Outright
This service automatically imports your paid invoices from Freshbooks and keeps track of your expenses, profits, estimated taxes, and can export to ANY financial or tax software. Did I mention this was FREE!? This site is one of those sites that will help you stay organized and help you keep your books in order, be that for your business or for personal use (I use it for both!).

Google Documents

In my mind there is no better company in the world than Google, I could devote a whole blog post to how awesome their company and all their services are (hey, that’s not that bad of an idea!). This has to be my favorite service of theirs (not including the search engine, GMail, or their advertisement services). This is your space online to store all of your documents. That may sound boring, but it’s awesome! The service is free (once again) and you can store, edit, view, and share ANY kind of document: PDF, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, real text format, and plain text. Check it out! It’s really handy for helping clients with scripts or showing them your rate card, or any of another billion uses you can think of!

Launchy

Do you ever get tired of meandering through menus or digging through your dock to try to find that program? Well, no more. Launchy is a lightweight program that runs in the background and is activated by ALT+Space. When you activate it, you can launch any program on your computer just by typing in the name. How cool is that? This program saves me tons of time, I’m sure it will for you too!

Audacity

I’ve saved the best for last, especially for a blog about voice overs. Audacity is one of the best audio editors on the market, free or not. I use it when I’m not running windows (on Mac or Linux) and I love it! It has all the functionality of most audio editors and gives you some awesome capabilities when it comes to filters, importing, and exporting of audio. If I were to have a figurative voice over toolbelt, audacity would be on it. Try it out, what have you got to lose? It’s free!

Well, that’s not all the open source software in existence, but it’s definitely a recap of my favorites.

How do you go about obtaining the software that I mentioned? There’s a couple of ways. On some of the listings, I provided a link in the title of the software. Click on that, and away you go. If there is no link in the title of the software, just google it and make sure you download it from one of the top few links (to make sure you don’t infect yourself with a virus or anything.)

Happy Open Sourcing!

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3. BONUS HOLIDAY POST: An Extra P for Voice Over Success Here’s another P for voice over success. Not one of...

I still have the USB interface, if anyone wants it, contact me here.

I’m selling some of my old studio equipment and you can get a great deal on it!

Check out the auctions on Ebay:

Samson C01U USB microphone (the mic I recommend for voice over practice and simple demo recording)

M-Audio Fastrack USB Computer Interface (a great interface to connect your studio equipment to your computer)

Click on the links above for the Ebay listing. They end on October 24th so bid SOON! Happy bidding!

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2. Excellent Editing Pt. 1 Odds are, unless you happen to have oodles of cash...

As a freelance professional VO artist, I would say that I spend about 35% of my time in front of the mic and the rest of the time in front of my computer. Of that 65% of the time I spend staring blankly at my computer screen, about 45% of that time is editing audio. It’s not the most fun thing in the world, but it can separate and elevate you above the rest of the VO people out there.

So if you’re spending a lot of time editing like me, it ought to sound good when you’re finished. Here’s some tips to help your editing.

1) Make everything the same volume, a.k.a. NORMALIZE!! No one wants to hear the end of a sentence fading off into nothingness. This is not 80′s rock music here, folks, it’s voice over. Make sure the beginning of your phrases are the same volume as the end of your phrases. This is especially important on re-dos: when you say something again (possibly starting in the middle of the sentence).

2) Watch your levels. On the audio scale called decibels, the audio should hover around -6 or so, no more, no less. This will vary in some situations (car ads, meditation tapes, you know what I mean), but as a rule of thumb, after you normalize (from step one) make sure the audio lands at -6.

3) Try not to splice sentences together. Clients, believe it or not, can hear this. It may not be as evident to you, but it’s going to stick out like a sore thumb to whoever is listening. I have a bad habit of doing this. I am breaking it by starting the sentence COMPLETELY OVER AGAIN if I mess something up. This actually will make for a little more time in front of the mic and less time editing.

4) Get rid of mouth noise! No matter how much water you drink sometimes, there is still going to be a little bit of popping and slurping of the mouth. Make sure you find those itsy bitsy little pops and get them out of there, once again, they may not be super obvious to you, but do you ever hear mouth noise on commercials?

