VOICE ACTORS FOR HIRE: VILLAINS

The last evil laugh there was pretty good, but honestly if you're looking to go into paid VA work the rest isn't that great. The other laughs sound forced, like someone who's trying to laugh evilly. Proper evil laughter should sound like the character is actually laughing, rather than trying to do it in an evil way, if that makes sense.

The Axel line...not bad, but a bit high-pitched and the delivery seemed slightly forced. It sounded more like someone reading one of Axel's lines from a script than Axel talking.

I hope this isn't too harsh, but I've been doing voiceover work for years and I still don't charge because I need a bigger portfolio and more practice. :P

The line itself is okay, but unless you're performing a stage production of Kingdom Hearts you need to try delivering the line in a more natural way. I know that the entire setting of the game is fantastical, but to the people within it what's happening is real, and it makes the voice acting that much better if it seems like it's real people talking.

your enunciation is something that could use some some work, imo. it's difficult for me to explain since I've never really gone into the technical side of voicework, but I think what's most important is getting comfortable with your lines and not overthinking them. there's more than a couple points where you kind of trip over a word and catch yourself a syllable later -- "rememmer" in the first sample, for instance. it's mostly just a matter of practice. I've heard that the best way to practice enunciation and clear speech is to read out loud -- every night, if you can. it doesn't matter what kind of voices you can do if you can't read from a script, and reading from a book or something is an excellent way to train those skills.

also, if you're going to be doing serious auditions you should keep sound quality in mind. you seem to have found a pretty good place to record, and there's no background noise I can hear, but your mic might not be up to the task -- there's a grainy quality to it that you often hear with lower-end mics. that isn't to say you should go out and buy a yeti or a shure right away, but maybe shop around and find something with a little more clarity. I've heard surprisingly good things about cheap little Logitech stick mics. only spend what you're comfortable with -- you're only starting out, after all, and practice is practice whether you've got the best mic in the world or a tin can on a string.

keep how far you are from the mic in mind, too. if your audio tends to be filled with puffs (caused by your breath on hard sounds like "p", preventable using a breath screen) or spikes (caused by being too loud for the mic to properly record) you might want to adjust the mic's position so it can capture you better. are you using something like a headset right now? it might pay to move the mic's arm down or to the side a bit.

I got a yeti a while back for the hell of it and I've been pretty happy with it so far. I waffle around a bit with it and lisp a whole bunch here. kind of rough and I take basically none of the advice I gave in this thread into account, but I was just messing with the gain and shit at the time. I still don't have it quite figured out the way I like it -- before my old snowball stopped working, the clarity and acoustics were a bit better than that, but that might have just been the place I was recording slash maybe I've just gotten worse?

I don't do anything professionally, though, so it's probably just for the sake of my vanity or some shit like that.