Voicing a Character

If you’d like to do the voice of a minor character, please send a sample of a few lines to hpmorpodcast@gmail.com Any file type will do, I have converters.

NOTE: Please just a few lines, or contact me first before you do an entire character. There are a few roles that are listed as available in the PDF, but have already been taken!

If you have any sort of microphone (many laptops come with them built-in, and most gamers will have a headset) and a computer you can record your voice. Windows comes with Sound Recorder, the link explains how to use it (basically click-and-record). I don’t own a Mac, but I hear it comes with SimpleSound. If you want to get fancy, you can download Audacity for free, which is what I use for recording and editing, but that’s probably overkill.

All the lines for available minor parts can be found in this PDF, provided by James.

HPMOR Dialogue ch01-85

I’ve been asked if I prefer each line in its own file or all lines in a single file. I honestly have no preference, there’s plenty of alt-tabbing in either case. Do whichever is easier for you.

There are two things you can do to help sound quality. First, do what you can to minimize echo. Recording in a room with lots of stuff on the walls is preferable (just hanging a sheet up can help). The ideal situation is recording in a walk-in closet (all those hanging clothes absorb the sound beautifully) but I realize most people don’t have those. In any case, almost every recording has some echo in it, it’s not a huge deal.

Second, do not speak directly into the microphone. Have it off to the side a bit, so your words go past it. The microphone will still pick up the sound just fine, and this will prevent the air you force out while speaking from impacting too forcefully on the microphone pick-ups. You can actually feel this yourself if you put your hand in front of your mouth and say “pop” – that brush of air you feel will cause popping and cracking in the sound file.

Minimizing background noise is also good.

Don’t worry about being too histrionic, I’ve found that it’s actually pretty hard for most people to over-act, generally people tend to be too reserved and not get enough emotion in the voice. Typical Illusion of Transparency stuff, no one else can feel what you’re feeling so you really gotta work hard to put it into the voice. It’ll feel like you’re overacting, but you’re not.

One piece of advice I give almost everyone: slow down, you’re reading too fast. Seems to be a common thing people do when reading text, especially if they’ve already read it before. Go slower.

All that being said, these are just suggestions – I accept the majority of submissions. The most important thing is to sit down, click that record button, read a few lines, and send it off. That is always the hardest step, once you have that out of the way the rest is easy.