Inside the booth

This is about what I do in the booth for everyday auditioning

Thanks for your time.

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More of what I do
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Audio Technica

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Focusrite

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Electro Voice:

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Rode Microphones:

https://rode.com/en/microphones/studio-condenser/nt1a

Our Voice on Demand:

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Podmatch:

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Transcript

 EJ’s Journey into Voice Over English Version Season 4 Episode 6

Episode Title: [   ]

Host(s): ej

Music Intro fades in: Music provided by NEFEX

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Intro track fade In - 

Welcome to EJ’s voice over journey where the mic is always on and the learning never stops.
 I'm EJ, a voice actor journeying through the world of voiceover — from auditions and coaching to client work. Whether you’re just starting out on your voice acting path or already deep into the journey, this podcast shares real experiences, lessons, laughs, and challenges straight from inside the booth. Let’s bring scripts to life — together — with heart and soul!"**

EJ no seiyuu no tabi e yōkoso

koko wa, maiku wa itsumo on,   manabi wa tomaranai podcast desu. 

Watashi wa EJ, audishon kara kōchingu, kuraianto no shigoto made, 

Seiyuu  no sekai wo tabi suru seiyuu  desu.

Anata ga seiyuu no michi wo aruki-hajimeta bakari demo,  mōtto fukai tokoro made kita hito demo, kono podcast dewa, booth no naka kara takusan no kei ken,  manabi,  warai ya chōsen wo kyōyū shimasu.

Issho ni, daihon ni inochi to tamashii wo fukikomi mashō!

Intro track fades out content starts

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Segment 1: [  What goes on inside the booth and the processes of creation? / Buugeasu no naka de okite iru koto ]

Hello, inside the booth you are reviewing auditions on your Pay to Play (P2P) sites. You are selecting which auditions you are interested in submitting for. Selecting the right auditions, provided your picky, means reading the specs for the read as well as the payout for read. I’ll use Voices.com to talk about this.

Konnichiwa. Būusu no naka de, P2P saito no ōdishon o chekku shite iru tokoro desu. Dono ōdishon ni oubo suru ka o erande imasu. Erabu toki wa, supekku ya hōshū o yoku yomu koto ga taisetsu desu. Voices.com o rei ni hanashimashō.

Performance Details:

Check language, Accent, Voice Gender, Voice Age, Role and style. If you don’t speak the language or you can’t carry the accent then you’re probably going to drop this one. The Voice Gender is up to you. If you are a male and it calls for a female if you can pull off a female read go ahead and try it all they can do is not hire you. The age, if you can do kids or older peoples voice go ahead. The style can range from Authoritative, friendly, conversational, commanding or anything else.

Pafoomansu no shousai wa Gengo:

Akusento, seibetsu, nenrei, yakuwari, soshite sutairu o kakunin shimasu. Moshi sono gengo ga shaberienai nara, sono案件 (anken) wa akiramemasu. Nenrei ya sutairu wa, jibun no haba o hirogete, kodomo ya rōjin no koe ni mo chōsen shite mimasu."

Job Highlights:

One important value here is “Responses”. For some P2P sites you need to understand what this means for your chances to get selected. If it says 10 or 20 then sure jump on this one. If it’s 100+ then you may want to audition for practice but keep your expectations in check because someone has to listen to all these. They may get tired around 21 and not really “hear” your voice as they should. 

Jōbu hairaito:

Jūyō na no wa 'Responses' (henshin) desu. Hoka no oobosha ga 10 kara 20 nin nara, sugu ni oubo shimasu. Demo 100 nin ijō nara, renshū da to omotte kitaichi o sagezu ni idomimasu. Kuraianto mo ningen nano de, 21 nin  me kurai de tsukarete koe ga kikoenaku naru kamo shirenai kara desu.

The budget is what they plan to pay for this read. If it’s not what you expect, audition anyway and if you get the gig negotiate for a higher payout. Again all they can say is no and they’ll move on to the next one on the list. Category lets you know the genre you’re reading for, commercial, video game, audiobook etc… There’s a word count so you can calculate the cost for an audiobook and negotiate the payout if it doesn’t match. Then estimated length is about how long your read should take. Commercials are generally 30 seconds, audiobooks are listed in hours and narrations can be 1 hour or 3 hours or even longer. 

