Audio Holiday Carol from Your Friends at GM Voices
Posts Tagged voice actors
Moustaches of Distinction: Legendary Voice Actor Mel Blanc
To Commemorate GM Voices’ Participation in Movember, We Spotlight Our Favorite Moustaches
(Learn about Movember at www.movember.com; Read about GM Voices’ involvement at www.gmvoices.com/movember)
In the annals of voice acting, perhaps no figure looms as large as Mel Blanc. The king of of the Golden Age of animation, his was the voice of Warner Bros.’ Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and many, many more. He elevated the art of voice acting and enriched the pop culture landscape for 60 years.
Mel Blanc was also the owner of a dashing, pencil-thin moustache. It is indisputable, scientific fact that moustaches imbue men with strange and awesome powers. Can we attribute Blanc’s debonair facial accessory as the driving force behind his talents? Probably not entirely. More likely, Blanc had a God-given skill that was only enhanced by his whiskers. The tonality, timbre and richness of his performances undoubtedly were improved by the presence of his tasteful mo.
GM Voices is grateful to Mr. Blanc for his contributions to the voice acting art, and we thank him for being a “Mo Bro” in perpetuity.
Reader of this blog: Can we count on you to join our moustachioed ranks this November?
Sound Good? We’ll Be the Judge of That.
Being a Fly on the Wall at a GM Voices Talent Review Meeting
Gathered mid afternoon in Studio A, GM Voices’ talent manager, its top directors and audio engineers gather around the console in plush furniture, respective coffees and teas in hand. The lighting is dim, the proper audio-sampling ambiance created. It’s time to get to business.
This is GM Voices’ monthly talent review, a group evaluation of all the demos received in the preceding several weeks. We’re looking for a few good voices, but the obstacles for these prospective roster additions are many. This is only the first cut, and it can be unforgiving. The quality of voice is the primary component, sure. But is the read style natural; the voice demo is produced by reading from a script, but can our panel suspend their disbelief? Is there a market need for this style of voice? Does the voice stand apart from the other gender offerings in this language on our roster? If the demo was recorded internationally, is the studio setup acceptable?
First up is an Italian male voice. The read is clean and professional, but our reviewers agree that it lacks the hard-to-describe “it” factor of the best voice talent. Besides, we’re staffed strongly with Italian males. This voice goes in the “maybe,” pile. He might get a formal audition (the next big step), but it’s doubtful.
Next is a Hindi female voice. She has really good studio arrangements. The read is clean; the sound is distinguished, almost aristocratic. But something seems amiss. “Where did this talent go to school?,” asks our talent manager. “I hear a European influence.” Uh oh. This might be a deal breaker. It’s important that our talent maintain a local, in-country sound. Mark this voice as “investigate further.”
Then, a German male. He has a good sound, but his voice is combined with post-editing, music and sound effects that make it difficult to evaluate on its own merits. We’ll see if he has something a little more streamlined to pass along.
Our reviewers perk up. On deck is a Gujarati male. Interesting. Gujarati is an Indian language not formally offered on our language list. For reasons long and varied, we haven’t yet found the right talent. But maybe this is the guy. His standard read sounds good. So does his studio. In the demo, he also includes some commercial character voices that get a few laughs. Most of our recordings are play-it-straight voice prompts, but any acumen for the “acting” component is always well received. There is more research to be done, but it looks he’ll get a formal one-on-one audition with a GM Voices director.
Following the meeting, our talent manager works on the yeses and maybes. For international languages, the talent need to be authenticated as “native.” Assuming it’s a go, it’s time to talk business—contracts, commitments, compensation, assurance, insurance. All that fun stuff.
Several weeks later, it’ll all begin again. Maybe next month there will be the elusive Gujarati female.
“Let’s Talk About” Voice Prompts
Video Best Practice Series from Marcus Graham
GM Voices recently completed a series of informational video interviews on Voice Branding topics such as auto attendant, IVR, and of course, professional voice actors for telephony. Each topic is collected on our main website. These are easy to understand, high-level overviews of the fundamental tenets of creating a great caller experience for your customers. Check them out over your morning cup o’ joe.
Here’s a sample:
GM Voices Hits the Airwaves
Featured in Voice Branding Segment on American Public Media’s Marketplace Program
Recently, you read about GM Voices in the Wall Street Journal. This time, you can give us a listen. On yesterday’s Marketplace on American Public Media, GM Voices was featured in a segment about Voice Branding and the positive effect it’s having on automation.
