The world of voiceover has moved on from the cheesy announcer who over-emphasises every other word (although there is still some place for this style!) – today it’s far more common to hear natural voices that sound like real people. But sounding like a person, can be surprisingly hard!
Here are a few examples of the benefits of a natural sounding voice, and the pitfalls to getting there:
Commercials: Many radio, TV and internet ads use voiceovers who sound like real people – speaking to the audience as if they are speaking to friends – gaining trust and giving confidence in the product or service – rather than shouting a sales pitch from the rooftops.
eLearning: engaging the learner is key – if the listener can relate to the speaker they are more likely to relate to the material. Lengthy or complex material can get really dull and a trained voiceover artist knows exactly how to use pace, pitch and inflection to stop the brain switching off.
Corporate videos: the goal of the voiceover artist is to sound like they are an employee of the company that they are voicing for – often the audience are none the wiser and many believe they are listening to the voice of a staff member.
What prevents a voiceover from sounding natural?
Scripts
Sometimes copywriters are highly experienced in producing written copy but are not trained to write spoken copy. Written language is different to spoken language – ALWAYS read your copy out loud and listen back to it before asking a voiceover artist to record it, no matter how experienced your copywriter is.
Humanisation
A good voiceover artist will know that they need to add humanisations (hmmm, ahh, uh, sharp intake of breath etc) to some scripts. But used randomly this can ruin a recording. A great voiceover artist will connect with the copy at a deeper level, and these humanisations will come naturally and will sound great.
Connecting with the copy
Poorly trained voice artists tend to lack subtlety, over emphasise words, or emphasise the wrong words in a sentence. The words are spoken correctly and they have followed the brief, but connection with the audience is not achieved. Artificial emphasis can be as off-putting as a dull monotone – and this is one reason why it can be a costly mistake to hire an amateur. Similarly, a voice artist who hasn’t updated their training for 10 years is likely to be out of touch with the current trends in voiceover.
Poor processing
I have been in a few discussions recently where experienced voiceovers have been accused of supplying a computer generated voice, rather than reading the text live. Assuming their delivery is not stilted and wooden, the issue is usually sub-standard processing.
When a recording environment is not up to scratch, or a voice artist wants to sound more resonant or dramatic, they will often process the audio to achieve the desired effect. But a voice artist who is self-taught may not be able to apply audio processing with the precision needed to sound natural. Remember that the main reason that you are hiring them is to read the script, so it can be safer to request a raw (unprocessed) track and pay a professional audio engineer to clean it and process it ready for use.
The key takeaways:
- Choose a voice artist who is properly trained, and who updates their training regularly
- Make sure your copywriter knows the script must sound great when spoken out loud
- Have a plan for processing the audio if your chosen voice artist is not an expert in this area.
For a natural sounding voice on your next project, contact me for a free audition and no-obligation quote
Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash
British Female Voiceover Artist 