Should a voice actor also know audio engineering?

Imagine hiring a photographer and they don't know how to change ISO, aperture and shutter speed?

Imagine if they've never changed a lens before?

Imagine you hire a photographer for your wedding and they only send raw, unedited photos?

It would be unthinkable in the world of photography, but somehow not in voice over.

This is especially problematic in this post-pandemic world, as most voice over sessions are done over the internet. This means the voice actor is recording from their home studio without the assistance of an audio engineer next to them in a control room.

The result is voice actors need to be able to not just record, but also:

• Run a session (with playback)

• Deliver clean audio

• Deliver ready-to-use audio

• Understand audio engineering

If your voice actor can run a session with playback you can listen back to what they've just recorded, rather than relying on your memory to make sure a take was right.

This simplifies the process of running the session, leading to better results, faster, without confusion.

If your voice actor can deliver clean audio, it means you don't embarrass yourself: imagine your commercial is ready, you listen to it, then all of a sudden you notice a bunch of nasty mouth clicks and loud breaths, completely breaking the immersion and distracting your audience. The problem is you will almost never hear them during the live call, so make sure someone cleans the audio up.

If your voice actor can deliver ready-to-use audio, it's easier to run a smaller production with just a filmmaker and voice actor. The filmmaker can just drop the audio in their video editor and it's ready. Say it with me: saving you time and money!

I actually did exactly this for peaq's viral campaign, linked here.

If your voice actor understands audio engineering they will be able to resolve any audio related issues that might come up during the call. Examples could be as simple as the audio being too loud, too quiet or only going into your left ear!

So, do you think it's important that voice actors know audio engineering?

That's why I make sure I can do all of this.

Want to work together? Find me here: https://www.markmullens.com

voiceover@markmullens.com