Opinions on my voice acting & help with buying a mic?

[Aviala]

I recently got the idea that voice acting might be fun, and so I recorded a short sample on my phone. It's unedited and not very high quality, but before I even consider spending money on a good quality mic I'd like to hear some opinions on if I'm fit to be a (hobbyist!) voice actor. Would you ever consider choosing me for a project? What should I work on to improve? Do you think it's smart for me to invest in a quality microphone or will it go to waste because I'm not suited to be a VA? Is there any chance of me getting paid work?

https://soundcloud.com/avialaa/voice-acting-test1

I want honest critique but please keep it civil. I want to hear the truth but please don't be intentionally mean about it; I was teased for my voice when I was youger so it's a bit of a soft spot.

Any tips on how to practise voice acting are welcome!

My second question is about the mic. Any recommendations on mics and where to buy them? I need something as cheap as possible, but without sacrificing too much quality. 150 USD is my absolute limit, though the cheaper the better.

[ketskari]

I'd like to hear some opinions on if I'm fit to be a (hobbyist!) voice actor.

Well, I can give you my impressions, but I don't think I (or anyone) can determine whether you'd be a good actor from listening to your first attempts. When I look at my early drawings, they are about the same quality as a lot of other early artists. I wasn't magically good with the first sketch, so I would not expect that from a beginning actor, either.

So, overall. I think that perhaps you were still getting warmed up at the beginning, because I preferred the latter examples better than the first two. Either way, for the last two I could almost picture the characters, and the acting in the last sample in particular sounded very sincere.

1. The first sample seemed as if it slid into the second unintentionally--you start off high ("Why? Why are you doing..?") and then go low, so that the second voice did not feel as consistent as the third and fourth.
2. I read the first sample as anime, the second as dramatic, the third as Sci-Fi/Space Opera and the final one as dramatic. The two dramatic samples had a very similar sort of mood (kind of emotionally low key) so it would be nice if some samples showed a greater range of emotion (some high, some low, some middle key). When I consider voice actors, the ability to show a range of realistic emotion (not just exaggerated or cartoon emotion) is something I look for.

Yes, I think I would consider you if the recording quality was higher, although it's hard to tell right now. But, I can say that I find your voice pleasant, and as I write fantasy worlds, I can usually fit in different accents.

As for mic, I needed a mic for some basic voice and SFX recording, so I did some research that turned up the Blue Yeti (it's $129 on Amazon). There's a lot of noise where I live, so I record in a closet with some hanging blankets and insulation (an inexpensive sound booth), which cuts down on the majority of the background noise, and the sound quality is pretty good. The Snowball (same company as the Yeti) is cheaper, but I've read some good things about that, too. I would look for reviews on youtube recorded with whatever mic you're looking into. That was really what decided me on the Yeti.

If you're into making multimedia projects in general (such as VNs), but you decide you don't want to VA, it's still useful to have a good mic for SFX/voice effects.

One question I find helpful, whenever a new skillset tempts me, is: can you sustain interest? While I have taken some acting classes and I participated in theater throughout middle school/high school, I discovered I wasn't remotely interested in acting. I can sustain interest for a painting, or for a visual novel (I stuck with my first VN for about four years), but I find acting boring after a short time. Maybe it would help to practice some more first, or read a script, make a podcast or Let's Play or something else that requires you to use your voice and see if it's still something you're interested in.

Those are my thoughts, anyway, to be taken with a grain of salt.

[SundownKid]

My second question is about the mic. Any recommendations on mics and where to buy them? I need something as cheap as possible, but without sacrificing too much quality. 150 USD is my absolute limit, though the cheaper the better.

I recommend getting a Blue Snowball, it's only $50. You will also want to either make a pop filter or buy one.

[Aviala]

Thanks for the comments! I'll look into the mics you guys suggested.

One of the reasons I'm considering voice acting is that my wrists are in a pretty bad condition and I might not be able to work on the things I currently have some skill for (drawing, writing) much longer due to my carpal tunnel syndrome. I really need a creative outlet, and I can't think of anything that doesn't require me to use my hands, except for voice acting. I really want to be a part of the VN and indie game community even if I have to take a break from art. Plus I've always been insecure about my voice so I think voice acting would be good for me.

Ketskari, from what I gather from your message, my biggest problem is the lack of practise and versatility, am I right?
But how people practise voice acting is a bit unclear to me. Just read a lot of lines and try to convey the emotion, or what? Any tips or suggestions?

Maybe I really should buy the mic because as you said, I can do sound effects etc. with it even if voice acting can't keep my interest. I do love acting, and I've been in a couple of youth theatre productions, so maybe voice acting will be my thing too. It's hard to say, but I'd love to try it. Maybe I should volunteer for some small roles in free VN's once I have the mic, it's probably the only way to know for sure.

[sonorousgem]

I'm a complete noob to voice acting, so take the following with a grain of salt!

