6: Your First Voiceover Demo
You can tell people all day long about the fact that you “do” voiceover…but, unless they can hear you in action, you’re not likely to have a lot of credibility. You can go to a local recording studio to have one done. Or you can hire someone online to help you. You will record dry voice tracks, and then let someone with stylish production skills put it all together with music, and possibly sound effects.
But, returning to an earlier point, what is the purpose of your demo? How are you going to define yourself primarily for the sake of initial marketing? Some VO artists try to get stuff everything you can do into one demo. But the recent trend has been to do a different demo for each style. For example, commercials, narration, on-hold, character voices, audio books, political, car dealers, radio imaging, etc. It would be good to pick one area to start. Where do you feel you’re likely to have the most impact? What kinds of clients will you be pitching to first?
Once you’ve decided on your emphasis, look for someone who has done a fair amount of that kind of work before. This would be especially important with station imaging and certain kinds of commercial work. Once resource you might want to check out: Chrismar Studios
You’ll want to get your final copy of the demo either on CD-R (WAV format) or, at minimum, 128kbps stereo MP3. The latter is suitable for emailing to potential clients or posting on a web site.
How long should your demo be? Opinions vary, but 60 seconds is generally considered optimal. Some people go for two versions. 1 min and 3 mins…for those who want to hear more.
