Product Description

If you've ever wanted to work in the field of voice over acting, providing your vocal skills for commercials and jingles, you know how stiff the competition is! Today's successful voice actors are also skilled at audio production, so they can offer a full range of services to their VO clients, in addition to being self-sufficient in producing their own audition recordings and audio promotional materials. Veteran MixBooks author Jeffrey Fisher, along with voice actor Harlan Hogan, bring you their expert advice on making excellent sounding voice acting recordings that will have you making money in this exciting field in no time!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42507 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-07
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

About the Author
Harlan Hogan has more than 30 years experience as a voiceover actor and has given voice to scores of highly recognizable ad campaigns, including Its the cereal even Mikey likes, Hey, Culligan Man!, and When you care enough to send the very best. In addition to films and documentaries, its Hogans familiar voice that says, This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you. Thank you. Hogan is the author of more than 50 radio and television commercials, more than 25 corporate and educational videos, three stage plays, and a book, VO: Tales and Techniques of a Voice-Over Actor. He lives in North Barrington, Illinois, and telecommutes via his digital home studio. Jeffery P. Fisher provides audio, video, music, writing, training, and media production services. He also teaches audio and video production at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and writes extensively about music, sound, and video for print and the Web. He is the author of eight books, including Instant Sound Forge, Moneymaking Music, Ruthless Self-Promotion in the Music Industry, and Profiting from Your Music and Sound Project Studio.

Customer Reviews

I should have checked the dates on all the + reviews
Man, I should have checked the dates on all the positive reviews of this book. Had I done so, I would have saved myself the purchase price.

3 years ago, when it was published, I'm sure this was a fabulous reference, however, it is now SO out of date as to render more than half the book almost useless. To the author's credit (and the book's ultimate downfall) he includes a high level of detail on things like computer hardware and software, microphones, and other studio technology, but in any techno-based treatise, one year is a long time and three years is an eternity. The very detail that would have been fabulous three years ago is totally irrelevant today.

I found myself skipping more than half the text of the book primarily because it was so out of date. Recommendations like a computer with a Pentium 4 processor with up to a 40GB hard drive and a minimum of 256MB of RAM were appropriate at the time of publishing (early 2005) but not now. Step by step instructions on how to use programs that have long since been upgraded (or even changed ownership) are of very little benefit in the year 2008. What I have in my hands is a 180 page book with maybe 80 pages of pertinent information.

Another example is in the area of ISDN connections. Again, the authors couldn't include programs like Source Connect or Audio TX, both VOIP type programs and neither of which require an ISDN line and associated hardware/software/expenses to function in this book because they had yet to be released, but I go back to my original statement that if a book is going to be technology-based then it is incumbent on the authors to keep it up to date. Harlan Hogan himself has written a very good discussion on Source Connect and Audio TX that can be found at the CommercialVoices.com web site where he discusses the place non-ISDN communication solutions currently occupy and where they will be in 5 years, and it's critical everyone understand this BEFORE making the substantial investment in ISDN.

I don't fault the authors because they wrote an exhaustive and definitive guide covering the subject at the time, but when one publishes a book like this, you need to make a concerted effort to keep the content up to date. I would think an eBook, with a living chapters would be more appropriate than a paper and ink volume like this. Harlan Hogan's web site is very helpful, and in fact, I learned MUCH more from his web site on the topic than I learned from his book.

My bad, like I said, for not checking the dates of the reviews and the date of publishing.

There is still some information in the book that is of general value regarding how to set up a home studio and get started in the business, but I feel there are other books out there that may be more complete and more importantly, more up to date on this score. On the positive side, the authors write in an enjoyable and humorous style which makes reading the book a positive experience.

This isn't a terrible book, but it could be a GREAT book if it were current.

Right on time.
Book was shipped on a timely manner, in the condition they said it would be in.

Revolutionizing The Home Recording Industry, One Studio At A Time!
Just when I thought I knew it all about voice-overs, my agent and producers started asking me to audition at home. Honestly, I was overwhelmed by the thought of it all. And thought that maybe this was the technological chasm, the great divide, that would separate the wheat from the chaff....and not related to voice-over abilibity.

And then I found Harlan Hogan's and Jeffrey P. Fisher's book on Home Recording. To say it has saved my derriere is putting it mildly. Harlan and Jeffrey take you through step-by-step on what affordable equipment to buy, how to set up your home studio and how to properly record and edit yourself. They even toss in chapters on ISDN and phone patch, as well as self-promoting your home studio.

A "home run" if you ask me...and you did!