Kevin May of the Irish band, The Guggenheim Grotto agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how he used the service to find, select and a hire talent.

Recently Kevin completed a project at Voices.com and hired Marian Hussey. Read more on Kevin's hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

I had never looked for voice talent online before. Voices.com was the first site I came across and while I may not be in a position to compare it with other sites I simply can't imagine how the service could be any better than the experience I had with Voices.com.

I found it easy to use, I got extremely fast responses from the voice talent who auditioned and most importantly I was delighted with the final work. A special mention I feel must go to our hired talent, Marian Hussey, who was not only professional and extremely easy to work with but genuinely enthusiastic about our project and 100% committed to getting it just right for us and to our satisfaction.

How did you select the talent?

How I came to work with Voices.com in looking for voice talent is a perfect example of how well I feel their site and service is run. When I first visited the site, having found it in a Google search, I browsed through different voices to see what the standard was like and if any of them were what I was looking for.

While no voice in particular jumped out at me I was suitably impressed with the standard on offer so I signed up and posted the details of our job. Our job was approved by Voices.com within two hours. Within ten minutes of it having been approved I began to receive auditions from voice talent and throughout the next 48 hours the auditions just kept coming in. And I'm sure they would have kept coming in after that except I closed the job early having already found the perfect talent for the job.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

I think our job posting may have been a little more unusual than the other jobs posted on Voices.com. We had been using a computer generated voice to deliver a short speech at the beginning of one of the songs on our new album. Unfortunately it would have cost us both time and money trying to clear the rights to use the voice which were owned by Apple. It was this, that lead me to Voices.com in a bid to find a voice actress who could deliver the same speech and sell it to us - a difficult prospect for the talent as we had become very accustomed to hearing the computer generated voice, in fact we had become quite fond of it. We were certain we were looking for a female voice and we felt that it should be delivered emotionally flat, in a neutral American accent. However the speech also contained a quote from Buddha so we also experimented with asking for it to be delivered alternatively in a Japanese accent, just to see if that worked. I loved this aspect of Voices.com - we were not 100% in what we were looking for but through the process of receiving many different performances and nuances in delivery, some robotic, some Japanese, some American - from listening to them all we very quickly began to understand what approach was working for us and what wasn't.

Our deadline was not too tight for this project; in fact I think I originally intended to leave the job open for a month. However within 2 days I had chosen who I wanted to do the job and after that it was a case of Marian waiting for me to review her work rather than me waiting for her to deliver it. Regarding the file format, we asked for it as 24 bit 48khz, and that's what was delivered to us.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

We received many responses to our Job in a very short space of time. And out of all those responses we had flagged about ten that we would have been very happy to work with.

The general standard of auditions was very high, and professional. The reason we chose Marian in the end was because she had gone one step further than all of the other auditions. Marian delivered 5 auditions to us, not only delivering it in our chosen 2 accents (Japanese and English) but delivering it in three other accents which she felt might work going on our job description. It was in fact one of these alternative accents that sold us. That and Marian's cover note (proposal) which was enthusiastic and open about working with us until we got a performance from her that we are 100% happy with.

A note on the amount of responses we received for our job posting: we received a lot of responses to our job posting and this was hugely beneficial to us. Through listening to them all it allowed us to further clarify what it was we were looking for and as such the method of auditioning voices at Voices.com was a valuable creative tool for us.

Once we decided we would like to work with Marian Hussey the rest of the process was a joy. We sent some additional instructions on how we would like her to deliver the piece, a day later she sent 4 performances of it back to us and that was that. We had what we were looking for. I can't imagine a more painless, hassle free method of finding voice talent.

About the Client

Music Type: Alternative / Folk Rock / Indie

THE GUGGENHEIM GROTTO are from Dublin, Ireland.
There are three of us: Mick Lynch, Kevin May and Shane Power. Our Debut Album '...Waltzing Alone' was released (in Ireland only) on September 9th 2005 through our own label, Shellac Records and was released in the U.S. & Canada, September 26th 2006 on UFO Music. Our new Album 'Happy The Man' is available now on CD in Ireland from www.guggenheimgrotto.com and iTunes.

Video:

Project Details

Project ID: 9165
Project Title: Intro to Song 'Fee Da Da Dee' - North American or Japanese Accent
Category: Music Composition and Music Production
Language: English
Project Close Date: May 16, 2008
Selected Talent: Marian Hussey

LeVern Danely of LAD4 Creations Inc., agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how his company used the service to find, select and hire talent.

Recently LeVern completed a project at Voices.com and hired Lora Cain . Read more on LAD4 Creations’ hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

Voices.com has been an incredible resource for us in producing high quality professional videos. Many of our clients want the look, feel, and sound of a high-end professional video, and we have found that professional narration is often the key to achieving that success. Realizing this, we work closely with our clients to create voice-over scripts that highlight the major points of their video. Once the scripts are completed we look to Voices.com and their listed talent to provide sample reads.

How did you select the talent?

