If you want to get work in this industry, you need a voice-over demo. Ideally, you knew this already. But I would be remiss if I didn’t repeat that if someone is going to hire you, they’ll obviously want to know your vocal goods when you step up to the mic! Previously, I’ve written about how to g contact potential clients and how to get your demo heard by the right people. Today, I want to discuss how to make that demo shine so that it lands you jobs!
To start, let’s talk about what a voice-over demo should consist of. Your goal should be a recording of 60 to 90 seconds depending on the type of demo. Short and sweet is always better.. To demonstrate your range and skill, you’ll need at least four or five different scripts. Your voice should be paired with tasteful licensed music, and mixed and mastered so that it sounds just like a professional finished product. You need to grab your listener’s attention and blow them away in the first few seconds. For this reason, you’ll want to record this demo at a professional recording studio that knows how to do voice-overs, with a voice-over producer directing you.
Many artists make the mistake of trying to record their own demo. While recording a demo on your own might save you money, it most likely won’t get you work. Think about it, if you’re the person deciding on who to hire for a voice-over job, you’re listening to a lot of demos. Normally, these folks only listen to the first few seconds of each artist and if it hasn’t grabbed them, they move on. If you listen to a bunch of demos done by professionals and then hear a recording that was clearly done by a voice-over hobbyist in a home studio, it’s going to pale in comparison, no matter how good the performance was. Also, if you’re thinking about trying to make your own demo, ask yourself a few important questions: do you have licensed music that you can use? Voice-over producers do. Do you know how to mix and master your recordings using compression, equalization and the post-production effects needed to make your demo sparkle? A good audio engineer does. Becoming a professional starts with a crisp and polished demo. . Don’t make it on the cheap, and don’t cut corners, the real cost will be a lack of jobs..
Getting the scripts for your demo is another thing to consider. If you listen to any professional voice-over demo, you’ll see that people are using real ads and well-written scripts. Seek out people who actually write copy and have them write your scripts for you.. Writing your own scripts, much like recording your own demo, is an avoidable mistake that we see far too often.
Depending on what kind of job you’re trying to land, there are different kinds of demos that you want to record. If you want to demonstrate how good you are at doing commercials and selling products, you’ll need a commercial demo. If, for example, you want to do voice-over for documentaries, you’ll want a narration demo for that. For most Such A Voice clients, we suggest that they start by recording both a Commercial and a Narration demo. One to show how well you “sell” and one to show how well you “inform.” As voice-overs have continued to grow and become more specialized, demos for niche markets like video games, audiobooks and cartoons have proven to be invaluable as well. Basically, you want a professional recording of you reading scripts related to the work you’re trying to get. Sending your commercial demo to an audiobook company would be pretty silly, right?
Here at Such A Voice, we’ve been helping people record professional demos for the last 30 years. We’re so pleased that so many of our students have had wonderful success in their voice-over careers. If you feel that you’re ready to start your own voice-over career, reach out to us today to find out more about how to record your own professional voice-over demo.
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