Voiceover and DJ Drop Questions

[gina_riley2]

I am about to hire some voiceover artist for the following:

Him to Her and Her to Him Love Poem

1. Poetry (Male) : 301 words
2. Poetry (Female): 388 words

Male or Female:
3. Book Blurb (English): 305 words
4. Book Blurb (French): 318 words
5. Book Blurb (Spanish): (getting it translated next week)
6. Book Blurb (German): 317 words
7. Book Blurb (Japanese): 815 words
8. Book Blurb (Arabic): 558 words
9. Book Blurb (Russian): (need to hire a translator or a proofreader)

I’ve spent a significant amount of time looking over gigs. I’ve never ordered voiceover, so I need your help. I’m hoping to get it right the first time vice complaining later in the Ranting Pot.

Q1: I wanted sound/music to go along with the poetry. Should I order this separately from another seller or look for a seller that offers both?

Q2: Pardon my ignorance, but I noticed that some that offer DJ drops sound really good - especially the males. Is it a bad idea to ask them to record either the above.

Because I have no idea, ideally what is a reasonable price for some of the voice overs above?

And YES, I am aware this will be costly. Depending on the cost, I may just choose half.

[leahemme]

For Q1-- many sellers offer royalty free music you can buy for extra. It’s usually between $5-20, and if the seller knows what they are doing, you shouldn’t have a problem using the voiceover anywhere and getting penalized for the music selection. (ie; content ID claims on youtube, etc)
I think it’d be unfitting to buy music separately for two reasons: one, if you want original music made, it’s very costly, and two, most voiceover artists have a pretty decent ear for choosing fitting music depending on the script. Just give some good description of what you want it to sound like. inspiring, light, not cheesy, heavy, rhythmic, acoustic, etc. Just try to paint a picture of of what you want. But that being said, typically a script really speaks for itself when it comes to making a music selection. One thing you can clarify though, is if they offer revisions for just the music. Personally, I never charge to change the music, and have only had to do it a couple of times, but on the second time the buyer was happy.

Q2; you should definitely reach out to whomever just offers dj drops and see if they’d be up for a full read. DJ drops are just one avenue of voiceovers, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they also had experience doing longer form work too.

Pricing wise though, voiceovers are all over the place. The most common price points i see are $5 for 75 words, 100, or 125. But a lot of people do packages now, so you could probably spend $15-20 and that would include up to 400 words.

I think for voiceovers though, it’s best to FIRST shortlist the people’s voices you like the most. Then of those, choose who fits your budget best.

$5 samples never hurt either if you want to hear their voice on your script.

Good luck!

[leahemme]

Also to add, since there is less competition, you might pay more for languages other than english, so be prepared to spend more on average, but hopefully it will be well worth it! I always wondered if I bought a voiceover in another language, how on earth I would tell if it worked or not. I guess you could always determine sound quality, but pronunciation and intonation… who knows lol

[gina_riley2]

For Q1-- many sellers offer royalty free music you can buy for extra. It’s usually between $5-20, and if the seller knows what they are doing, you shouldn’t have a problem using the voiceover anywhere and getting penalized for the music selection. (ie; content ID claims on youtube, etc)

I think it’d be unfitting to buy music separately for two reasons: one, if you want original music made, it’s very costly, and two, most voiceover artists have a pretty decent ear for choosing fitting music depending on the script. Just give some good description of what you want it to sound like. inspiring, light, not cheesy, heavy, rhythmic, acoustic, etc. Just try to paint a picture of of what you want. But that being said, typically a script really speaks for itself when it comes to making a music selection. One thing you can clarify though, is if they offer revisions for just the music. Personally, I never charge to change the music, and have only had to do it a couple of times, but on the second time the buyer was happy.

Q2; you should definitely reach out to whomever just offers dj drops and see if they’d be up for a full read. DJ drops are just one avenue of voiceovers, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they also had experience doing longer form work too.

Pricing wise though, voiceovers are all over the place. The most common price points i see are $5 for 75 words, 100, or 125. But a lot of people do packages now, so you could probably spend $15-20 and that would include up to 400 words.