The large pool of talent at voices.com not only provides us with dozens of unique voices to choose from it also saves us time and money by quickly providing high quality downloadable samples to share with our clients. Our clients appreciate the opportunity to assist in the selection process to select a voice that will best enhance their video production. For this project we hired Lora Cain. They also benefit from the cost savings we pass on to them by not having to bill for traditional studio time and talent.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

We enjoy working with Voices.com because we often receive production requests with very tight schedules and searching for voice talents that will meet specific gender, speech pace, and voice style can be time consuming, not to mention nerve racking if the talent has trouble delivering the voice-over in a high quality format we can use. Voices.com takes care of that for us, so we can focus on what we do best. We also take advantage of the SurePay process to ensure that we receive the completed work prior to the resource receiving our deposit.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

Voices.com has also helped us be good stewards to our church. Our company volunteered to produce a short video to show at our church to help generate support for a good cause. The video was well received, but due to our lack of time and budget we completed the voice-over in-house. A month later we were informed that the same video would be shown at a major fundraising event in front of 1000+ business people. We couldn’t help but think about the quality of our in-house voice-over and knew we needed to change it overnight. That’s actually when we discovered Voices.com, they not only provided extremely quick responses, and the work was high-quality and fit within a budget that we felt comfortable donating to the cause. The result was an excellent video shown before a very impressed audience narrated by Lora Cain.

LAD4 Creations will definitely continue to use Voices.com in future projects. We have had continued great service and have found several voice talents that we will use over and over in our work. We can’t say enough about our experiences with Voices.com and highly recommend them to any business looking for professional voice-over work.

About the Client

Through my years of experience as a freelance videographer and video editor, I’ve come to understand what defines excellence in a video production company: Extra attention to detail. A flexible, “outside the box” approach. Not to mention personal service that’s timely, courteous and focused solely on the clients’ needs.

Named in honor of my son, LeVern A. Danley IV, LAD4 Creations, Inc. was built upon a single vision: to provide truly exceptional and affordable professional video services to businesses, legal institutions, non-profit organizations and individuals. Today, our company is widely respected as one of the premier video production firms in the Chicago area.

“How Can We Go That Extra Mile?”

Every one of our projects begins with this question. Not a company to rest on our laurels, LAD4 Creations is continually looking for ways to enhance the value of our services. From corporate events to courtroom depositions, we are committed to executing each production with unsurpassed quality, creativity and innovation. Whether your video project is large or small, you can be confident that the end result will engage your audience … and exceed your every expectation.

LeVern A. Danley III, CCVS
Founder, Certified Court Video Specialist
http://www.lad4creations.com

Project Details

Project ID: 8474
Project Title: Voice over for Not for Profit Video
Category: Business Presentations and Corporate Videos
Language: English
Project Close Date: April 2, 2008
Selected Talent: Lora Cain

Tami Joca of Onsite Property Manager agreed to answer a few questions about her experience at Voices.com and how she and her company used the service to find, select and hire talent.

Recently Tami completed a project at Voices.com and hired Janice Downes. Read more on Tami’s hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

Our Company needed a voice over done for our answering system. We tried several attempts at doing this ourselves but the sound was not up to par. While surfing the net the owner of the company found Voices.com. I set up a profile and posted the job and within minutes our company had several audition tapes to listen to.

How did you select the talent?

Our team sat down and listened to several of the audition submissions. But one voice stood out from the rest it was Janice (JP) Downes her voice had just the right tone and pitch we were looking for. We made the offer via Voices.com to Janice and she accepted. Janice sent us the MP3 files from our scripts we paid her using SurePay (which is very safe and secure) and she sent the files to us for our system.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

We were on a very tight deadline in finding the talent.

We were looking for:

• Professionalism
• Quick Turnaround
• English
• MP3 format

Using Voices.com it made this project simple and easy. We were able to post a job, find the right talent, submit payment via SurePay which was safe and secure, and received our MP3’s all in a matter of two days!

We received so many responses and I would have loved to thank every individual that submitted an audition. Janice (JP) Downes was the professional voice we were looking for.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

We recommend Voices.com to anyone that needs a voice talent. Janice was so professional and so wonderful to deal with that we decided when we had another voice project to hire her again.

Now with Voices.com there is a feature that allows you to add a certain talent to your favorites and gives you the ability to post a job only to that person. I was able to post and send a job only to Janice and she responded the same day. This was perfect. Voices.com has been an overall great experience for us and we will use them when we are searching for voice talent.

About the Client

Ideal Applications is a software development company producing industry specific web based applications for today's technology needs. Recent projects include http://TakingApps.com and http://OnSitePropertyManager.com

OnSite Property Manager

Rental property management software for landlords and property managers. Uses a Rent Roll format making it easier to learn and fun to use. Auto posts rents and late fees on the designated dates and times for each rental unit. Tracks tenant interactions and maintenance tasks to easily organize your rental properties.

Taking Apps

Taking Apps provides an inexpensive method for individuals and businesses to collect online responses and change their online Apps on the fly without the need for expensive web design or database modification. The software supports multiple users so that your staff can collectively review the responses and make online notes. Apps can even be branded with your company logo and directly linked from your corporate website

Project Details

Project ID: 8707
Project Title: Ideal Applications
Category: Telephone System Recordings, Voicemail and On-Hold
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: April 11, 2008
Selected Talent: Janice (JP) Downes

Mike Chalmers of Smartsettle agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how they’ve used the service to find, select and hire talent for their voiceover needs.

