I remember about 3 years ago, I looked at the key areas of my voice over business that needed to be improved. One element that I considered to be a weakness, was my technical skills and ability. For years I would go to my friends flat who was a DJ and Audio Engineer and record there, but the inconvenience became an issue. So he told me that if I really wanted to build a voice over business, technically, I would have to learn the basics from him and eventually do a mix of dedicated specialist courses and use YouTube videos on how to set up a home studio set up. Alongside my friends comment, a client also advised me that if I wanted to be booking more voice work on a consistent basis, then both my home studio set up as well as the audio quality of my recordings had to become so good, that clients would not even notice. It was after hearing those words, that I decided to make some drastic changes to both my home studio set up and technical abilities. I enrolled on ‘setting up your own home studio course’, run by Gravy for the Brain (GFTB), an online voice over training resource. This was a very effective step by step course, that took you me through the various elements of setting up my own home studio. Whilst GFTB’s course focused on the studio process, one of the most important and perhaps the most difficult elements for me, was to get my home studio space right. I had a quiet room at home, which I treated in order to create a ‘dead space’ beneficial for quiet audio recording. I used acoustic blankets and soon I had a fully functional professional home recording studio. This was all done before focusing on investing in new technical equipment. Again I did extensive research and tested out different microphones, audio interfaces, recording software and headphones.
Looking back over the past 3 years, I am so glad that I listened to my friends and took on the advice from my client, because what I previously considered to be a weak aspect of my business then, has turned into a strength. This now means that not only do I possess the technical skills and abilities to self-record, mix and edit, but I also have the flexibility to generate a higher volume of voice over work, from the comfort of my home with clients both in the UK and globally.