I'm looking for a new way to soundproof my room, and found this on AliExpress.

Is it good for creating a studio space in your home, or the sound will be muffled, like with the boxes for a microphone?

So, my journey with voice acting has been one that's had a lot of starts and stops, but nothing ever beyond a hobby before.

I fell in love with voice acting when I was a teenager, and have always wanted to pursue it, whether as a hobby or maybe as a full-time passion. But life can be busy, tiring, and can take you in many different directions, as I'm sure we all know firsthand. So, I've admittedly dragged my feet into taking this jump for a long time, too long.

That's not to say I haven't done ANYTHING. I made my own show on YouTube with PowerPoint and Pokémon sprites for about 7 years. Singlehandedly doing all the writing, "animations", and, of course, the voices. It's a little cringy; it's not glamorous, but it still helped me to practice in a fun way.

Here's the link to the series if you want to check it out. (Sorry, the episodes are WAY too long...): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLasP42hwpwLob1TuFNFR_PctOyPfg9FU8

I also ended up falling down a career path of broadcasting and journalism with a small public-access TV station in my home state. It's not a major network like CBS, ABC, or any of those guys, but again, it's still something. So I've sharpened my TV/radio voice quite a bit for nearly the past three years.

And on top of all of that, I've re-explored some of my past passions with acting and music, and ended up taking improv classes throughout the past few years. So I've learned how to be quick on my feet, which has come in handy with my day job, but also has helped me to become creative with new voices and ideas.

The point I'm trying to make is that even though I've been honing my skills and exploring different avenues, which have all been helpful, I haven't made the professional jump into getting VA work yet.

I've looked at times, even made a loose VA reel, but again, life gets busy. I'm 27 years old and am trying to prioritize other things. That hasn't meant my love for voice acting has gone away, though. Far from it. It just wasn't at the forefront of my mind for a while, as opposed to career searches and trying to find my own apartment.

I think I needed something to snap my head back into place, and to take this dream of mine more seriously. I just didn't know what it would be.

Well, on Monday morning, that moment happened. And unfortunately, it came from a devastating tragedy.

The passing of Eric Bauza.

Like many of you, I was a big fan of Eric, especially within the last few years, as all of these new Looney Tunes projects started coming out. I was never a big Looney Tunes watcher as a kid, but I always admired what they stood for and the landmarks they made in voice work.

Mel Blanc was a visionary. The way he would twist and scream his voice into all of these zany characters was unreal. That same energy was prevelent within what Eric did with these characters in the modern day.

Not only that, but his PASSION for voice acting was always what stood out to me. He loved his career, what it stood for, and serving as an inspiration for so many people. I watched Coyote vs. Acme in theaters and was just in awe the entire movie at what he was able to do. Making every single one of the Toons seem real, unique, and have so much personality. It felt like he was finally getting the recognition he deserved at a much higher level.

Which makes his untimely passing all the more cruel and tragic.

I never had the privilege of meeting Eric or interacting with him in any way. But from witnessing his work and his ever-vocal support for voice actors, I know that more than anything, he wanted to inspire future generations of talent. To spread the love of animation and voice acting, and to continue to give it the recognition it deserved.

It made me realize that I shouldn't drag my feet with this any further.

Life is short. Always unpredictable. There's always going to be a multitude of excuses and reasons why not to do something; it just means you have to take time for yourself and bet on yourself and what you're capable of.

So, I finally signed up for Voice Acting Classes! They start two weeks from Wednesday!

Do I know how far this is going to go? No idea.

Will I ever reach the level of people like Bauza, Griffin, Strong, Paulsen, etc.? Probably not.

But I owe it to myself to see what can come from this. This was a long time coming, and I only hate that it took a tragic event like this to finally take this jump.

But Eric was a huge inspiration to me, and to so many others. He wanted more people to pursue voice acting, and to express their creativity in any way that they can.

And regardless of what happens next, that's what I hope to do.

Wish me luck!

I was cruising sweet water for moveable sound walls and came across this gem. My current setup is more than adequate, but I’m a gear junkie so I’m always on the hunt.

What would make this a good option for a home studio and what would make it a bad option? Just kicking the ball around today. Let me know your thoughts.

Hi guys! I know someone working on a video game and the person would love to include some voice acting for the characters but since it's their first game they don't have the budget to pay voice actors right now.

I thought that there are probably voice actors who would still be up to do the job but my friend thinks it's rude to not pay people for their job.

So I wanted to ask you: Would you still do that and if yes, would there be anything else you would like to get? Like getting mentioned or something?