Recently Mike completed a project at Voices.com and hired Nick Summers. Read more on Mike’s hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

After hearing samples from the directory, Smartsettle (www.smartsettle.com) was confident Voices.com had a quality product and decided to review the selection process and tools provided by the system.

How did you select the talent?

After posting a job, the resulting proposals began to arrive, and some in under an hour. It became clear that finding a suitable voice would not be the challenge, but rather, narrowing down the selection. In the end, Nick Summers was chosen.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

• Deadline given for proposals was 48 hours
• Project implementation date was 1 to 2 weeks (required audio files within 1 week)
• Language: English (requirement to be suitable for Canada, USA and Internationally
• Male or Female voice (in the end it was narrowed down to one male and one female voice)

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

So many proposals were received, that our team was able not only to select for the current project--our telephony system--but was inspired to think about future projects including video tutorials for our software systems.

Smartsettle has engineered the world's most advanced negotiation system, utilizing a patented multi-issue, multi-party platform to solve problems, from simple small claims or insurance cases to complex international conflicts. As such, we must present clear instruction using clear audio and visual tools to get our message across. Utilizing professional voice talent was seen as a necessary component to the success of these initiatives.

Voices.com fulfilled our initial requirements for hiring voice talent, within days of registering our company for the service. We were satisfied with the selection, and the winning candidate Nick Summers followed through with a professional product, edited to our requirements and delivered with time to spare.

About the Client

Smartsettle is a leading provider of eNegotiation technology and recently presented at the 2008 International Forum on Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) in Victoria, BC. Delegates from around the world presented on the need for technology-based dispute resolution systems for a rapidly changing world, where conflicts are on the rise. Smartsettle can also be applied across business sectors for use in mergers and acquisitions, supply chain agreements, employee contracts and other areas.

Most recently, with the release of the iPhone, Smartsettle announced that their Smartsettle One software is soon to be available on the new device. Read the Press Release.

Company URL: http://www.smartsettle.com

Project Details

Project ID: 8753
Project Title: Advanced software VoIP prompts
Category: Telephone System Recordings, Voicemail and On-Hold
Language: English
Project Close Date: April 24, 2008
Selected Talent: Nick Summers

Jeff Cale, a freelance musician agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how he used the service to find, select and hire talent.
Recently Jeff completed a project at Voices.com and hired September Day Leach. Read more on Jeff’s hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

I discovered Voices.com and posted a job. I received more than 20 responses, all of which had auditions I could listen to instantly online.

I had been unable to hire good talent through other means, but voices.com provided an easy and fast way to select excellent professional talent. And my hired talent, September Day Leach, has been extremely professional, has a tier one performance, and had my satisfaction as her ultimate goal- and she achieved it with ease. I had received plenty responses and having so many to choose from helped because while some were very good, others were plainly not what I was looking for.

How did you select the talent?

I needed a young, attractive and beautiful voice for spoken statements in the music, and I found September at Voices.com, the need was filled and still is!

Some had recorded some of my script for the audition. I listened to the auditions and selected September Day Leach, who had the perfect voice and performance. It's easy because once the job is posted; all that is left is waiting for responses and reviewing them. No searching is necessary. The responses were very quick too, I had several in less than 24 hours.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

The deadline was a month out, but I wanted to get the work done quickly and voices.com along with my hired talent made that possible. I had no trouble using the system, reviewing responses, making the deposit, or receiving the finished work through the Voices.com SurePay System.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

I still work with my talent (September) on a regular basis, and I plan to continue working on future projects with her for the long term. If I was seeking a different voice, I would return to Voices.com and I would recommend it to others.

About the Client

I'm a musician, and I write electronic music. I had tried to find ideal local talent, but with no success.

I write music which I hope speaks to the unfortunate, sad, conditions and frames of mind in which we sometimes unwittingly or deniably live, but I also write music that's about the things we dream about. It's also headphone candy; I use a lot of panning effects. In the end I hope its music someone can enjoy and relate to.

Project Details

Project ID: 8651
Project Title: Dark Dance Music
Category: Music Composition and Music Production
Language: English
Project Close Date: May 1, 2008
Selected Talent: September Day Leach

Michael Schrengohst of izonemedia agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how he’s used the service to find, select and hire talent.

Recently Michael completed a couple of projects at Voices.com and most recently hired Lora Cain . Read more on Michael’s hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

In the past I would need to call at least 3 agencies and a couple of audio studios to produce even the simplest voice-over. Now I post a job at Voices.com and within a few hours I have many talented voice-over artists to choose from.

How did you select the talent?

I always post jobs and I have not used the search engine to contact talent directly. After posting a job and reviewing responses, I will contact the talent to go over specific words or pacing.

The best reason to use Voices.com is that most of the talents will submit demos from your submitted scripts. I then use these samples to show my client.

I ended up hiring Lora Cain for this spot. I have used Lora Cain in the past before Voices.com was ever a reality to me. To find her on Voices.com was a pleasant surprise. Lora is true professional and produces great results!

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

I have no problem using the SurePay system. Sometimes the talent themselves have been confused about how the system works. From the quotes to the process of uploading and getting paid needs some clarification for the voice-over artists using the system.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

It is fast and easy and I can easily preview hundreds of files from my desktop.

