Voice Acting Masterclass for Audiobooks & Narrations

Explaining the great opportunities when a basic “voiceover” offer is expanded into a flexible voice offer with a wide range of character voices in the four worlds of voiceover, game acting, audiobook narration and animation or cartoon voices.

More on the opportunities of acting as opposed to simply offering voiceover services, but this section is also aimed at people new to the general world of voiceover, explaining how the overall process works; when you self-direct and when you are directed via a director over your headphones.

Over the years we have worked on our “Character Control Panel” where you can take 10 parameters of a human voice and combine them to make a very wide variety of different characters. We delve into this system in great detail for you; you’ll be surprised how flexible all our voices can be!

In this section we explain about the huge world of the game industry and how you can break into this Voice Actor work. We’ll show you the types of jobs and how you’ll tackle them. We can’t guarantee you’ll get work right away on the next PS5 blockbuster, but there are many indie companies out there who will often hire good voice actors on the strength of a good character voice showreel. But there is much more to it than that, and we’ll explain all.

Producing showreels to a high standard is an important skill to open the door to agents who specialise in Voice Actor work, and we’ll give you our best tips. These days, it’s not enough to just create a compilation of some funny accents. We also explain about the voice auditioning process; how to interpret the requirements and how to give an audition for a specific job your very best shot.

This section is all about how a professional coach, a mentor or demo producer who deals in the kind of work you want to get into can assist you in achieving success for you. Also, we explain about the “voice buddy” technique.

Audiobook production is a greatly expanding world and it’s a great place for Voice Actors to hone their craft, performing character voices in the books they narrate.

Here is an overview of why audiobooks are so massively popular and what you can do as a narrator / producer to get into to this world.

There are three stage of production with audiobooks, Preparation, Performance and Production. We explain the importance of each stage and the time and effort required for typical audiobooks, both factual and fiction.

We’ll explain how different the “longform” script of an audiobook needs a completely different mindset and techniques very different than those needed for straight “voiceover” work. Don’t worry, though, everyone can adapt! We’ll have a sight-reading test for you so you can check where you are at the moment and know where you need to boost your skills.

A narrator of audiobooks that run into many hours has to learn to sight-read very well, and very accurately. Here are some solid gold techniques, and also explain how to listen carefully when you narrate carefully.

Narrating and editing an audiobook is many, many hours of work that you need to be compensated for fairly. We’ll offer to you our suggestions and our ready-made agreement templates that you can download.

The world’s biggest audiobook platform is where you can make money using your Voice Actor skills. The audiobooks you narrate will be sold on Audible, Amazon and iTunes, and you either get paid a percentage of royalties or on a “Per Finished Hour” basis. All will be explained.

It’s very rare that a physical or Kindle book can be recorded without some kind of adaptation. What if illustrations are referred to in the text? In a conversation, a listener can’t see any speech marks that are in the original book! Here’s how to work with the author and/or publisher to create a manuscript that will really “work” well in the audio medium.

Many voiceovers move into audiobooks first by tackling “factual” or “non-fiction” titles. These are essentially very, very long “documentary” scripts, but we’ll give you our essential tips so you can deliver a project that the author and buyers will enjoy. There are many pitfalls you need to be aware of in the recording of factual books.

With Fiction Audiobooks, this is the medium of voice work that is easy to get into and where you can really have fun with creating different voices for all the characters who are featured. But how do you assign the voice styles in the most efficient way, and what happen when you “run out” of voices? And how do you voice characters of the opposite sex?

Peter Baker invites you in his voice booth as he records a section of a fiction audiobook he is working on, showing how to keep the character voices consistent and how to utilise the Character Control Panel discussed earlier.

Do you record all one character first and edit in later? Here are more practical tips and techniques for when you have to play the parts of many characters in your fiction audiobook.

Here is how to box off your recording and editing time effectively so you’ll get your project recorded within the agreed period.

Unlike short-form voiceover work, with hours of audiobook recordings, you won’t have time to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb in edit. So here is how to get rid of the minor noises that you’d otherwise have to edit out… and including how to breathe very, very quietly!

This section looks at how many different things a narrator in the voice booth has to do at the same time, and how to harness the power of the mind to ensure you can actually do all this multitasking well!

When you’re creating an audiobook, you are building a bond between you and the listener, it is a very personal and special bridge. We’ll explain how to develop that relationship and how to maintain it.

This is all about emotional consistency and the use of colour in narration. The better you narrate and the better your character voices sound, the more likely you’ll win auditions for voice acting jobs.

The job of a good Voice Actor is not just delivering and performing well, it’s also knowing when to stop and leave the appropriate pauses in recording.

For a long audiobook production, you want to minimise the amount of work correcting mistakes and to maximise the time you have recording the manuscript. Here are our tips using our many years of experience in the voice booth!

How maintain enthusiasm and a consistent delivery and performance requires a special way of dealing with fatigue. Here, we’ll reveal everything you’ll need to know including the types of words that can trip you up at the end of a long recording session.

In this video, we’ll explain the best way to go about editing your recordings for maximum efficiency, using Adobe Audition. Audition is the flagship audio editing program, but we also suggest some excellent free programs too.

The author and/or publisher will always give you feedback and ask for some retakes, but here’s how to make sure they communicate in a fair and efficient way to you.

In your editing program, we’ll go through technical practicalities to show how to fix any issues without leaving any clues that the recordings have been patched up!

Once you have edited the files, you need to export the files following the exact technical specifications required or they will get rejected by the likes of ACX. You’ll be fully confident tackling this after watching this lesson.

Here, Peter shows you the exact mastering and exporting process in Adobe Audition software.

Here we look at the opportunities for getting narration and audiobook production work from ACX and other platforms, plus the options for when you work directly with an author or publisher.

Do you need a producer to assist in the whole process? What if the author demands sound effects or music?

If you haven’t got a home recording facility set up yet, here are our tips for identifying the areas in your home that could work the best, and the steps that you need to take.

In this video, Peter Baker explains his recommended equipment for your home recording studio and how to connect it all together.