Yosan ga risō to chigatte mo, mazu wa ōdishon o uke, gōkaku shitara kōoshōo shimashō. Dame moto de kōoshōo suru no desu. Kategoriiii ya moji suuu o mite, rōdoku no nagasa ya hōshū ga atte iru ka o keisan shite kudasai."
Komaasharu wa daitai 30 byoo   de oodio bukku wa nan jikannka de nareetaa wa ichijikan kara san jikan sore ijyoo ni narukoto mo arimasu 

Other Project Requirements:

Here you finally get to the requirements that deal with the read itself. Any director instructions, references both visual and audio that are related to the script and hopefully a sample script. Some sites post things like “Say something you think will fit”. This is pretty lazy. The creator should have some idea what the character(s) are like and what their dialogue should be. I generally skip these posts if they are like this and return later for a second review.

Koko de yōoyaku, rōdoku sono mono ni kansuru yōken ni tadori tsukimashita. Kantoku no shiji ya, daihon ni kanren suru shikaku-teki, chōkaku-teki na rifarensu, soshite dekireba sampuru daihon ga arimasu.

Saito ni yotte wa, 'nanika au to omou mono o shabette kudasai' to kaite arukoto ga arimasu ga, kore wa kanari kanari zatsu na shigotodato omoimasu.. Kurieitā wa, kyarakutā ga dono yō na jinbutsu de, dono yō na serifu o hanasu beki ka o shitte iru hazu desu. Kore wa watashi no iken to kenkai desu. Watashi wa kō iu tōkō wa daitai sukkippu shite, ato de mō ichido chekku suru yō ni shite imasu.

You have now seen all the information and decided to do the audition. Not every VA probably does this but you should do a tech read. A tech read is when you read the script multiple times in a monotone voice with no musicality or intonation and ignore all punctuation. You will likely sound like a robot who is bored. 

 The reason for this read is to make sure there are no words that trip you up with pronunciation. You understand what the read is about and can now find your “hook” or your “in” to the read so you can read it in your normal voice as a real person not an announcer. You find a connection to the story where you have a related experience, not necessarily about the topic, but about what feeling the script wants to invoke.

Ōdishon o suru mae ni, 'tekku rīdo' o suru beki desu. Tekku rīdo to wa, kanjō o irezu ni, robotto no yō na monotōn na koe de nandomo yomu koto desu. Kore wa, furi-gana ya hatsuon de tsumaranai yō ni suru tame desu.

Kore ni yotte, bunseki-teki na nōoo o damaraseru koto ga dekimasu. Soshite, anaunsā mōdo kara nukedashi, honmono no ningen to shite sutōrī ni tsunagaru 'hook' o mitsukeru no desu. Naiteki hihyōka ga pēsingu o ki ni shisugi nai yō ni, sono shunkan ni todomari tsuzukeru koto ga taisetsu desu.

Once you are comfortable with the read and have your connection to the story you start your recording. You make as many takes as you need until you feel you have the read you want. Replay and the takes and if you have to take the best sections from the multiple reads and edit them into the track you wish to submit. You can clean up the tracks a bit by removing loud breaths but try not to apply too much noise reduction or EQ or any other processing. Once you apply changes the clients audio engineers won’t be able to do anything with the track. Once completed upload it to the client and move on to the next one.

Nattoku dekitara, rokuon o hajime masu. Nandomo take o tori, saiko no bubun o henshū shite tsunagemasu. Tabun Noizu ridakushon o kake, kuraianto ni uppurōdo shitara, sugu ni tsugi no shigoto ni utsurimasu.Torakku o kakō shisugi nai yō ni shite kudasai. Tatoeba, torakku ni EQ o kakeru koto nado desu. Kore wa kuraianto no ōdio enjinia ni totte mondai ni naru kanōsei ga arimasu.

P2P de wa henshin ga nai no ga futsū desu. Ōdishon wa kazu no gēmu desu. Ichi-nichi ni 10 kara 15 kurai wa ukeru beki desu. Kōchingu o uke, sukiru o migaki tsuzukete kudasai. Moetsuki-shōkōgun ni wa ki o tsukete, asa ya yoru no shizuka na jikan o yūkō ni tsukaimashō.

Many folks get upset because they don’t hear back from the client. You most likely will not hear back on P2P site auditions. The job is to audition and the pay off is getting the gig. You should probably be doing 10 to 15 auditions, it’s a numbers game. On Voices.com you can track the audition submissions in your account to see the status. 

Kuraianto kara renraku ga nai node, gakkari suru hito ga takusan imasu. Demo, P2P saito no ōdishon de wa, renraku ga konai no ga futsū desu. Wareware no shigoto wa ōdishon o ukeru koto de ari, hōshū wa 'shigoto o kachitoru koto' sono mono desu.