I have been in the business over 25 years – so I know what I need. Sometimes my clients are new to the business of producing media, so anything I can do to expedite their decision making process, all the better.

I typically have 7-10 projects happening at the same time. I don’t have a staff like I once did. I cannot take the time any longer to drive across town and sit down at a recording studio for hours. With Voices.com it is all at my desktop and I can upload files for client approval within minutes.

About the Client

izonemedia is owned and operated by Michael Schrengohst.
Michael is a producer, director, director of photography and editor.

We work for production companies, producers, ad agencies or anyone who wants great results!

Company URL: http://www.izonemedia.net/

Project Details

Project ID: 9203
Project Title: Sigma - American version
Category: Business Presentations and Corporate Videos
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: May 13
Selected Talent: Lora Cain

Kyle Neale of AdExpress agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how he used the service to find, select and hire talent.

Recently Kyle completed a couple of projects at Voices.com and hired Joe Mc Millan. Read more on Kyle’s hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

First off, at AdExpress, we are a quick turn around ad agency. Kind of like a Kinko's, you can walk in, look at our menu, order it, and we'll have it back to you in 24 to 48 hours. Since we promise things in such a short time line, it is very important that we get voice talent responses back as soon as possible.

When a client wants a radio spot, we'll ask them what they are looking for, and then I'll go to Voices.com and put in all the info, and just do an open casting call.

How did you select the talent?

Once I get the responses back, I'll go through and listen to them, and pick out 4 to 5 that are top notch, and then I'll send those to the client so they can pick which voice they want to be on their project. Once they pick the talent, I'll contact them (the talent) directly and set everything up.

I've been using Voices.com for about a year and a half now, and all the talents have been great to work with.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

As stated before, we are always on a tight deadline, and that sometimes makes us pick one voice talent from another. Sometimes they (the voice talent) aren't able to work with our schedule, but more often than not they are ready and willing to work with us.

For this project we needed a male, North American English voice, that had a wise and fatherly tone to it, and we also needed a female voice that was very happy and upbeat. We found many, and so off to the client they went, and we ended up with Joe Mc Millan, who was able to get things back to me in about an hour, and sent right over email and uploaded through the Voices.com SurePay Service. It was all a very smooth process. Same goes with the female talent; we got in touch over email, and just went from there.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

The talents listed at Voices.com are always professional. And the amount of responses we get sometimes can be too much! But it is always great to have 30 or 40, sometimes even over 100 talents to choose from. Some of our clients can be rather picky, so it's great to be able to keep feeding them more talent.

The result of the project was great. The client was happy, and we are moving forward with more radio spots through this summer. I will always come back to Voices.com for our voice talent needs, and I always tell people where I find out talent. It's a great way for us to find voice talents at reasonable prices, and being able to set a price is great as well. As for hiring talent again, we have many voice talents on record here that are my "go to people" when I know I need something done quickly and in a professional manner.

About the Client

AdExpress is a quick turn around ad agency. "We make ads, and other stuff". If you need a radio spot, TV spot, website, web banner ad, magazine ad, newspaper ad, anything that deals with advertising and promotions, we are who you need to talk to.

Our website is www.adexpress.ws, and we have offices located in Columbia, MO and Lake Ozark, MO, with more stores on the way.

If you think that you need an AdExpress in your town, check out our site at www.adexpress.ws and find out how to get one near you.

Project Details

Project ID: 8908
Project Title: Columbia Parks and Recreation
Category: Radio Commercials
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: April 23, 2008
Selected Talent: Joe Mc Millan

Corby Simpson of Whatever Media agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how they’ve used the service to find, select and hire talent.

Recently Corby completed a couple of projects at Voices.com and hired several talent for one project - : Jason LeBlanc, Scott Montiel, Jeffery Kafer, Laura Post, Melissa LaFore, and Jeffrey Holz. Read more on Corby’s hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

We developed a website called Which Path is Right for You. The project was developed with a main goal to educate parents; teachers as well as students on the merits of finishing high school and also to demonstrate through animated scenarios that a single path is not right for everyone. The project has turned out to be a great success and Voices.com helped to provide the talent with the voice over scripts to bring it all together.

Voices.com talent were able to provide a number of different samples from specific scripts. This was essential to our decision making. We simply uploaded our script and waited for interested talent to respond. In total I believe there were around 250 different reads for us to choose from. While a little overwhelming, it also provided a great range of selection to choose from.

How did you select the talent?

We selected talent by their sample reads and the cleanliness of the samples as we were going to be editing them together in post. Since it was back and forth dialog, it needed to sound seamless and natural.

Jason LeBlanc was the Principal
Scott Montiel was Jason
Melissa Lafore was Kali
Jeff Kafer was Carter
Laura Post was Jasmine
Jeffrey Holz was Brian

See the final product at http://www.chooseyourpath.ca/

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

We were looking for a variety of voices in English. We did have some issues with the online SurePay Service application (rating system, retrieving accepted files after the fact, etc). This is likely due to an ever evolving system by Voices.com to ensure they provide the best tools to their clients and constantly update their technologies for a better user experience. However, nothing prevented us from getting the reads.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

We received a lot of responses, 250 in total for approximately 6 character reads. Some were what we were looking for, others were not. Much of the talent were very professional but in some cases, the stragglers needed to be weeded out. In fact I was amazed how responsive the talent were that we chose. With half of our voiceover talent we received phone calls asking for more details and everybody was very willing to work with our specific needs. With Voices.com being an “automated system” once the talents were selected there was a human touch which was very nice. So far all the talent have been exceptional.

