Voice Actor's Guide to Recording at Home and On the Road (Book) Review

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(More customer reviews)I was looking for a book to explain how to record one's voice on a home computer.This very practical, easy-to-understand guide to voice-over recording comes through loud and clear, with excellent signal-to-noise ratio.Best of all, these guys "get" direct-to-computer USB recording, mixing software, the Internet, and other modern technologies, integrating them with timeless recording advice gathered in real careers.

Hogan and Fisher tell you what works, and why what you think might work, won't.Rather than showing off their geek-speak chops, they use regular English and even poke fun at the technical lingo in the process of demystifying it.Other home recording books lavish excessive technical verbiage on how to pad your walls.These guys offer practical solutions (including "move") and even show how to make a portable acoustic foam-lined mic box.You will discover exactly what you need to buy -- although theUSB-audio-interfaces section is surprisingly short -- and how to use it.They won't tell you exactly what mic to buy, though, and it's for your own good.

Warning: the jokes are abundant, mostly terrible and distracting, especially the comments from "Prunella," whose parenthetic remarks, although they mercifully trail off, are the editorial equivalent of lip smacks. (The full harshness of this comment will be appreciated upon reading the otherwise excellent text.)Failed humor notwithstanding, the tone ends up being warmly self effacing and encouragingly user-oriented.These guys take seriously the job of helping you, including a strong index and glossary, and plenty of URLs.

Chapter 12, Advanced Production Techniques, is alone worth the price of the book.Embedded in an economically worded step-by-step script for editing recordings are the exact frequencies to manipulate to address problems such as thin sound, dull recording, and sibilance.You end up feeling as though you have two buddies in the recording business; telling you every tip they know, and hammering on mistakes that could ruin your project.Don't let the light tone fool you: this is a seriously great book!

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Product Description:
For many years, recording voiceovers was the exclusive domain of commercial studios. Even a simple voice audition meant a trip to a studio, an ad agency, or an agent's office. Today voiceover actors are increasingly producing voice tracks for corporate narration, radio spots, animation, games, and other dialogue projects from their own home studios. Many have learned that to survive in this highly competitive field, they need to learn and master basic home recording production techniques. "The Voice Actor's Guide to Recording at Home and On the Road, Second Edition" shows both aspiring and established voiceover actors how to set up and effectively use their own inexpensive -- but professional-sounding -- personal recording studio to make professional-quality home recordings quickly and easily. Everything is covered to help you get auditions and jobs, from setting up your studio with the right hardware and software, recording at home, and production basics, to promotion, podcasting, and advanced production. This new edition of this bestselling bible for voiceover home recording has been completely updated to cover all the exciting new technology and delivery options currently available.

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Talking Funny for Money : An Introduction to the Cartoon/Character/Looping Area of Voice-Overs Review

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(More customer reviews)This book has some great things on the included cd's, I found this more usefull than just reading becouse you can here how it should be done. This book also has a great glossery of industry terms that will help negotiate the terms of the field.

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Product Description:
Talking Funny for Money is a two-CD voice-over workshop (with demonstrations by professional voice-over performers), accompanied by an exercise manual and companion text. If you're a person who's been gifted with vocal variety, a hard working actor who wants to expand your casting potential, or just someone who's been told, "You have an interesting sound," you may wish to consider a career in the cartoon/character/looping area of voice-overs.Pamela Lewis, an accomplished voice-over artist and coach, has developed a CD workshop for people who are curious about breaking into the exciting world of "talking funny for money." In this workshop, you will learn: how to assemble a competitive cartoon/character voice-over demo; shortcuts to mastering the most requested dialects, age groups and celebrity impersonations; film looping/dubbing technique and terminology; and the varied employment opportunities in the cartoon/character/looping world.This workshop is an excellent introduction to a creative and lucrative area of voice-overs. As Ms. Lewis puts it, "What could be better than making funny noises for a living?"

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Acting with the Voice: The Art of Recording Books (Limelight) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have read many books on the topic of Voice-Over acting. I can't think of any even close to as awful as this one. The only thing I can compare it to is perhaps if your were interested in singing and bought a book that turned out to be 100% devoted to telling you how great Opera is, and how beneath contempt all other forms of singing are. Note, I said telling you, not even teaching you, as there is no attempt to teach anything in this book. In between the totally condescending and insulting text are pages and pages of scripts to practice that are simply useless at best. The words "pulp fiction" appear countless times, and every time in a more derogatory and insulting manner. To this author, the Robert Ludlum's, Dale Brown's, and Tom Clancy's of the world are on the same level as ax-murderers and child molester, and if you don't agree you are an idiot.

After the first few pages it is practically unreadable. Since you will learn nothing if you do,don't force yourself as I did. I have always found some small redeeming value in every book I have read. This is the exception that proves the rule.

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Robert Blumenfeld on recording books:"Knowledge of literature, and a passion for telling stories, are essential.""Recording books is a skill, a craft and an art. You are playing characters, but you can't project too much. You have to bring it all the way down. It's a very intimate art form. The microphone picks up every rustle and nuance, not unlike a camera doing a close-up.""You don't even have to look the part. You will have the pleasure of playing roles for which you may be the wrong physical type, and in which as a consequence you would never be cast in a film or stage adaptation."
Acting with the Voice offers hard practical advice on getting started in and pursuing the craft of recording books, and excellent literary samples to nourish the reader's practice. The "Notes, Comments and Hints" sections in each chapter are filled with historical tidbits that are informative, in context, and aptly illustrate the meaning and perspective behind the excerpts chosen.
Acting with the Voice includes this and more:Getting Started in the Book Recording Business (Getting an Agent, The Casting Process, The Recording Session: What a Director Expects, Publishers of Recorded Books in the US, Book Recording in the UK and Canada )The Voice (Finding Your Voice, Paralinguistics: How to Do Different Voices, Vocal Exercises)Diction and Pronunciation (Phonetics, Positions of Vocal Apparatus, Practice Exercises for Good Diction)Microphone and General Recording TechniqueActing Methods and TechniquesReading Techniques (Preparing the Text for Recording, Charles Dickens: His Public Readings, Helen Potter's Impersonations)Recording Prose Fiction (Understanding Style and Period, Reading Different Kinds of Scenes, The Character's Voice: Creating a Character Vocally, Using Accents)Recording Plays Recording PoetryRecording Nonfiction: Making the Text Come Alive (Essays and Philosophy, Autobiography and Memoirs, Illustrative Texts: Biography)
And excerpted works by these writers and others: Susan B. Anthony, Jane Austen, Honore de Balzac, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Clemens, Anton Chekhov, Robert Browning, Thomas Hardy, James Weldon Johnson, Michel de Montaigne, Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Wollstonecraft.

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