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Hi Mike Kirby here at the Voiceworx Studios. We all love to do voice work because it's quick, unpredictable, pays well and it doesn't matter how we're dressed. Voice work can be intensely exciting, too. Just you, the microphone, a page of text and that wonderful sound of your voice resonating in your headsets.
Thirty years after I started, I'm still doing voice work. Apart from the normal visits to Toronto sound studios for commercial and narration sessions, I've got some clients who reach me farther afield by way of phone patches to my home studio.
Now thanks to modern technology, I can walk into my studio, put on my headphones, step up to the microphone and talk to Oklahoma, Dubai, Bermuda, Hong Kong, anywhere. Today, most established voice performers have home studios in which they use their signature voices to service radio and TV stations and commercial and corporate clients on an ongoing basis.
Not too long ago, being a network voice for example, meant giving over to regular visits to their studio maybe three, four, five times a week. Nowadays, you can take your microphone and computer with you anywhere, anywhere you want to go and send your voice through the Internet by way of an MP3 file for example without any loss of quality.
Today, the possibilities are limitless for voice over talent. Technology allows us to service an international clientele just by setting up a website and advertising our voice demos across the world on Voices.com.
And so voice performers, practice hard, create a great demo, build a list of producers, always say yes and the next thing you know, you'll be living your dreams too.
About Mike Kirby
Mike Kirby has won 12 CLIO Awards for advertising excellence in his 30 year career as Actor, Narrator, Broadcaster, Voice Specialist and Author.
* Mike is the Station Voice of HGTV Home and Garden Television Canada.
* Mike's commercial clients have included Hyundai, Suzuki, Nissan, Toyota, Chevy Trucks, Toronto Blue Jays, Stratford Festival, Cogeco, Rogers Cable, Mobil Oil
* Mike was Host/Announcer of the Special Olympics World Winter Games at Skydome in Toronto and Host/Announcer for the United Way Walk-A-Thon at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, Canada.
* Mike has been the voice of numerous documentaries for PBS as well as the award-winning CBC documentary series "Witness."
* Mike Kirby is a graduate of the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater in New York City