Ichi-nichi ni 10-ko kara 15-ko kurai wa ōdishon o ukeru beki desu ne. Kore wa 'kazu no gēmu' (nambāzu gēmu) na no desu. Voices.com de wa, akaunto de teishitsu shita ōdishon no sutētasu o torakku suru koto ga dekimasu.

The status can be Deciding, Hiring, Completed. If you get the gig you’ll get an email that states it’s been awarded to you. Don’t fixate on this just keep attending coaching sessions, finding your niche(s), networking with other VA’s and improving your skills. Can you burn out from auditioning? Yes, so you will have to learn how to manage your time. Pick the best time to audition, could be early in the morning before leaving for work or later at night when there is the least amount of noise and interruptions. 

Sutētasu wa, Deciding (kentō-chū), Hiring (saiyō-chū), soshite Completed (shūryō) no mitsu ga arimasu. Moshi shigoto o kachitottara, 'anata ni saiyō saremashita' to iu mēru ga todokimasu.

Demo, sore ni shūchū shisugi nai de kudasai. Kōchingu o uke tsuzukete, jibun no nitchi o mitsuke, hoka no seiyū-tachi to nettowāku o tsukuri, sukiru o migaki tsuzukete kudasai.

Ōdishon de moetsuki (burnout) ni narimasu ka? Hai, narimasu. Dakara, jikan no kanri hōhō o manabu hitsuyō ga arimasu. Asa, shigoto ni iku mae ya, yoru no shizuka na jikan nado, sōon ya jama ga hairanai saiko no taimingu o erande kudasai.

Segment 2: [ When a person decides to jump into this profession?  /  ]

Segment 3: [  Where does one start to learn about this procession? /  ]

Segment 4:[ Why would a person subject themselves to the uncertainty of this profession?  /  ]

Segment 5: [ How does a person make a living at this profession? / ]

Wrap up bonus:

"Before we wrap up, I want to share a Japanese concept that changed how I look at my scripts. It’s a tiny word with a massive impact: Ma. Written as the character for 'sun' shining through a 'gate,' it literally means 'space' or 'pause.'"

Japanese Translation (Romaji): "Saigo ni, watashi no rōdoku no toraekata o kaeta Nihon no konseputo o shōkai shitai to omoimasu. Sore wa 'Ma' (間) to iu kotoba desu. Mon no aida kara hi ga sashikomu kanji de kakurete ite, 'yohaku' ya 'ma' o imi shimasu."

The Bridge (The "Why"): "In the West, we often fear silence in a recording; we want to fill every second. But in Japan, the Ma is just as important as the spoken word. It’s the breath before a big reveal in a video game or the silence after a heavy line in an audiobook. It’s where the listener’s imagination lives."

Japanese Translation (Romaji): "Ōbei de wa, rokuon-chū no seijaku o osoreru koto ga arimasu ga, Nihon de wa 'Ma' wa kotoba to onaji kurai jūyō desu. Game no daitenkan ya, audiobook no omoi serifu no ato no 'ma'. Soko ni kiku hito no sōzōryoku ga yadoru no desu.

That’s all for now, I’ll keep you all updated on my progress.

Ima no tokoro wa sore dake desu. Jōhō ga aru toki ni mata oshie masu.

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Outro track fades in

Thank you for listening to EJ's Voice Acting Journey. If you found any value in this journey, please follow the show and share it with friends or colleagues who are interested in voice acting. 
Be sure to follow, and share it with anyone you know who's curious about voice acting!

Until next time— Keep practicing, keep recording, and above all, keep using your voice. Good luck

EJ no seiyuu no tabi wo kiite kurete arigatō gozaimashita. Kono tabi ni nani ka kachi wo kanjite kuretara, show wo foro shite dōji ni seiyuu ni kyōmi ga aru hito ya dōryō to shēa shite kudasai. 

(Zehi forooshite kudasai,  soshite, seiyuu ni kyoomi ga aru tomodachi nimo shea shitekudasai)

Sore dewa, mata tsugi no kai made

renshū wo tsuzukete, rokuon wo tsuzukete, soshite nani yorimo,  jibun no koe wo tsukaitsuzukete ganbatte kudasai.

Outro music plays and fades out:

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Music provided by NEFEX

Links:

Linktree

https://linktr.ee/ericrjones

Focusrite

Electro Voice 

Voice Warmup Drills

Solid State Logic

Our Voice on Demand

GameDev Market Place

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