There are all sorts of things professional voice actors do to provide value to their clients.
There are all sorts of things professional voice actors do to provide value to their clients.
In the age of AI, everything in a voice actor’s business is up for reappraisal.
One of the key differentiators in my business is my Right Voice Vault studio service.
I’ve archived every client recording session since 2000 in secure, offline drives, and redundantly since 2010.
The reason is simple: I was taught to do it by the pros at Sync Spot Audio Post (merged with Twisted Pair in Calgary to create Propeller Studios).
I sublet space there for several years, and I witnessed how their archival practices provided added value for their clients.
One immediately obvious benefit was preventing data loss. Hard drives fail, people break and lose things, etc. When a client lost portions of any recorded audio session, it was immediately restored and resent.
Another, perhaps less obvious benefit is that when any production needed updating or alterations, the original session could be restored, and new voice recordings could be matched with the original for seamless integration for the intended audience.
That makes more of a difference than you might think.
We listen to audio on headphones the majority of the time, so we hear sound in a lot of detail. When sound changes in tone or quality, we notice it. When studio pros and professional voice actors work their magic, the change will zip by you like it never happened, like it was the original.
Value and cost can be tricky conversations, but if services add value to your core service (voiceover/narration), pricing the value appropriately and clearly explaining the value it provides can ease the acceptance of any fee.
In the age of AI audio technology, though, do those studio best practices STILL have value?
AI technology *can* give a client the ability to “clone” a voice actor’s performance and make the voice actor say things he never said in a new recording. It’s not always perfect, but addressing the question of how many clients say it’s “good enough” is another blog for another day.
The human heading back into the studio with attention to detail will do a better job than the AI 100% of the time. Still.
Also, there are a few issues with AI alterations to an original performance. Let’s start with the theft of the voice artist's intellectual property—their voice—and the violation of the original contract or agreement.
File this under “Just because you CAN, doesn’t mean you SHOULD.” Especially if you have an ounce of integrity and respect for your supplier.
A service/performance was supplied for a specific instance covered by a verbal or written agreement. Altering that performance in any way without the consent of the voice actor is unethical, and thankfully, in many jurisdictions, illegal. There’s also the issue of compensation. The actor should be paid if the original performance is altered, and their voice is used to update or change a narration or voiceover.
So, is there still added value in specific studio practices, including archival? 100% there is. Ask yourself how you’d feel about dealing with a human supplier that simply stopped providing the added value service that’s saved you on more than one occasion, and made you look especially good on others. It’s one thing to read another sad clause in the terms of use from a tech company that “this agreement may change without notice.” It’s another thing entirely to have it yanked without notice by a human supplier.
Not to mention that the investment made by the voice artists to guarantee broadcast-quality sound, which can be repeated for each engagement, is worth an hourly studio fee.
I hope this gives you a bit of insight into just a couple of the added value benefits of dealing with a human voice actor rather than text-to-speech or AI voices.
This human voice actor is happy to provide the right voice for many projects. Samples and a way to reach out live at www.paulboucher.com, and https://www.youtube.com/@PaulBoucher.