Check it out. GM Voices CEO Marcus Graham and Senior Audio Engineer Alex Buckellew contribute to the story, which begins at the 22:50 mark of the broadcast.
Said Marcus: “What’s happening is these large companies are realizing that they’re turning their relationships over to these automated systems, and they do warrant time and energy to make sure it’s a pleasant exchange and experience.”
Directed Voice Actor Sessions: Getting the Perfect Performance for Your IVR
Client dial-in ensures the best read style for your application. Also: How the GM Voices creative team cajoles voice actors for persona auditions.
A unique benefit to working with GM Voices for brand-consistent voice prompts and phone greetings is our production telephone patch. Our client dial-in allows customers to listen in and/or direct their talent’s recording session. For people who are really keyed into Voice Branding, this provides peace of mind and opens the door to the “Hollywood” aspect of GM Voices. It’s just cool to ride shotgun in a studio session, y’know?
During an expanded Voice Branding initiative, GM Voices will audition voice actors from a persona report, a document that includes vocal characteristics and a biographical summary of a fictional virtual representative. This helps our voice actors “become the persona” after a pre-session reading. But, if that wasn’t enough, our creative team sits in during the recording sessions to ensure a brand-consistent performance that matches the specifications of the persona report. It’s a mutually beneficial experience for both our “office” employees and our talent; the office types learn the strengths of our performers, and the performers learn more about the corporate aspect of Voice Branding. Basically, it’s a thorough process that guarantees that the audio delivered for customer review was recorded with a lot of thought and care. It’s these little extra steps that put GM Voices above the competitive set.
If you missed it a few blog posts ago, check out our persona samples page. Here, you can listen to how our voice actors change their styling for three persona examples.
We Are GM Voices. We Are the Worldwide Leaders in IVR Voice Prompts, Voice Messages and Phone Greetings.
An open letter to every company with automated customer contacts. This is who we are. This is what we do better than any company in the world.
Hello,
You have happened upon the official blog of GM Voices. We are the global leader in professionally-recorded voice prompts for IVR, auto attendant, speech recognition and other automated voice systems. We have provided natural-sounding recorded voice for phone greetings and voice messaging for over 25 years. Other businesses may specialize in voice recording, but none are so uniquely positioned to improve your automated customer experience. We do what what we do specially for customer contacts and marketing voice messaging.
Our business is one of process perfection. IVR phone systems require frequent updates. That’s why we offer next-day turnarounds of ready-to-load audio files in any format. We work in a global economy, where customers shop for quality of product and experience, disregarding borders and the past. That’s why we record in 100 languages and dialects, all in-country and in-context. We’re attuned to the fact that your corporate image is wholly unique. We’re attuned to the fact that your customers are wholly unique. That’s why our roster of professional voice actors are trained, certified and available by the hundreds.
Our QA process and audio expertise is thorough and incomparable. Our audio engineers were educated specifically for our business. Voice files are edited to sound crisp, clear and professional, every time. Our archiving ensures that any audio update sounds seamless compared to previous orders.
We help companies communicate with world-class Voice Brands. We affirm your customers’ decisions to do business with you in the f irst place. We help your application achieve a higher rate of caller containment, lowering your expenses. We record for expansive and deep call menus, and quick-and-easy auto attendants and on-hold messaging.
We’re available right now to take your call (770.752.4500). We’re available to elevate your customer communications.
Any language, any media, any market, any application, any platform provider. We’re GM Voices. We’re your voice to the world.
Listen to Our Voices (Full Media Player)
GM Voices Talent Tour (Part 1): Callie at ClueCon
The Official Voice of FreeSWITCH to Attend Telephony Developers Conference
August is shaping up to a busy month at GM Voices. We’re doing double duty the first week, sending team members to SpeechTEK in NYC and ClueCon in Chicago. If you’re part of the Windy City open source contingent, make sure to check out GMV President Darrell Hensley’s presentation on helping FreeSWITCH developers step into the enterprise space to target large, multinational opportunities.
Additionally, GM Voices persona Callie will be attending the show with our marketing film crew. For the unenlightened, Callie is the official voice of FreeSWITCH, a GM Voices preferred voice actor (weekly updates at our most economical rates), and one of the best overall voices on our roster.