I think for voiceovers though, it’s best to FIRST shortlist the people’s voices you like the most. Then of those, choose who fits your budget best.

$5 samples never hurt either if you want to hear their voice on your script.

Good luck!

Pricing wise though, voiceovers are all over the place. The most common price points i see are $5 for 75 words, 100, or 125. But a lot of people do packages now, so you could probably spend $15-20 and that would include up to 400 words.

Thank you for your thorough analysis.

Yes, the price ranged anywhere as low as $5 to believe it or not, one guy offered to do the English version of the poem for $120. I thought that was little over the top but he did have an amazing voice. Funny, his gig page had it for like $80 so I wonder why he bid that high?

Oh, well. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions.

[tee_hi]

I agree with leahemme. To add to that, I think most professional voice-over artists are also affiliated with others who can provide the music if the vocal artist themself is not able to; after all, they need to get their backing tracks from somewhere, as well.

In my case, for instance, I do voice-over work and while I’m learning to make tracks in Fruity Loops, I’m not quite “there” yet. But! My other half, with whom I live, is very proficient in FL and he makes all the tracks for himself, me, and our band. So, if you hired someone like myself, you’d get three-for-one, to include the music, dj drop, and vocals.

[lisabaarns]

Many VO providers also subscribe to Royalty Free music services. In my case I pay a yearly fee, and can use any of their thousands of songs in my projects.

As @leahemme said, the better VO artists have great ears for what works and what doesn’t with a specific script. (Many of us are singers/musicians, so that helps too…)

Pricing is all over the place. If you need the poems to match well, it may be worth finding one provider who can handle both, so the sound quality matches.

The book blurbs are another matter. Good luck finding one VO gig that does all the languages. They may exist, but I haven’t seen them yet.

You can probably get the same artist who does 1 and 2 to handle 3 & 4, and maybe one other, but even that “other” is a stretch.

I’d expect to pay from $15 to $25 for each of the projects listed, possible more for the non English titles. (I haven’t shopped any of those, so I’m not sure…)

[lisabaarns]

Pricing wise though, voiceovers are all over the place. The most common price points i see are $5 for 75 words, 100, or 125. But a lot of people do packages now, so you could probably spend $15-20 and that would include up to 400 words.

Thank you for your thorough analysis.

Yes, the price ranged anywhere as low as $5 to believe it or not, one guy offered to do the English version of the poem for $120. I thought that was little over the top but he did have an amazing voice. Funny, his gig page had it for like $80 so I wonder why he bid that high?

Oh, well. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions.

Funny, his gig page had it for like $80 so I wonder why he bid that high?

BTW - His gig page was probably for voicing straight narrative/VO. In some types of reads, the word count isn’t the only factor. Anybody can “read”, the number of people who can handle the artistry is a far smaller pool.

[gina_riley2]

Many VO providers also subscribe to Royalty Free music services. In my case I pay a yearly fee, and can use any of their thousands of songs in my projects.

As @leahemme said, the better VO artists have great ears for what works and what doesn’t with a specific script. (Many of us are singers/musicians, so that helps too…)

Pricing is all over the place. If you need the poems to match well, it may be worth finding one provider who can handle both, so the sound quality matches.

The book blurbs are another matter. Good luck finding one VO gig that does all the languages. They may exist, but I haven’t seen them yet.

You can probably get the same artist who does 1 and 2 to handle 3 & 4, and maybe one other, but even that “other” is a stretch.

I’d expect to pay from $15 to $25 for each of the projects listed, possible more for the non English titles. (I haven’t shopped any of those, so I’m not sure…)

Thank you for your inputs, Lisa. I was going to use different voiceover seller for each language.

I’m very excited as the price point isn’t quite as high as I had thought from what you and Leah have told me. 😁 I should be able to get them all done next week.

[tarnia]

A good voiceover artist will have a flexible voice and be able to cover across all subjects. I have done poetry adverts narration dj drops adult voicemails and can work across all platforms without any issues.

Ask any potential Voiceover artist to send samples of their work

Tarnia x