The Voice Of Your Podcast – Anyone But You?
Posted on 7th January 2020 at 15:10
So, you don’t sound like Joanna Lumley or Sir Ian McKellen. You feel your vocal chords might fail to rally the troops or gladden their podcasting hearts.
The truth is, there are plenty of non-standard voices out there on podcasts and radio communicating perfectly well. What really counts is the passion, thought leadership and conviction you express for your subject.
Above all, you need to be understood. Serial mumblers or garblers might want to work on slowing down their pace of speech to concentrate on enunciating words. (How often did your mother say that to you?!)
Other options
If you’re really not keen to be that voice, you might choose an employee. You could also recruit a professional to front the production.
Opt for someone with a reasonable grasp already of your subject or who is capable of getting their head round it quickly.
If you are working with a podcast producer, you can expect them to brief your “voice” and also your guest interviewee so as to get the best out of them both.
Sourcing an external voice
There are many voice-over professionals who would love nothing more than a regular podcast voicing gig. But choose carefully. They need to live locally or you’ll be paying for their travel expenses.
Pick people with documentary/news/journalism backgrounds, rather than pure actors. Actors are, of course, fabulous, but they aren’t always ideal for the interviewing role or for sounding “newsy”.
You will need to audition a few and to meet those on your short list to be sure in your own mind that they will be available for regular recordings and sufficiently engaged with the subject matter.
A range of voices can be found on pay-to-play sites such as voices.com or thevoicerealm.com. The voice talent pays to be listed and you can listen to and contact the ones you like. Each site has its own process to follow.
What we do to help
Made4U Podcasts has its own team of fabulous voices, so drop in and have a listen. They are all experienced documentary and news readers with many years of journalist and broadcasting experience between them.
You might be interested in Made4U Podcasts’ voice training for podcast courses. We specialise in giving people the confidence to be the voice of their own podcast!
For more information, contact us anytime at serena@made4U-podcasts.co.uk.
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