I agree with much of what ketskari mentioned about your voice acting test. It was only 38 seconds, so there wasn't too much to listen to, and it would have been nice to hear a bigger range of emotion (i.e. anger, excitement, craziness, etc.).
I really dislike my own voice (so I don't know why I still try to voice act sometimes... XD), but I'm all for trying out something for fun, even if I might not be good at it. That's part of the reason I still draw and sing lol. Practically, though, you should probably only invest in a mic if this is something you know you want to do for a while.

I got a Blue Snowball as a gift and while it's not perfect, it's served its purpose for recording auditions and singing and stuff. I think I got it for Christmas, so if that or your birthday is coming up, maybe someone will be kind enough to get it for you! ^.^

I stumbled across this site http://iwanttobeavoiceactor.com/ on a similar thread on Lemmasoft, and it was pretty helpful! I also like looking at the voice actor section of the forums to listen how other people sound when they act, or how they've put together their demos. Paying attention to acting in animes and TV helps at times too. Auditioning for projects helps as well, especially if the producer/creator is willing to critique you. But again I'm a total novice. Good luck!

[Yolo400]

Do it with the crap mic until you find out you love it. Scale up once you feel ready to audition.

The more you talk, the better your voice will become. Reading things out loud that you can't read easily and reading them clear is great practice.

Tongue twisters are op.

Don't overstrain your voice, maintain good, relaxed posture so you're not crushing your diaphragm.

Work on your consonants and vowels

If you want help with gathering the emotion for something, think about five things before you pick up your mic and try to understand your reasons for doing each thing. Close your eyes if you need to, quiet space helps.

1) Who you are becoming. (are you a vicious old lady, a princess, a happy-go-lucky carefree teenager?)
1.5) Who are you talking to? (are you talking to a close friend? someone you hate? someone you love, dearly?)
2) What you are doing. (are you chained up? are you having the time of your life? are you getting drunk?)
2.5 What do you want? (do you want to leave? do you want to just get drunk? do you want to lie down and watch the room spin?)
3) Where you are going. (are you going to stay where you are? are you going somewhere nasty? are you going somewhere nice?)
3.5) Where are you? (are you in a spacious cavern? are you in your bedroom? are you in a loud club? out in the cold?)
4) Why you are doing it? (are you begging for your life because it's all you have, or someone in your life that you have to see? are you just tired?)
4.5) Why are you here? (have you been taken here? what events have taken place in your life to lead you here?)
5) When is this? (Is it a Monday morning and you're still rubbing the sleep out of your eyes? etc.)

Don't just pick up an emotion and be like "I'll be scared" or "I'll be in love with X" or "I'll be charming to X", consider X and your surroundings a real thing, and everything they have ever done for you to make you feel so passionately and the feelings will come.

Here's a thing you should definitely go and look for and take some classes in if you find you have the passion. Some singing lessons do cover the Estill model. It teaches you muscular control of the larynx allowing you to isolate and apply different muscles in your throat to make different sounds.
http://www.thevoiceexplained.com/conten ... till-model

Challenge yourself, but don't break it. Your voice is an important tool. Speak not from the throat but from the diaphragm. If you feel sharp jitters of pain at any point during voice work you should take a break.

A small warm up:

To warm up, I would normally give you a whole physical warm-up to do, but some of it can be dangerous / bad if done wrong, and I'm not about to film an example... SO. If you want to find out how to warm-up properly, head out to some acting classes / voice acting classes and write that information down, as warming up the voice is just as serious a deal as an athlete warming up their body. You will find out (later on) that there are lots of muscles and bits involved that can strain.

- Just realized how dated this post is, doesn't make my information any less useful, though.

Since I won't do the spine, Head comes first.

Slowly:
Turn your head to the right shoulder, to the centre, to the left shoulder, to the centre, to the right shoulder, to the centre, to the left shoulder. (allow the muscles to stretch)
Rotate your head so your chin is touching your collarbone from right to left as above. Do not tilt the head backwards (You should never see the ceiling)
Roll your shoulders back, and then forward, and then back, and then forward.

Now onto warming up the voice, since we're not dealing with the spine or chest:

First of all, we do our breathing.

Breathe out. Then breath in for four counts, and out for 15 counts.
Repeat 4 times, if you yawn then that's good.

Next, we warm up the vocal cords.

Breath out, breath in for four counts, breath out on a quiet Z, almost like a hum (like a bumblebee 'zzzzzzzzzzzz')
For 10 counts, (b in) then 15 counts, (b in) then 20 counts.

Next we warm up consonants
and 'B' 'G' 'D' (voiced) 'P' 'T' 'K' (unvoiced)
Like so; with strong enunciation (always trying to improve)
"Buh, Buh, Buh, Buh, Buh, Buh, Buh, Buh, Bu-Buh, Bu-Buh, Bu-Buh, Bu-Buh, Bu-Buh, Bu-Buh, Bu-Buh, Bu-Buh, Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-Buh (triplets, so Bu-Bu-Bu is like One-Twothree, or One-Twothree One-Twothree One-Twothree Four, where the '-' is a small gap.)
Then repeat with G, D, P, T and K.
these will help your pronunciation and overall control of your voice, as well as getting you ready for the day.

