Arm Yourself With Proper Training Before Starting Voice Acting

Probably, the worst thing that could happen to a voice talent who decided to start his/her career is proceeding to audition without proper preparation. Picture this: You want to be a voice talent and you found the perfect job opportunity. You just can’t miss it so you research tips in voice acting, record a mp3 sample, tweak it a little and submit it to the company. You waited for weeks and you didn’t get any call. You might be confused which part you did wrong. In reality, the mistake was from the very beginning. You probably did not prepare enough.

Practice and proper training in voice acting is a very important step. As a pilot needs hundreds of  hours of flight to validate his licence, you also require many mic hours to become a voice talent. Voice acting lessons will surely give you a head start from other voice actors out there.

MJ Lallo is a great teacher. A former jazz singer, she masters very useful techniques that she share in a series of online videos which we recommend.

An article in ActingSchoolStop.com stressed the three most important things you need to train on for you to succeed.

• “Diction, of course, is very important, so speech classes are a must for those who don’t have perfect enunciation.” The way you pronounce and enunciate your words is a very large factor in voice acting. Remember that people will only hear you so you should be able to make your words clear and audible.
• “Voice acting’ is just as much about voice as it is about acting, so if you’re serious about voice-overs, you’ll want to take a good acting class before you get started with your demo and before you start thinking about voice-over classes.” Your emotions are as important as your voice when it comes to voice acting. The best way to sharpen your emotions while delivering lines is through acting classes.
• “Once you’ve covered simple diction and basic acting skills, it’s time to work on specific voice over skills by picking a good voice-over class.” 
• Being in a formal voice-over class will help you gain access to the advice of professional voice actors and coaches who have been in the industry for a long time.

Another set of advice from Lindsay Abbott, a voice over artist from UK, can be your additional guidance in preparation for your first audition.

“There is quite a lot of vocal technique involved in becoming a voice over artist in the first place, which most people are unaware of. Having a lay person tell you that ‘you have a good voice’ is not enough – get an expert to listen to a demo and work from any feedback you get.

Record yourself and listen back to it– what does it really sound like amplified? Once recorded and amplified there is no hiding place for imperfections! When we speak live in real time, people don’t notice these, but it can be a very different matter once recorded! Equally, some people can sound dramatically different on recorded media than they do in real life, which can be a bonus or a disaster!

Learn how to use your voice and develop good listening skills as to what comes out the other end once its amplified. You’ll need to learn how to develop your microphone technique to deal with plosives, popping and the like. How to avoid ‘wet’ noises from too much moisture in the mouth etcetera – these sounds magnify once amplified.

Do you have even vocal dynamics when you speak? – do you push certain sounds forward too much, which can be jarring to the listener? Do you have control of your sibilants? Any imperfections become magnified, so you need to learn to rid yourself of as many as possible in order to become a good voice over artist. Even though I’ve been providing voice-overs for some time now, I still learn something new every day, so there are always things to aim for.”

Did you make a similar preparation like this one? Tell us your training experience. You might just be helpful to other budding voice actors here!