The overall experience has been very good thus far and we will definitely use Voices.com again in the future. I have already referred Voices.com to several colleagues.

About the Client

Whatever Solutions & Media develops integrated, interactive media rich communication solutions for marketing and learning applications.
Using a powerful combination of creative design, digital technology, sophisticated back end programming and solid project management, we work with our clients to solve their information development & distribution needs.

Our clients choose us to deliver complete end to end services including:
• Dynamic micro/web sites
• Digital catalogues on CD/DVD
• Digital broadcast solutions for in-dealer and point of purchase displays
• E-learning applications
• Media authoring and duplication
• Video production, editing and formatting
• Sophisticated content management systems and robust web analytics programming
• Graphic design and print production

The Whatever team blends superior technical expertise with innovative marketing ideas, practical learning solutions and leading edge creative services. We program, design, deploy, manage and measure projects with service that is accountable and effective.

Empowering our clients with the ability to make real-time changes to their communication tools is at the heart of everything we do. Through powerful web driven content portals and custom content management systems, our clients can update their own marketing and learning tools, ensuring their communication efforts are always fresh and never outdated. This always current content is then drawn from online portals into the application, becoming live information on a variety of platforms including dynamic CD’s, web sites, point of purchase devices, or in-dealer plasma displays.

We focus on results. Results that are tracked, monitored and reported, enabling our clients to measure their marketing and training investments. Our sophisticated web-based reporting programs enable clients to see their marketing and learning investments in action.

Website: http://www.whatevermedia.ca/

Project Details

Project ID: 8159, 8160, 8161, 8162, 8163, 8164
Project Title: PVNC
Category: Internet
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: March 10, 2008
Selected Talent: Jason LeBlanc, Scott Montiel, Jeffery Kafer, Laura Post, Melissa LaFore, and Jeffrey Holz.

Karen Fong of Swift Internet Inc., agreed to answer a few questions about her experience at Voices.com and how they’ve used the service to find, select and hire talent.

Recently Karen completed a couple of projects at Voices.com and most recently hired J.Scott McElroy. Read more on Karen’s hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

We used Voices.com whenever we had a project such as a website voice over or Audio CD we needed recorded. We simply listed our project online and within minutes we had voice talent recording our uploaded text and ready to listen to. We were able to choose our voice talent quickly and every time, I was able to get my project underway within 24 hours of posting. We were able to contact the talent directly which helped a lot when after we selected them, we were able to make sure to give them feedback and any edits or adjustments we needed.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

I didn’t have any challenges other than our initial trial when we weren’t sure how the process worked. But once we posted, it has been easy going ever since. We were normally on a deadline of about a week, but using Voices.com always made it very easy to hit that deadline.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

Voice.com just made the job of finding voice over talent SO easy. I would have not known how else to find voice over talent so it helped save me a lot of time since it allowed me to reach a LOT of voice over people all at once. Also, since the system allows for the talent to actually record the text you need, you get a better sense of if that person is the right person for the job or not.

Our overall feeling is that Voices.com is a huge resource and we will definitely continue to use Voices.com for all of our voice talent needs. Thank you for providing a much needed service.

About the Client

Swift Internet, Inc. was founded in 1999 to develop outstanding technology solutions for online marketers. Today, technology built by the Swift Internet, Inc. team powers back office solutions for more than 35,000 online marketers residing in the USA, the UK, China, Australia, and Germany. At Swift Internet, we provide technical and administrative support for a larger company called Leads to Wealth.com which generates leads for home based business owners.

Project Details

Project ID: 8025
Project Title: Book Narration
Category: Educational Videos and e-Learning
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: February 27, 2008
Selected Talent: J.Scott McElroy

Matt Koumalats of Reader Hook Productions agreed to answer a few questions about their experience at Voices.com and how they’ve used the service to find, select and hire talent. Recently Matt completed a couple of projects at Voices.com and recently hired Dick Terhune. Read more on Matt’s hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

One of the main reasons we like to use Voices.com for our videos is the diversity of the talent. Each book we promote has its own feel and style, and finding the right voice to match that style can sometimes be tricky. We posts scripts for our book promos, and within days we always have a large assortment of talent to choose from. In the past we have even let some of the authors hear some of the demos, and they always get a kick out of that. In the end, picking voice talent is all about what is right for the book, and Voices.com has always provided exactly what we need.

See the video for "Twisted Creek" as posted to YouTube.

How did you select the talent?

For this latest project we needed a male voice that could provide an MP3 file in a couple days. Using the Voices.com system made this as easy as checking boxes. We were about to pick our talent, download the work and make the payment all well within our deadline.

We had well over 100 responses to our latest posting. Just like past projects the voice talent we chose, Dick Terhune, was very professional. I even made the mistake of sending over a rough draft instead of the final script.

