Introduction
The team at Voiceovers.co.uk aims to give your profile an annual 'MOT', typically in the months following your renewal. We may suggest things we believe could improve your success on our platform. This might include adding demo reels in new areas, refreshing old reels, embedding video, or refining your textual description.
This page has been created so you can also give your profile a 'sanity check' from time to time and make adjustments as necessary.
We understand this could feel overwhelming, especially if it's been a while since your last update. But rest assured, we're here to guide you through the process. This could involve providing test scripts to enhance your audio or simply offering advice.
Refresh Old Demos
If your demo reel is over 12 months old, it’s a good idea to refresh it. You might start by adding a new read at the front of the reel and removing your oldest one. Gradual updates over time are much less daunting than realising your reel is years old and needs a complete overhaul.
When revisiting your reel, assess which segments best demonstrate your vocal range and abilities. Remove any that feel outdated or no longer represent your current voice. Keep in mind that clients may choose a sample and request you to voice in that style, so if your voice has changed significantly, it’s best to remove that particular sample.
If you need to remove a sample that features a major brand or prestigious project, consider adding it to a separate 'Brand' demo. A 'Brand' montage serves more as a credibility reel, showcasing career achievements rather than your current vocal sound.
Ensure that all your reels display versatility with a mix of tones, styles, and emotions, aligned with industry standards and contemporary tastes. If possible, use real work samples. If you’ve included the use of audio for demo purposes in your client T&Cs, you might be able to find the samples online / record them yourself.
We'd also recommend using samples which are obviously not AI generated (see section below).
We recommend updating the first sample in your demo with something brand new. Producers may have heard your reel multiple times, and you don’t want it to sound stagnant.
Tech Tip:
It's always a good idea to store the original files of your demo samples, ideally in WAV format. Editing and re-saving an MP3 multiple times will degrade the quality over time. If you don’t have the original WAV files, at least keep the earliest version of your reel. If you need to reuse samples, retrieve them from this older file rather than the latest version of your demo, which may have been re-saved multiple times.
Demos Covering New Areas
Our platform works best when voice artists have a range of montage demos, each focusing on a specific industry or style. We have category pages for areas such as 'eLearning', 'Telephone on-hold', or 'Singing', for instance.
You likely won’t be pitching for every industry type, and only voices with the relevant demos will appear on the appropriate category pages. For example, you'll need an eLearning demo to be featured on the eLearning category page. Clients appreciate hearing audio that’s relevant to their needs.
As part of our 'MOT' process, we review the categories you're listed in and may suggest creating additional demo montages to increase the number of results/or category pages you appear in.
As you know, if demo audio contains or suggests a company or brand name, it must be real work. However, if you lack real audio in a particular area, it’s acceptable to use sample scripts, as long as they don’t imply you've worked with a known company or brand. This ensures the demo isn’t misleading to potential clients.
Textual content
Google favours regularly updated textual content. We recommend revisiting and expanding your Description, Headline, and Clients sections as appropriate.
We can assist with this process if you’d like. Simply give us some keywords, key information, and details about what makes you stand out as a voice artist, and we’ll help refine your profile.
Other updates / improvements
As part of your profile MOT, we will also check:
- Whether you’ve added embedded YouTube/Vimeo videos to your profile.
- If you’ve uploaded a photo, ideally a unique selfie-style picture.
- If you’ve submitted information and audio to 'Productise'.
- If your playing age, availability, and IP link-up information is up-to-date.
How to not sound like an AI voice?
Before recording, ensure you understand the message and mark up the script. One hallmark of human speech is the ability to truly connect with the content. Humans can interpret underlying meanings and adapt tone and delivery accordingly. This deep comprehension brings a dynamic range to your performance, something AI struggles to replicate convincingly.
Be concious of your timing and pace. Humans have an innate sense of timing and rhythm in speech, often irregular and influenced by emotions, thoughts, and natural breathing. AI-generated speech tends to lack these nuances, resulting in more uniform delivery.
The human voice conveys a wide range of emotions. Subtle shifts in tone, pitch, and volume that express joy, sadness, sarcasm, or excitement are complex and difficult for AI to replicate with the same authenticity.
Consider the personal touch and mic proximity. A unique human quality is the ability to modulate projection for a more personal touch. We instinctively soften our voice and move closer to the microphone for an intimate, conversational tone. This adds warmth and detail to the voice, distinguishing it from the more sterile delivery of AI.
However, if there’s likely to be future amendments or pickups, avoid varying this approach within a recording unless you're prepared to re-record the entire paragraph.
Consider leaving breath sounds in your demo recordings. If they feel too noticeable, you can soften them rather than remove them entirely. These breaths add realism, something AI voices generally lack. Of course, the client may prefer recordings with breaths removed.
Keep your inflection and intonation natural and varied. Humans naturally vary their inflection and intonation, influenced by regional accents, personal style, and the natural modulation of speech. AI voices, on the other hand, tend to sound more monotone or follow predictable intonation patterns.
