It's why we call plumbers, or take our cars to the garage. If the answer is no, find out why and sort it.
It is a genuine concern, but hopefully, one in which you can look at your own studio space and ask yourself, if I had the skillset, could I do it from home? Can I provide professional sounding VO from my home studio. Wrapping it in a nice package doesn't hurt. In the end, your demo is to get the potential client to hear your voice. then your demos will sound exactly like what you sound like, because there is the proof. Once you book a few jobs, you take your best of and make a Showreel. Once you are in, it's up to you and your talent. I deserve a better reel than I could give me.Īs I mentioned to April, your reel is your electronic business card. I don't have the master experience to do myself justice. cough) but just scratching the surface on the other. I'm awesome on one side of the mic (ahem.
Myself, I've been doing this thing for over 20yrs. You need a proper engineer to master your demos. The big catch word there is "experience". If they came to your home with the stuff, you could probably do it there.
The reason we go to professionals to get our reels done is they should have the other stuff. Hopefully you will discover that most of us would be able to do quality voice demos from home if we had the mastering experience, the scripts, the music and the voice. Some people are even lucky enough to have friends or associates who are engineers who can help. We are also not all trained engineers, but covid has certainly forced us all to re-evaluate what we need to do as voice over artists. If your demo reel is making you sound so different, again, the Voice talent might need to revisit what is used as a home setup. It's for jobs like this that demo reels shine.įor jobs with less mastering, or different needs, such as audio books, that's a different reel altogether, and a different topic. Your voice is basically going to the great studio with the quality gear. If it doesn't, you as the talent needs to revisit what you are using for a home studio.Įven people with home studios will be connecting with CleanFeed or SSI initiated from the engineer. Your voice should sound good wherever you are recording it, with whatever background noise or music is added. A large majority of jobs, you will be providing the voice. I was just talking to someone about this very thing, but hopefully your concern is the point of your reel: what you will sound like if given the opportunity to do so. You have genuine concern Paul and a good observation. You demo reel gets in in the door, so that one day, hopefully, you'll have a "best of" reel. sell it to me.ĭemo reels are the "why should you hire me? this is why" of the industry. It's your elevator pitch from Working Girl. You need something compact and precise that's going to get you in the door and onto the speakers of the client. You only need one or two versions of an explainer to do that, for example. Remember that a client needs to hear you, your voice. so you pick your best one or two examples, and that is all you need. People will have more than one reel because the average length of a proper reel is 90-120seconds. Demo reels don't need to be something that was originally a paying job, but they still need to be well produced, with an appropriate script and a good example of what you can do. What you are describing is more of a "best of" or an audio CV. Hi April, in a nutshell, your voice reel is your audio business card.