(This is not a request, just a curious question)

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Hey VAs, looking to get some other perspectives on the new policies in place starting end of November, specifically stating any content posted to meta sites may be used to train generative AI models (US, I don't know what's changing elsewhere). Personally, I am considering deleting my professional Instagram so they dont have access to clean recordings of my voice. The way I see it, its hard enough with all the individual scammers, let alone a corporation trying to legally put me out of work by synthesizing my voice. Would taking it down and keeping it all on my website and youtube be over reacting? Would I be killing my career by removing myself from Instagram on a professional front? (I have a public personal account, so there is still proof online to "credit" I am a real person). Would really love to hear people's thoughts on this!

Hello!, I am currently in the process of creating my own indie pilot and I had three specific voice actors in mind to voice my characters. But one of them is apart of an agency (specifically CESD) and I’m trying to figure how do I go about drafting my email I was hoping if there was any advice or crucial information that I need to know before starting my draft

Hi all! I am stuck going back and forth between contacting agencies or local businesses for professional work because of the fact I don’t have a demo. Due to financial constraints I won’t be able to afford working on a demo with a professional until next year, however I don’t want to stand in my own way if that makes sense.

I’ve taken lessons with a coach in the past, I’ve worked on several small indie projects through Reddit and CCC. I can easily come up with some samples to send an agency or local business and start putting myself out there. That is how my coach got into the industry.

My biggest concern is hurting a possible career I could have. Right now I do voice over on the side while I work my real job. I would love for this to take off and become my job at some point. I don’t want to hold myself back because I’m not going about the “right steps” but at the same time I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot.

I hope this all makes sense 🙏🏻

Hey! I'm currently looking to cast the protagonist in my upcoming Minecraft ARG video and would love for anyone interested to try out!

Premise: A modern retelling of Dante's Inferno set in Minecraft. It will lean heavily into the horror aspects of the story and be a very loose adaptation that takes a lot of creative liberties, while still falling back on the general premise.

Protagonist (working name Harry): Harry appears to be a fantastic person on the surface. He is quick-witted, funny in a dry/sarcastic way, and charismatic when it matters. This is (for the most part) a front he puts on. Harry is deeply insecure and struggles a lot with feelings of self-loathing. Through years of struggle with this, he learned to put on a mask and hide that struggle from everyone. This role will require some intense emotional scenes; this character's ugliest qualities will come out in ways they don't expect and didn't anticipate.

I'm looking for a young adult male to voice this character, as this character will be in their late teens to early 20s.

I'm willing to pay $100 USD flat for this role.

Discord: novvvvva (please send me a friend request here)

So someone posted this morning looking for one male VA and one female VA. I dmed them and sent my demo reel, and they did not respond to my reel and just sent pictures taken on a phone of a script that was on a monitor. They told me it was the audition and to record all of it, but it looked like a full small script.

They told me it was about 5 minutes of recording. I get really paranoid about this stuff, and I've never been asked to record that much for an audition. I asked them to send me the full original script so that I could see how much of it is the audition, I asked twice and they kept ignoring it and telling me to record the audition.

After I asked the second time to see the full original script, they did not respond at all. I checked back around two hours later and their post was deleted. It had been up for maybe 3 hours.

What I'm asking is, is this normal? I've only had around 4 jobs and I've been doing this for about 2 months. I don't even think they listened to my demo reel. And no one has asked me to record that long of an audition without explanation and without the full script. Also, the bad pictures taken of the script was weird? I know this subreddit is not full of professionals and it's mostly hobby or indie stuff, but I have never seen that. but again, i do get really paranoid about this stuff. did i overreact asking to see the full script?? should I have just auditioned like they said?

Eric Bauza was such an incredible and talented man but an even better person. He was one of our first guests on our Legends Live and really wanted to help our students become better voice actors. Eric was such a down to earth, joyful and funny man. He loved using his mimicry to make people smile. We’ve lost such an amazing human being. Do you have a favorite memory of Eric?

I was giving career advice on voice acting and audio engineering (and some related areas) at Comic Con London over the weekend (hi if you managed to book in and see me, Kit, Michael, JD or any of the other VAs doing a slot!) and the last person I spoke to asked for my top three pieces of advice (which is a brilliant question to receive at that point as it really forced me to reflect on the themes over the three days).

I realised that no matter what else I said to people, the following three points came up with every single one of them, whether they were the 15 year old who had just started or they were the 40-something with 900 audiobooks and a ridiculous number of awards under their belt.

So I thought I’d share the three things but also I’m really interested in seeing what three - and only three - pieces of advice any other pros would share.