I was able to call the Dick directly and ask if he would re-record the file if I sent over the correct script. He did, and was able to get it to me on the very same day. It is that level of professionalism that keeps us coming back.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

Since we started using Voices.com we’ve posted 5 individual projects and because of the positive experience we have each and every time we’ll continue to use Voices.com to find voice talent.

About the Client

Reader Hook Productions helps authors get the word out about their new novel, short story or screen play. Our editors and producers will work with an author to create a video preview unique to their story.

Fans and friends will be able to see a video from the author’s own website and the world will be able to watch the video on YouTube.

Project Details

Project ID: 8289
Project Title: Twisted Creek Book Trailer
Category: Audio Books and Books on Tape
Language: English
Project Close Date: March 19, 2008
Selected Talent: Dick Terhune

Graydon Smith of Redhead Media Solutions agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how he used the service to find, select and hire talent. Recently Graydon completed a couple of projects at Voices.com and most recently hired Tom Pagnotti. Read more on his hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

Being fairly new to the production industry, I didn’t have any names in mind when looking for a voice that would fit with my client and the script; however, the level of quality responses I received upon posting the job was phenomenal.

Our clients are looking for more than generic demos, they want custom reads and almost every talent at Voices.com gives you one right out of the gate. For us, it makes it easy to prep a rough cut for the client that allows them to make a sound (pardon the pun) decision on who they want to move forward with, and there are no surprises.

Having used Voices.com exclusively for our talent, I can’t say we’ve ever suffered from too few responses for our projects.

How did you select the talent?

I had so many great voices to choose from the client could not believe my company hadn’t been in the business for years due to the quality we voices we could deliver. I also made a list of favorites for next time to keep track of the truly exceptional voices I want to remember

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

The script was a 30 second radio spot for an insurance company, and the voice needed to emote and connect with the audience right away to create many mental images of happy times and security.

We had well over 100 responses, many of them exactly what we were looking for but then the client had some other issues to deal with, and the deadlines for the spot fell to the backburner. 3 months later, with the client back on board the talent we selected was as keen and ready to go as if there’d been no delay at all.

To top it off, the Surepay system worked flawlessly, and suddenly after such a long delay, within 24 hours everything was completed perfectly.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

I couldn’t ask for a better outcome on this project. The client, the talent (Tom Pagnotti) and Redhead Media Solutions all benefited from a streamlined, easy process. In fact, it was so successful from the client perspective that they immediately wanted to produce anther spot with a female voice for their sister company knowing that they’ll get a level of talent that will impress them, and their clients. They’ve become believers in using professional voice talent from http://www.voices.com, and won’t be going back to the “free local radio station spots” ever again.

About the Client

Redhead Media Solutions Inc. specializes in marketing and communications consulting for small and medium sized businesses, along with an in-house creative department handling all types of audio and graphic based creative. From creating full campaigns, to one-offs, or guiding an internal strategic planning exercise, we help businesses achieve their goals.

Project Details

Project ID: 7228
Project Title: Shier’s Insurance
Category: Radio Commercials
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: December 14, 2008
Selected Talent: Tom Pagnotti

Ron Hancock of the Rock Remembered radio show agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how he used the service to find, select and hire talent. Recently he completed a couple of projects at Voices.com and hired Alex O'Neal and Jennifer Johnsey. Read more on his Voices.com hiring experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

I have a local weekly oldies radio show in Shreveport, Louisiana and was starting the process of syndication to a number of other radio stations through a distribution company. The show, Rock Remembered™ is my own project and I wanted voice talent separate from the local oldies station to insure no one could claim any partial ownership in the program.

So far, I was a stand-alone outfit. I did the research. I did the voice. I did the taping. I procured the music. I did the mixing. I did the distribution.

While surfing I found Voices.com. I opened an account, which was very easy, and posted a job explaining that I was looking for an announcer, gave a few sample lines, logged off, and forgot about it.

Bingo! The next day my email told me I had a number of responses. Within just a few days I had 87 auditions to deal with.

How did you select the talents?

I listened to each and every audition and had a female at work listen as well. We compared short lists, and then had a third person listen to the remaining possibilities.

With their input, I settled on Alex O'Neal. He has a great announcer voice. You can hear him doing my opener on www.rockremembered.com.

Alex and I emailed back and forth. I sent him audio samples of the show and episode scripts to give him a feel for what I was trying to accomplish. Alex was extremely helpful, offered advice, and quick to get the completed product to me.

As the show grows I intend on using Alex again.

I was so pleased with Alex that I wrote a female character name Olga into the radio show.

For "Olga" I had 47 auditions! Jennifer Johnsey got that job. Like Alex, Jennifer was perfect... actually Jennifer was "Olga."

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

I only wish there was a way I could give a blanket thanks to everyone who auditioned! There were many of them I would have liked to use.

I have to be honest, between Alex O'Neal and Jennifer Johnsey, I had 134 auditions to listen to and I listened to each and every one of them, however; so many people (the majority) made personal recordings of my script, that I did not seriously give much consideration to "canned auditions."

Budget was important. Tie base went the lower price. Jennifer Johnsey intrigued me with a very low bid. Her bid was so low and her voice so good, her audition stayed on my mind. It was only at the last minute, when I finally talked to her on the phone that I decided to pay her twice as much as she had asked for. That's something for a budgeted-tightwad like me.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

I liked being able to pay with PayPal and the Voices.com SurePay system utilizes this billing method. It is very convenient.

