Finding The Perfect Voice

While the TV show “THE VOICE” tries to find the next great singer, our voice specialists are looking for the perfect voice for you to listen to in other applications, like car navigation systems. voice-talent-2015-femaleWe’re searching for voices to become the voices of cars, phones and appliances. We want voices that will appeal to the consumer. The normal voices used  for radio commercials just won’t do. Consumers prefer a voice that “sounds like” the product, IF the product could talk. Cadillac wanted the perfect voice for their executive coupe. They hired Alpine Electronics to design the navigation system and Alpine asked us to find “Cadillac” voices in English, Spanish and French Canadian. It’s hard to describe in words the voice we were looking for. A few parameters come to mind that we applied looking for the “Cadillac” voice:

  • Sophisticated
  • A technogically-savvy but not computer-cold voice
  • Warm but not too sensual
  • Classy but not snobby
  • Does she sound like a Cadillac if a Cadillac could talk?

These characteristics were added to our usual  screening list:

  1. Does her “persona” match the vehicle (or product)?
  2. Diction – Does her voice sound well-trained, clear, not slurred and lazy?
  3. Dialect – Does her voice have any offensive regional characteristics? (Too south, too north, too California etc.)
  4. Lively – Is she a pleasant companion to have along on a trip?
  5. Professional Certainty – Does she sound like she knows what she’s talking about?
  6. Concern – Does she sound like she cares about me and my safety?  She’s not just doing a job.
  7. Confident – Is she confident but not bitchy?
  8. Pacing – Can she speak succinctly enough to give directions in a 65 mph environment, but not so fast that she starts to sound like an attorney disclaimer?
  9. Musicality/Charm – Is her voice interesting to listen to? Uniquely engaging? Someone you wouldn’t mind listening to day after day?
  10. Are there any technical issues in her vocal instrument? Saliva clicks, excessive breathing, other anomalies that will have to be fixed later by sound engineers?
  11. Lastly, is the voice talent reliable and professional? Are they settled in their lives so we can be sure they’ll be available for 10 – 20 years to supply voice files?

Needless to say we audition as many before we find the perfect match.  The sound engineer, producer and voice coach rank them on a 1 – 10 scale and pass our recommendations to our client for their final decision.  Do you want to hear the “Cadillac” voice?  Buy a Cadillac.  Short of that,  CLICK HERE They’ll probably never make a TV show about what we do, but we’ve delivered voices that make their driving hours safer and more pleasant whether they’re driving an Accord, Honda, Cadillac, or Chrysler. We’ve been in this since the beginning of computer voices finding and recording hundreds of thousands of  voice recordings to Microsoft, Clarion, deCarta, IBM, Visteon, and  Johnson Controls at Six Sigma levels of quality.

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