1) Most of the time, the biggest barrier you are going to face is you. Don’t convince yourself that you’re not ready for A, or that you’ll get round to doing B next month, or that agency C won’t want you because you’re not unique enough. Most of all, don’t be afraid to get a confidence boost from someone else if you’re having a bit of a low - trust me, you’re almost certainly better than you think you are.

2) Talk to people and be nice and friendly.

3) Voice acting has a lot more opportunity than just games and animation - if you’ve ever heard someone say something like “Press 3 to speak to someone who will pretend to care” - a voice actor was probably paid to say that! Don’t ignore the less glamorous areas because paying your rent/mortgage is important.

Like the title says, a friend's birthday is coming up and I would like to gift them something to help them pursue their dreams! However, I have zero knowledge on this stuff lol... Any recommendations?

Got to do an open audition for a video game this last week, and after going back and forth on getting takes I liked, I finally sent it in a day or two back, because I knew I’d never be perfectly happy with everything and not to stress over it (It’s never possible to be perfect, I just push myself too hard.)

Working on another set of lines to send in for another project tonight and getting the mp3 file sent over, but realizing again after forgetting that Google Drive automatically makes all my files private and I need to manage who has access to the files.

With horror I realized the Wav file I sent in is worthless as they probably can’t even open the file, and the deadline was today. Since it was sent a few days ago (last Friday I think) I probably ruined any chance at landing the audition.

This is just a dumb mistake, and my fault for not double checking my work, but probably a good lesson for the future, if not a warning for others who might make this mistake. Just kicking myself over it since I really had my heart set on this.

Just a mini vent, I don’t reckon anyone else has dumb acting horror stories like this? I’m just really bad with technology

I'm a beginner voice actor. So far I've just been recording demos of sample scripts to my phone and posting them to SoundCloud (I eventually plan on adding my personal poetry as well). I'm aware my work probably isn't the most polished but I'm doing the best with what I have (no equipment and I share a one bedroom apartment with two other people so I unfortunately have almost no perfectly silent place to practice).

I was wondering if anyone was interested in taking a look at my work? I'm mostly concerned with sounding overly flat/monotone. I'm not sure if it's okay to post here so I'll simply dm my SoundCloud profile/recordings to you if asked. Thanks in advance.

Hi. It’s been like a bit more than a week I’ve been roaming around here and I have applied to quite a few work proposals I found here, on [r/recordthis](r/recordthis) and [r/voicework](r/voicework). Some didn’t even respond until now. Others did, I managed to send demos and auditions but then they vanished. One would think someone who’s needing a voice actor would stay in touch right? At least two seemed rather eager to give me the job and I haven’t even heard a word of them about following up with someone else. Has anyone else experienced this? Have you been able to get jobs through any of these? How often do you hear back from people and how long it usually takes? It’s been almost two weeks for some

For reference, I'm using a CAD E100Sx microphone with a CAD CX1 interface while using two blankets to soundproof myself since I don't have proper soundproofing in my small apartment. I'm thinking of buying the TroyStudio Portable Vocal Booth for sound proofing around my microphone if anyone thinks that will help/has one and can vouch for their quality

Hey everyone, I'm looking to get a new microphone for recording YouTube videos. I run a faceless channel, so my videos rely a lot on voiceovers, and I want my audio to sound as clear, smooth, and natural as possible, something that's pleasant to listen to and easy to follow.

My budget is around $150 max, and I honestly know next to nothing about microphones or audio in general lol. I've seen people recommend Blue Yeti, Shure, and Audio-Technica, but I have no idea which models are actually worth getting.

I'm mainly looking for something simple and beginner-friendly that I can just plug in and use without having to mess around with a bunch of settings or audio editing to make it sound good.

I know $150 isn't a huge budget, but I'd love to get the best possible sound quality for that price.

What would you guys recommend? I'd also love to hear what microphones you personally use for YouTube videos or voiceovers.

Thanks in advance!

What are some things you wish you knew as a parent or first timer in the business? This is new to me but she is very interested & I want to help her pursue her interests.

I've narrated 5 audiobooks previously, all through ACX, which makes setting up royalty splitting clear and easy. The indie author I'm working with now wants to go wide, so we've been looking for other publishing options. Looking through the menus of Voices by InAudio, I'm not finding anything about royalty splitting. Am I missing it, or is it just not possible?

Does anyone know of a wide distribution platform for audiobooks that has royalty splitting built in?

Hope all is well, I'm looking for a few people with native American English accent to do some voice demo, for a business product demo, 2-4 mins, please let me know if you are interested, thank you. $20 an hour. PayPal or Venmo.