VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Robert D. M.]

Hello All,

A new branch of our company will be using an Apollo Twin MKII Duo (or possibly quad; in either case, with Unison) to produce a range of promotional and narrated voice-over projects. For this work, we will be using two in-house voice-over talents whose previous work was a long time ago in a radio and television environment, where they had operators to do all of the technical tasks and where they provided only the voice.

These folks have zero familiarity with any of today’s recording gear and my question is this: If they were to be strictly on their own in terms of self-study and gaining familiarity with their equiprment completely independently, do you feel the online/YouTube-type resources are enough to get them started and actually get to the point of recording something of good quality (assuming, in this case, that their voices are very good, their recording technique is very good, the room is well treated and their equipment is all excellent)?

If that is the case, and if they spend three or four hours per day in this self-study/self-practice situation, would you give me your best guess of how many hours might be reasonably expected to be involved to get them to the above stage of ability?

There are a number of reasons that the projects are being done with these people and with the limitations described above and there’s no way around them.

Thank you for your opinions.

[Bruce]

If they have all the equipment and software they need, are reasonably intelligent (can follow instructions and pay attention to detail), and have some artistic ability (they know what sounds good), they may be able to self teach using online tutorials. There are lots of them to be sure. However, a visit from an experienced voice talent or engineer to tie it all together would really be wise.

Depending on many factors 16 to 32 hours of study and practice might do the trick.

It sounds like they’ll be recording proprietary or top secret material, so a visit from that pro early on, and using “safe” copy might alleviate your worries.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Robert D. M.]

Thank you, Bruce. If, because of some remote location requirements it’s difficult to manage an in-person visit from the VO pro type that you mentioned, do you think there are such folks out there for hire via Skype or GoToMeeting for a few hours here or there to put things into some kind of cohesive order and understanding when necessary?

[Bruce]

He's not inexpensive, but he's an expert in audio engineering for voiceover and used to remote problem solving, and that's our George Whittam at http://www.georgethe.tech/

Anyone else?


B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Robert D. M.]

I know he’s probably as good as they come; for our purposes, I was hoping there might be someone (less ‘famous’, shall we say:) who’s beginning this sort of practice and would be interested in taking on a budget-conscious customer.

Thanks for asking for input from your members.