Sample Callie’s smooth IVR and narration samples here, here and here.
We’ll see you at ClueCon in Chicago!
(Da Bears.)
Anatomy of a (Good) Voice Prompt
The editing bone is connected to the inflection bone.
Voice prompts are tricky beasts. These short, concise audio files can give you relief or a big headache. It all depends on who’s behind the microphone. And you can’t discount the talent of a professional audio engineer. If your IVR sounds bad, people will hang up or they will press 0 and try to get a live agent. It all snowballs into the perfect storm. You frustrate customers or you inflate your payroll. Or, you can just record your system the right away and not worry about it. GM Voices recommends this option.
So, what goes into a good voice prompt? First, you need a voice actor. These people are paid to sound awesome, speak clearly and be professional. GM Voices offers a huge number of people of this trade.
Next, you need the right environment. If you record your accountant over the phone from a noisy cubicle, there will be audio interference, mumbling, sharpness and generalized catastrophe. GM Voices records from state-of-the art studios. High-tech equipment, crystal-clear sound.
You also need a little post-production. After all, nobody is perfect. Even our voice actors stumble. They inhale, exhale and embellish with audible imperfections. Our engineers remove all these extras, resulting in a clean and smooth audio file. Even through the receiver into the ears of your customers, they sound great.
Finally, a word about inflection and concatenation. Most of the time when an automated voice speaks your phone number or account balance, it sounds robotic and unnatural. Sometimes it’s so distracting it’s hard to tell what’s being said. GM Voices strings these numbers and words together (concatenation) so they sound seamless with the other recorded files. It’s about tonal shifts and different inflections. It makes a big difference.
If you record your voice prompts correctly, you’ll increase caller containment and improve your caller experience.
There you have it: The anatomy of a (good) voice prompt.
The Importance of the Voice Persona
This is a good book.
Defending the process, recognizing the fine line between extraneous pretension and essential brand ascription.
Two weeks before I started working at GM Voices, I was loaded with a hernia-inducing pile of books. They ranged from generalized marketing and public relations to very specific tomes on IVR, ASR, Voice Branding and speech technologies. I read most of these books, all or in part. Perhaps the best of the industry-specific reads was Bruce Balentine’s It’s Better to Be a Good Machine Than a Bad Person. It’s lighthearted, conversational and written in way that’s easily understood by non-technophiles (me). It provided a solid foundation of the stuff we try to humanize; the essential automation that many people hate, and our mission to make it so they don’t hate it as much.
One issue I had with Balentine’s book, however, was his critique of the persona development process. It’s baloney, he says. Irrelevant. Even the word “persona” is pretentious to Balentine. People just want to enter their account number. Personality (voice) traits and biographical informers are unnecessary.
I disagree with most of his assessment. GM Voices recognizes that we’re not making movies here. This process can proceed with comical over-analysis. So with respect to the company’s brand and its customers, we therefore proceed with just the right amount of analysis and development. Indeed, it’s a fine line between thorough and extraneous. But we’ve found this balance.
But so is this.
Voice represents companies on some of their most crucial customer touchpoints: Television and radio advertising, direct and event marketing, trade show presence, even on the very products they sell. It’s understood that the voice will carry the hallmarks of the brand to affirm the identity of the company in the customer’s mind. Do businesses and consumers find this frivolous? No. And it’s no different over the phone, where depending on the company, hundreds or thousands of customer contacts are handled each day. Does it matter where the voice of the IVR went to college? Maybe not, but a brand-consistent sound is paramount to us. And these details help our very talented voice actors achieve this sound.
And it’s not just us: Our client’s marketing directors are usually on the same page. It doesn’t take much convincing that the voice of the IVR should resonate with buyer demographics and unify the essence the brand from other contact channels. I may be more jaded than most, but I know when the hip technology company makes an effort to present the same image on their automation. I also know when the luxury lifestyle retailer drops the ball by having what seems to be my grandmother on the IVR. Of course, everything fails if the VUI is poor or if the scripting is a failure. What I’m saying is that voice complements design. Branding is not a hindrance to containing calls or getting things done. These are not mutually exclusive goals. Persona development is an important part of the overall customer experience.
And if improving the customer experience and optimizing the Voice Brand is prententious, well, pass the stinky cheese and come over to my house to watch Inside the Actor’s Studio, because it’s about to get crazy up in here.