I also was assigned my own account manager at Voices.com, from whom I heard from as soon as I created an account. That was comforting, but I found Voices.com so easy to use, I have been able to handle all my needs pretty much without assistance.

I had previously tried a couple of other websites, but now Voices.com is in My Favorites and will be used again.

About the Client

Ron Hancock's Rock Remembered™ is a local weekly oldies radio show in Shreveport, Louisiana which is currently in the process of syndication to a number of other radio stations through a distribution company. You can listen to Rock Remembered every Friday evening at 6 p.m. (Central Time)
on Oldies 95.7 FM or with live feed on www.klkl.fm.

Project Details

Project ID: 7810
Project Title: Rock Remembered Radio Package
Category: Radio Imaging and Station Identification
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: February 11, 2008
Selected Talent: Alex O'Neal

Project ID: 7899
Project Title: Olga - Rock Remembered Transition Voice
Language: English (North American)
Category: Character Voices and Cartoon Voice Actors
Project Close Date: February 22, 2008
Selected Talent: Jennifer Johnsey

Beth Sowell of Episode XI Studios agreed to answer a few questions about her experience at Voices.com and how she and her company have used the service to find, select and hire talent. Recently she completed a project at Voices.com and hired Dan Dunlap. Read more on her experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs and how did you select the talent?

There are so many talents listed that it’s often difficult to narrow down who you’d like to contact, so we always send out a general listing and listen to the auditions that we receive. We try to be as specific as we can in the job posting details on what we’re looking for so that the voiceover talent will know whether or not they are matched for the job before they respond.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

For this project we wanted that stereotypical deep, male, movie trailer-type voice. The clip was for a 45 second video that would show like a movie preview. We were using the video at an evening cocktail party/networking group event. The event was being held to introduce a new online networking group locally called Synergy Street.

We never have any problems getting plenty of auditions and responses to our postings, and this one was no different. We found the perfect voice, and offered him the job, paid the deposit via SurePay and received our finished files all on the same day. The whole procedure is easy to follow, and speedy!

The Loft Presentation was one of the few videos that we’ve done that actually wasn’t on a very tight deadline. But if it had been, we would have had absolutely no complaints because we got the voiceover file within 45 minutes of ordering it.

How did Voices.com help you achieve your goals in hiring?

Honestly, we use voices.com exclusively for voiceover work for every job. We’ve always had good luck with the talent listed, and every job has been a success.

We got LOTS of audition responses very quickly and most of them were a custom demo for this project so that we would knew exactly how it would turn out and we knew that Dan was the perfect voice for the job. There were absolutely no problems with the transaction; it was perfectly smooth and super speedy as usual.

Click here to see a sample of the finished project

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

We LOVED the voiceover we got from Dan, he was perfect for the project and he was our first and only choice. Of course, we will use Voices.com again, as we always do. If a project fits Dan’s voice in the future, we will absolutely hire him again. Whenever we meet with customers we tell them where we get our voiceover talents.

About the Client

Episode XI Studios LLC is a full service, turn-key professional video production company. We do projects for web distribution, DVD distribution as well as commercials and special events. Our company website is www.episodexistudios.com.

Project Details

Project ID: 7888
Project Title: Loft Presentation
Category: Business Presentations and Corporate Videos
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: February 23, 2008
Selected Talent: Dan Dunlap

Diane Mack of Diane Mack Advertising agreed to answer a few questions about her experience at Voices.com and how she used the service to find, select and hire talent. Recently she completed a project at Voices.com and hired Lili Wexu. Read more on her experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs?

For our 30-second TV spot titled "Green New World," we wanted a female voice as close as we could get to a recorded example we had come upon in a promotional video for a high-tech university program.

Because our client, Gulf Breeze Natural Gas, has a small budget, we have always used local voice talent. However, that had previously always been male voice talent. The one female we knew of locally was not the right voice for this project, but she kindly referred us to Voices.com. Our deadline to get this done was moderately tight.

Did you use the Featured Talent Directory or browse the talent search engine?

I personally conducted the search on your website as I have good aural memory and was very familiar with what was needed in the way of tone, style of delivery, etc. Whoever designed your website should be commended for an intelligently conceived and very user-friendly search structure.

Did you contact any talent directly? How did you select the talent?

I began by browsing female voice talent, listening to the brief clips from about 40 voices and making my list of top possibilities as I went along. When I had a top five list, I went back to those voices and listened to all the available samples from each one. Lili Wexu was choice #1, and so I e-mailed her for a quote. Both her price and audition recording were acceptable, and we set a date to do the production, with myself and our production sub-contractor to direct by phone patch.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

As mentioned previously the search structure of the site was easy to use since I knew exactly what it was that I needed and how it would sound.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

The whole experience was smooth, efficient, and supremely professional. I was, and remain, impressed by the resource that Voices.com represents, and I would most assuredly use Voices.com in the future.

About the Client

Diane Mack Advertising, Inc. is a small agency located in Pensacola and serving the Northwest Florida area. We have been in business since 1984, serving primarily clients who have required high-end, high-quality creative work. Our clients have included the regional university, performing arts organizations, real estate developers, architects, a manufacturer of high-tech marine equipment, banks, hospitals, and municipalities.

