Do you have "audio gremlins" in your auditions?

 (This post is mainly for beginners. Experienced talents should know better)

Nothing kills your chances of winning a prime voice over job quicker than bad audio quality. As many of us work from our home studios, there are usually plenty of unwanted background noises to deal with---barking dogs, little ones playing in another room squealing, laughing and running around, air conditioning and fan sounds, loud car mufflers, honking horns, motorcycle rumbles from the street, your neighbor's riding mower, distracting, mysterious, low vibration hum from somewhere, a jet flying over your house, city garbage truck, and beyond. You don't want ANY of that in your audition submissions. It's a deal breaker and screams "unprofessional." Did I ever tell you about PG&E (local power) coming down my street and camping out for MONTHS with their jackhammers? It sounded like they were in my living room!

The man who founded and runs his successful voice over casting website out of Germany, Armin Hierstetter( "Bodalgo") said you would be shocked how many auditions or voice demos come in to him with awful sound. The folks listening to that are going to discard your audition and move quickly to the next one. Don't be one of those unaware/misguided voice over talents! You may record a great audition but be eliminated from winning the job because you're sending out lousy audio. And yes,that means no  lazy recordings made from your phone on the fly in a hurry to get to the gym. 

Just because you have a vocal booth doesn't mean you won't have to guard against unwanted sounds. Many times, VO booths, while helpful, don't get rid of ALL the pesky sounds getting into your recordings. Listen carefully (headphones on) before you send your audio out to a potential customer/client, and yes, it's a big deal. Otherwise you're just wasting your time, money and talent.

If all of this seems a bit much, it might be well worth it to hire a competent audio engineer to help you get rid of those pesky gremlins and fine tune your recording space. The second set of ears can be most helpful.