You can also do pitch, either sirening or singing scales, sirening is where you make a quiet nasal noise, either a 'zing' and oscillate it in pitch from low frequency to high frequency (keep your head high as your larynx will tilt and don't go too loud as you might hurt your voice) or you can just learn a few scales.

You asked earlier if there was a chance of you 'getting paid work' - of course there is, but only if you work hard at it. Every human being has a unique and awesome voice, lots of people are just stuck in bad habits that do not access their full voice or feel comfortable doing so. You, and anyone else can do with their voice whatever your voice allows.

Essentially, you *can* theoretically find paid and amateur work if you can just do one, maybe two voices and have little emotional range and vocal training, but, the more you learn and the more you practice the more employable you become. Women are highly in demand for voice acting, so that's no reason to get discouraged.

[JBShields]

*raises hand*

OOoooh! Me! Me! I know an answer for OP second question.

1) Use audacity. It's a FREE software that is GOOD.

2) Mics DO matter. Here's a link explaining the different types. http://thehub.musiciansfriend.com/audio ... icrophones
When you buy, I recommend buying a range of 2,000-20,000 Hz. If you start that range off higher, say 80Hz like the typical computer mic, you'll lose the nice bass notes that you'll get in lower female and male voices. You also need a digital recorder to attach the mic to. Make sure it has the right type of mic connection. Buying a used mic is okay for your early days, and you'll stay in your budget range.

Edit: Also saw how old this thread is.

[Aviala]

Hey, it's actually good that you still replied. I haven't bought a mic yet - but I'm still thinking about getting one.
I think I might have got a bit too excited about voice acting without really thinking how much work I'd have to put into it. I don't know if I'm ever really gonna be a proper VA but I've been thinking of getting a good mic anyway so I could do game streams with good voice quality and also record sound effects. And who knows, maybe I'll really do a bit of voice acting too, if some game of mine needs just a few lines or grunts or something like that :')

Also, I think this thread is probably still very useful to people who are wondering about similar things. Especially links to resources are appreciated.
About the "digital recorder" you mentioned - can't I just attach the mic straight to my computer (provided it's a USB mic)? Getting a separate device for the recording sounds expensive and complicated...

[D.ray]

^yes you can use a USB mic and not have to use an audio interface, in fact that's why they're made like that, but your quality won't be very good.This is mostly due to the fact that usb mic's have bad audio to digital converters, which is how the microphone converts your captured audio into digital audio into your computer. Depending on the mic, you won't have as much detail and clarity as an actual non usb mic, you may also have a higher noise floor, or really annoying and obvious humming in the background. You might also be unable to control the input gain - the volume - at which you record at. This can be really annoying because instead of simply turning the volume up or down, you''ll have to move either closer or further from the microphone to correct this, which can affect sound quality. And you can't correct this by adjusting the volume in your computer either because the audio is already recorded, it has to be before it even makes it in there.

I don't know if your budget is still the same, but even with the most basic setup, you will still have to spend anywhere from $200 to $300. For affordable condenser mic's I recommend the audio technia AT2035, which is about $150, or if you want to go cheaper, an MXL V67G which goes for about $85. Both are really great for their price.

For those microphones, you will need an audio interface. It's basically a small unit, in the shape of a box, with dedicated audio converters and preamps as well other features. You will need one of these because condenser microphones use an XLR connection, an external power supply to run and you will need good dedicated audio converters to get the most out of those microphones. An audio interface has both an xlr input connection and provides external power to actually run the microphone. The interface also connects to your computer via usb incase you were wondering. The cheapest ones you can get will run you about $100. I recommended something like the focusrite scarlett 2i2 or a presonus audio box. They both have good preamps and audio converters and come with software to do your actually recording. You should also do a safety check to make sure the interfaces are compatible with your computers operating system before purchasing.

Now if you can't afford that, try looking on the used market. You might be able to find those microphones and audio interface's for almost half off if you get lucky. If you must go USB, than i recommend the audio technia 2020 which goes for about $100. It's much better than any blue yeti, and around the same price as one. But you can probably get a used interface and one of the non usb microphones I mentioned earlier for around that same price.

I should also mention that for the non usb microphones you should make sure you have enough money left over to buy an actual microphone or desk stand, a pop filter and an xlr cable. The audio technia AT2035 comes with a pop filter, a microphone shock mount, and sometimes an xlr cable. But depending on where you buy it from, you should ask to make sure you know what you are getting.

Basically, get a condenser microphone and an audio interface. If you can't afford them, try the used market, or save up a little more. It will be worth the investment if you are serious about either voice acting or game streaming. There's not a large price gap between getting a usb and non usb microphone to begin with, and it will save you from being disappointed from using a usb mic. 2 Other benefits from that investment is you will be able record actual instruments, like an acoustic guitar if the need ever arises, or use your interface to playback your music library in really good quality since most computers don't have good audio converters either.

[JBShields]

I just bought the Yeti Blue mic for my PC. BEST USB MIC EVVVVVAR! I cannot complement it enough. It's so clear. Perhaps too clear (don't record right next to PC, may pic up its fan).