Project Details

Project ID: 7243
Project Title: Green New World
Category: Television Commercials
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: December 20, 2007
Selected Talent: Lili Wexu

This was a private job offer where Lili was the only invited talent.

Greg Cox of DB Group Inc agreed to answer a few questions about his experience at Voices.com and how he uses the service to find, select and hire talent. Recently he completed a project at Voices.com and hired Jim Greulich. Read more on his experience.

How has Voices.com helped you with your project needs? How did you use Voices.com? Did you use the Featured Talent Directory or browse the talent search engine? Did you contact any talent directly? How did you select the talent?

We have posted several jobs on Voices.com and have come to trust the kind of talent we need for our jobs. This particular job was no different, we had a script that came up and posted it.

It always amazes me how fast we get responses from the many voice talents available through Voices.com. Within a day or so of posting the job we had over 100 custom demos to listen to in order to pick the talent.

Usually I will have to sort through and delete the talents that are asking more than we have budgeted for the project first thing, and then I still end up with at least 30 talents that I actually listen to their demos. Unfortunately I don't have the time to listen to all that posted demos so I've had to develop my own short listing techniques.

Like most business I try to pick a product that is high in quality and low in price, and I can always find quality talent at reasonable prices.

And it seems like when I narrow it down to the last three or four talents I have a really hard time choosing the one I like best. I like the fact that I can contact the talent directly as well; it makes it easy to talk with them about the specifics of the project.

I also like the fact that the talents are very responsive to my request and have the job done quickly. I know for a fact that on this last project Jim Greulich worked on it over a weekend to get it to me at the time I needed it. I didn't really give him much notice and he worked hard to deliver the product when I needed it.

What challenges did you face using the Voices.com system to find talent?

For this project I was looking specifically for:
- Gender
- Language
- Someone who could complete the project in a timely manner

The only difficulties I have had with Voices.com are minor technical difficulties with the site, like leaving feedback for talent I've hired. But there has been nothing that has prevented me from completing the project. And I am usually always on a tight deadline to complete our audio projects.

How did Voices.com help you achieve your goals in hiring?

Voices.com is the only site that we know of that offers this type of service. We used to try and find people we knew who had a nice voice to record our script for us. Then a friend suggested Voices.com, it was a great discovery because the talent are very professional and very good at what they do. I have never posted a job where I didn't have at least 10 talents that would work for the job. It is always hard to pick from the last three or four because they are always really good.

The only problems we have had with Voices.com we minor technical ones, and I have contacted Voices.com with some questions that were always answered and taken care of very quickly.

How would you describe your overall experience with the site?

Our overall experience with Voices.com has been very positive. They are invaluable in finding the audio talent we need. We have used them to find talent to record our phone messages and for our audio courses on our websites. We are planning on hiring a voice talent through Voices.com for an upcoming radio commercial to promote our products. I have recommended Voices.com to other businesses like ours and plan on using them frequently in the future.

About the Client

DB Group manages several Web based companies that do anything from selling educational products to local "yellow pages" type websites. Our most recent company can be found at www.utahcounty.biz

Greg Cox
https://dbgroup-inc.com/

Project Details

Project ID: 7166
Project Title: G Ross Audio
Category: Educational Videos and E-Learning
Language: English
Project Close Date: December 6, 2007
Selected Talent: Jim Greulich

I used Voices.com to search through several talents’ demo’s, to find the right one for the job. I used the “search female talent” for this specific job. Since it was a very confidential job, I contacted the talent directly, and then posted the job privately. I ended up hiring Janice Downes for this particular project.

I used Voices.com to search through several talents’ demo’s, to find the right one for the job. I used the “search female talent” for this specific job. Since it was a very confidential job, I contacted the talent directly, and then posted the job privately. I ended up hiring Janice Downes for this particular project.

I was looking for a female talent that had that friendly / crystal clear voice that could add to the product. I found the talent in less then 10 minutes, got in contact the same day, and sent the script the next day. So far, I haven’t been able to pay via SurePay, it wouldn’t let me; however I call and speak with Carol Mroz, the Billing Manager, and make my deposits that way. I had a 2 day deadline which I was able to successfully meet thanks to Voices.com and Janice Downes.

I will definitely keep on using Voices.com and would recommend it to anyone that is in need of professional voice talent. So far, all the talents have been very fast responsive and delivered excellent quality recordings.

Sincerely,

Juan Torres
Animagic Advertising Fuel N.V.
Opal 23, Noord
Aruba, Dutch Caribbean
http://www.animagicaruba.com/

Animagic is an advertising facility that is known to be among best agencies on the island. Our list includes clients like SETAR ( Aruba’s Telecommunication company ), Cable TV Aruba, Toyota, Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino, Balashi ( Aruba’s National Beer ), Aruba Tourism Authority, Valero refinery, and many more..

Project Details:

Project ID: 6935
Project Title: Setar - Video Portal Voice - Part 2
Category: Telephone System Recordings, Voicemail and On Hold
Language: English (North American)
Project Close Date: November 14, 2007
Selected Talent: Janice Downes