5) Keep the mic in the same spot!! This is not so much an editing tip as it is saving you time when you go to edit. In a multi-part project (like in the two audio books I am recording as I speak) I have my microphone stand held to the floor with some stage weights (and the same with my stool and music stand). This way, I can be sure to have the same consistent sound throughout the entirety of both books.

All of these tips will make you sound better and will keep your clients coming back for more of your stuff. Repeat work is awesome. Try to do what you can to make your client so happy, they won’t consider anyone else. Put your client first, and they will put you at the top of their list.

More in part two coming soon!!

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Unfortunately, it’s also as complicated as that.

The nice thing about being a VO person is that we do not have to record many, many tracks with really fancy equipment and software. All you need to get started is a good microphone, some moderate sound proofing, and a computer with audio editing software. That’s all!

Before I begin, let me say that I am going for value in this setup, I want to make having a home studio affordable for everyone. You have to start small, get small gigs, make some money to put back into nicer equipment. It’s a vicious cycle, but it is well worth it. There is nothing like having a home studio.

Let’s get started:

1) A Good microphone: This is a post all to itself, so I will be as brief as possible. There is no need to go all out with your first microphone. The best microphone for the money is definitely the Samson CO series of USB mics. These mics are condenser mics (meaning they will amplify your voice before the sound enters your computer) and the only thing you do is plug them into your computer and VOILA! You have a mic. I bought my mic from a used music store in Nashville for $75. Talk about affordable! I take it on the road with me when I travel and it sounds pretty decent. Decent enough for practice and beginning VO at least. When it comes time to step up the microphone, there are many other choices from Shure (my mic of choice), Electrovoice, and many others that might suit you. Ask your favorite voice person what mic they use and don’t be afraid to check it out.

2) Some moderate soundproofing: This sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is. What I use when I travel and still need to work is foam rubber that I bought from a store that was going out of business, but you can pick them up from any craft store or home improvement store (Lowe’s, Home Depot, etc.). The blocks of foam are about the size of a large shoebox and they stack perfectly. I stack them on top of each other and drape a sheet over the top. There you have it, some moderate soundproofing. Another tried and true method is to go into a closet (with a fair amount of clothing) and the results speak for themselves, very few echoes. When you’re ready to get more serious about soundproofing, the easiest way to build a studio and save a LOT of money is to buy a pre-constructed sound isolation booth or convert a walk-in closet into a soundproof paradise. More on that another time.

3) A computer with recording software: It almost seems that a computer is a necessity in today’s world. It is a necessity for today’s voice over artist. There’s no way around it. If you know someone that builds computers, have them to build you one. Make sure you can trust them not to rip you off. Set a rigid budget and don’t budge. You can find a computer for whatever you’re willing to spend. It may not be a speedy geek machine (like mine) but it can get the job done. A laptop is not a bad idea. Laptops have become powerful enough to handle many tasks that a desktop can and they aren’t that much more expensive (if you buy from the right place). I would recommend at least 2 gigs of ram and a dual core processor. Vista or not, it doesn’t matter. Vista is not as bad as everyone says, it’s only bad for some, like people who are too cheap to buy what they need. The more you invest in your computer, the faster it will run, just like a car. Last thing, please get some type of malware protection. Your computer will run the way it’s supposed to if you keep it healthy. A computer is a lot like a person. Keep it clean, don’t beat it up, and give it what it needs (rest, medicine, and shelter).

The recording software you choose is up to you. I use Adobe Audition because it’s what I learned to use in school. I also use Audacity which is probably the second greatest free program in the world. If you want a full function audio editor and don’t want to pay a lot (or anything) it’s definitely for you. It has some of the plugins from some of the nicer softwares, but it’s totally free. I love open source. There are hundreds of recording softwares out there, try out some demos and see what you like.

There’s a lot of really good information in a short amount of time. I hope you can use it to your benefit. PLEASE contact me if you have any questions or want advice. I will be more than happy to help.

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