
Something that has been driving me nuts lately is being accused of sounding like a robot by organisations that do not even have English staff checking the recordings, just AI verification systems.
They then try to tell me that words I have been saying all my life in England and understood perfectly by English people, are somehow wrong – the cheek of it.
“Rivian” has become a particular stumbling block. If you haven’t heard of Rivian before it is the name of an all singing all dancing new car with all the bells and whistles as standard. Say ‘Rivian, is not technically a problem for me, but for the verification systems. I still sometimes end up not getting paid because a machine has decided my English pronunciation of an English sentence is incorrect.
Home Setup
A decent home setup is almost assumed these days. Personally I ended up covering a room almost entirely in acoustic tiles. That solved reverberation, but I could still hear outside noise, so I eventually built a triple wall with an air gap. That finally did the job. Then I bought a NUC which is completely silent, when it isn’t stressed.
Anyway, interesting summer so far. Curious how other people in VO are finding things at the moment.
#voiceover #voiceactor #audacity #nuc #seasonaltrends #Rivian #Verification