How to get work as a voice-over artist if you don't have an agent or home studio

Don't Have A Home Studio?



If you do not have a home studio or recording equipment I won't say it's impossible to get work but voicing for an audiobook, a commercial, a TV or radio spot requires lots of practice and usually some type of acting experience. Ideally if you have a recording setup in your own studio at home then you can apply for jobs on voicespro.com as well as many other websites that serve clients who want voice work completed.

Home Studio For Auditioning

Most clients will not take a voice artist seriously if they have no jobs to show on a website somewhere. It is important to show that you have worked. This profile of work can be added to by doing the occasional lower priced jobs that you probably wouldn't look at twice if you were fully pro. To audition for these jobs you still need equipment and you are not going to book a professional studio by the hour just so you can audition for jobs. So, having your own studio with equipment is a requirement to become a successful voice artist even at the beginning.

Home Studio - Get Your Cash Out

A huge outlay of cash is normally needed from the outset to enable you to record. Microphones don't come cheap and if they do there is usually a reason for this. You will need to gain better acoustics in your assigned studio area as well as sound-proof the room you are using and you will also need a fairly expensive amp and not forgetting the software also. Pro Tools is preferred for many but at first you could use Audacity (although there is a reason why people use Pro Tools!)

Maybe Your Friend Have A Studio!

If you have a friend who has a studio they may give you free time to use their studio but this still won't cut it if you get a client who wants you to do a 400 page audiobook and then your friend decided he/she needs the studio for the rest of the month for two or more audiobooks and this then makes you look unprofessional and difficult to work with because of late deadlines and even cancelled jobs. If you are only doing one line adverts and this type of work then this would be fine occasionally using your friends studio.

Quickly Submit Auditions With Your Own Home Studio

Getting your own studio is going to increase the odds of gaining voice work as a VA because then when an audition comes in you can quickly submit one and also every audition you do is experience for the next one that comes along. Studio's can be of the home built variety or you can order a voice booth from specialists. Like your own little mini Doctor Who tardis but without the cavernous space inside. (Doctor Who's tardis was always bigger inside than outside, anyway!)

Home Studio or State Of The Art Studio

A home studio can never replace a full state of the art studio from an editing or production house unless you have a wad load of cash and have a state of the art studio or are an editing or production studio but then if you were, you wouldn't be reading this, would you? What I am trying to say is nothing can replace a real life professional studio with the most expensive equipment and software you could only dream of buying. In any case if you are required to ever read for a big film they would almost always ask you tom come to their state of the art studio anyway and in that case you wouldn't need a home studio.

Long Term Voice Artist or Hobbyist

One important factor in buying all the equipment for a home studio or not, is are you in for the long term or not? If the answer is "yes!" then you need a home studio. If you answer is no then you may by chance win a few jobs in a professional studio if you use your friends or a professional studio to send in your auditions but it won't last for long because too many late submittals and shoddy workmanship will not be rewarded for long before you get a name for yourself.

Last words: Make yourself a studio or get the pros in. Costly either way but you won't be sorry!