New Business Development Feature
By Liz Raphael Helgesen

A professional voice talent and business mentor Liz will present an inspirational quote and then share a personal application of that wisdom to help us achieve greater success in our field.

"What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what kind of a person you are." --C.S. Lewis

Twenty years ago, I was one of the pioneer voices of automated speech systems, prompting you to press one and two before it was socially acceptable. While today I bless this entryway into my now diverse voice career, at the time, when I started, I believed I was second-rate as a talent because of the material I recorded: voice prompts. I was looked down upon by what I believed to be the “real” talent, who made their living doing the sexy stuff, the more glamorous character roles and the broadcast commercial spots that received national recognition. I was actually told by one voice actor, “How could you do that for a living?” As a result, I sadly chose to believe I stood on the outside of the glass, looking in—watching the party that I so much wanted to be a part of.

As time went on, my steady diet of IVR and corporate narration work kept growing and I became inundated with this regular-gig material. When I ran into my peers from time to time, I would hear how many of them were hungry for regular-gig work, and they began questioning me about how I did it. As I became more awake, I started to see that I was the one at the party they so much wanted to be a part of. This evolved into my understanding that, in reality, all of us are already at the same party. And, fully awake I saw the real truth—that serving the world doing what I love with a regular paycheck was, after all, pretty darn sexy.

And what I share with everyone today is what I see most clearly: that my work and abundance is the direct result of who I am and how I live my life—waking up each day with the goal of making a difference in your life, using my passion to serve and inspire. So, whether I am giving you your bank balance or convince you to use Tide, I choose to see that I’m always serving my higher purpose. This is one hell-of-a-party and I see today that I was standing here all along; I just didn’t always know it. Come stand over here with me; let’s party together.

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Welcome to Sound Ideas

Glen Campbell welcomes all CV Newsletter subscribers and readers with an exciting exclusive offer that you will not find anywhere else. Simply submit your name, mailing address. phone number and email address to Glen monthly...that's all there is to it. First he will offer to send you a Sound Ideas Sampler of many of their terrific products and you will also be eligible to win one of two great Production CD's, Captain Audio (450 sfx) or Mzzz Muzic (200 music tracks). Just click on Glen's name to submit. I have been dealing with Glen at Sound-Ideas for many years both in radio and in VO. He is very knowledgeable and professional about his business and is not a sales-hound if you know what I mean. Give Glen a call anytime at 1-800-665-3000 (within Canada) or 1-800-387-3030 (USA), 905-886-5000 (International). Check out their Blue Plate Specials every month for amazing deals!

Welcome to Sound Ideas Online The world's largest publisher of professional sound effects, royalty free music, and your source for a comprehensive selection of production music and production element libraries.Buy direct from Sound Ideas - our e-commerce Web site offers secure online purchasing of more than 200 different sound effects and stock music products for broadcast, post-production, multimedia, game development and other wireless and entertainment applications.

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Producers +....spread the word.....by Rick Gordon

We've just sent out another Producers + Casting Call to our Platinum Members. I would like to send out many more. If you are not familiar to this great service CV offers please click here to learn more.

Some of you may ask yourself why would I send VO business to someone else? Well, the unselfish answer is that perhaps your client would appreciate assistance in finding other VO professionals to offer them the occasional project? Of course in thinking this way you have to accept the fact that you may not always be the perfect voice for everything. I know, I know, it's hard to believe but it just may be true:)

By promoting our unique service you will be the "go to" guy/girl who wants to help your client save much time and in most cases much money. When they think of VO they will think of and go to you to save them the "noise". This is a good thing. In the long run you will be respected and your candidacy for Sainthood will increase substantially. As you know CV is full of 100% professionals who all guarantee their work and do deliver on time and on or under budget.

Be sure and send me a private email about your client and his project. I will thank you in a very tangible way:)

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The Funnies

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A SPAM to our members.....Bill Jones

In the last few weeks a number of CV Members received a spam VO request mentioned in last month's Newsletter. Here sadly is what happened to one of our long time CV members. Another member who did not want to be named lost $1,300. Read and Heed.....Rick

_____________________________________________________________________________
Dear Rick,

Please forward this email to all CV talents, as after speaking to both LAPD and The Secret Service, it seems I have no real chance to help apprehend these cretins.

Basically, the scam is a Cashier’s check is sent from the ‘client’ of this ‘producer’ directly to the talent to expedite production (and my bank initially said it looked fine — until 6 days in) and he asks you to send his ‘portion’ of the job to someone in the UK......MORE

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Producer's Corner
What is the best mic?

I participate on a few audio recording web forums to assist novices and amateurs with their recording/mixing-related questions.

One question that frequently comes up is "what is the best mic?"

This question is completely unanswerable as it's phrased... there is no "best!"

There are mics that have sonic characteristics that are desirable for the task at hand, and others that are less suitable. Sound cryptic? Let me try and illustrate.

First thing people have to realize is the sound starts at the source.
If the voice (or the instrument) sounds poor, so will the recording (regardless of the mic).

Second thing is the sound of the room the source is in, a great-sounding voice in a poor-sounding room will sound terrible. For those doing voice-overs in their private homegrown studios, you really do need to think about room acoustics and getting sonic treatment. Untreated rooms sound poor and are unsuitable for recording 99.9999% of the time.

Once these two variables are in place, THEN you worry about the mic choice. You select a mic that complements your voice - which may be DIFFERENT for one reading compared to another, depending on the voice characterization you are doing. A mic suitable for a Morgan Freeman-style delivery may be completely inappropriate for a cartoon-voice reading.

Happy recording!

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