How Audiobook Narrators Voice Unique and Distinct Characters

[@scottykwas]

Great mini masterclass, Jay! I got some valuable notes. Succinct and to the point. Thank you!

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

You bet!

[@Dontdothat5300]

Hey man - not sure if you’ll read this but I just checked out a “preview” of a book you narrated on Audible (The Contact) and it is exceptional enough that in 5 minutes you made me want to hear the whole story …. I mean, it was really good. I’m glad I found your KZbin AND you’re teaching on here. Thank you.

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Well thanks very much! Always lovely to hear that. :)

[@prollyshady]

@@jaymyersvoiceover real, keep posting brotherrrr

[@A4000]

10:58 Wolverine really wants to bake some muffins.

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Who doesn't?

[@A4000]

@@jaymyersvoiceover touché

[@flotzmtv]

This channel should really have a ton of followers. This is gold for anyone aspiring to narrate.

[@AbbysRoadFilms]

Hi Jay, I’m an indie filmmaker and director, considering narrating the story I wrote. I had to tell you I loved how your facial features literally transformed when you went from voice to voice. You should consider doing on-camera work too! Great acting. 👏👏👏👍

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Thanks! I do indeed act on camera and stage when I can ;) I hope narrating the story goes well!

[@AbbysRoadFilms]

Oh that’s great! Thanks for your reply. Your video is an excellent tutorial. My story is about an English rock band that has several lead characters who share multiple scenes. I don’t think I could (or should) modify my voice and inflections that many times all throughout the narration! 😵‍💫 So I plan to just tell the story with one voice. However, I wondered if I should read with an English accent to fit the vibe? Or should I just read with my regular American accent? If you have any feedback for me, I’d appreciate it so much. Just wanting to know what might appeal to the listeners. Thanks. 😊

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Good question! Ultimately up to you all things considered. My two cents, if your UK accent is good and you’re comfortable performing it, sounds like that might be fun. If you’d be spending more energy thinking about your accent than performing however, I’d skip it.

[@AbbysRoadFilms]

@@jaymyersvoiceover Makes sense. Thanks!

[@RhondasCreativeCorner]

Thank you!!! Just starting out and this video helped me a lot !

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Glad to hear!!

[@matthewmurraybates1]

This is excellent - really comprehensive and practical advice to find your way with character narration. One note about keeping character consistency: I recently finished a series of books (one a year, as they were published) where random characters returned after 6 or 7 books. I’d changed my phone, my tablet, my pdf software- so the only wat to check character voices was listening back through the first books! Took a while 😂

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Thanks Matt! Much appreciated. Dang that’s quite the project! What’s the name of the series?

[@timbranson1386]

You might have thought of this already, but I always create a separate project file in my DAW named "xyz book - characters" where I put a short sample of each of my characters voice and lay it on it's own track labeled with that characters name. Just helps me for reference I can always get back to. Doesn't take up a lot of hard drive space either bc I just copy and paste from the main recording. Anyway, just a thought.

[@matthewmurraybates1]

@@jaymyersvoiceover The Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwell- I did books 5-13 (they got a different narrator to do the first 4 as an unabridged set after I started narrating the new ones) It means listeners usually finish the first 4, then are disappointed the voices suddenly change! Narrator then takes the rap for not having a Time Machine.. 😂

[@matthewmurraybates1]

@@timbranson1386 it’s a good and thorough practice. But when you narrate 15+ books per year, with all the the 100s of incidental characters that pop up, practically speaking that involves a heck of a lot of admin, just in case they crop up in a sequel!

[@matthewmurraybates1]

As a context- UK narrators are paid £85-110 per finished hour ($107-132) including pre-reading, research and voice notes. That rate is the finished recording after all work is complete and submitted. Significantly lower than the SAG AFTRA rate, sadly, though our work appears on US audible sites.

[@Dontdothat5300]

I’ve been listening to related to videos all day - this is the best I’ve listen too - easy on the ears and well presented - thank you.

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@donnelson8524]

This is a really solid and useful set of best practices and I truly appreciate you laying them out there so clearly. Thank you.

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Glad to hear! Thanks for taking the time to let me know. 😊

[@banyanstudio]

So super helpful! Love the usage of your phone to make little Voice memo Dossiers!

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Glad it was helpful! :)

[@susandavis7800]

I love the concepts and want to use them, but how in the world would I use a mixer? Talk about venturing into new waters.

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Most of this stuff becomes vastly easier once you try it a few times ;) So I wouldn't be too intimidated by it! I'm also here to help if anything pops up.

[@jerhar2010]

This was great! Thank you!

[@konafama]

Excellent. Thank you!

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

You're very welcome!

[@DaemonVO]

Great advice, thank you for this! Recently started my career in audiobooks, so this is very relevant. Often find I have a whole file saved with all the character voices in. Side note: anyone told you you sound like Scott Brick? :)

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Glad you found it helpful! Best of luck as you start on your way. And I've heard that once or twice. ;) much appreciated.

[@originallimu]

what’s your process for flagging difficult or foreign sounding words to remember later? just getting started so this is all great stuff.

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Good question. If one pops up I’ll highlight it, then look up the proper pronunciation (youglish, forvo, and Miriam Webster) then I’ll either leave the link in a comment on the PDF or write the phonetic spelling in the margin.

[@originallimu]

@ thanks Jay! 🤘

[@timbranson1386]

Hi Jay, great info! Thanks! Have you done a tutorial for men doing female voices? I know some of the same tips apply, but how do you come up with those, especially vocal quality and pitch.

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

You bet! And I haven't yet done a video on that, but it's been requested a couple of times, so perhaps that's on the docket! Thanks for the suggestion.

[@timbranson1386]

@@jaymyersvoiceover awesome! Will be on the lookout for it!

[@narrator-timothymckean]

Hi Jay. Sometimes it looks like you're in a studiobricks booth, and sometimes more of a DIY booth. Can you talk about the differences? What's the acoustic treatment material that you have on the walls in this booth? Thanks!

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Hey! You’re dead on. In February I switched to a Studiobricks from my DIY booth. Studiobricks manufacturers their own treatment and in my old booth I had a few Audimute panels. Which I highly recommend.

[@iamjigzzy]

This was very helpful, thank you! :) I am curious about your processes for voicing characters who aren't super prominent, but are in the conversation with our protagonist enough to warrant some confusion from the listener should their voices be too similar. For example, I'll reach a chapter where the main character will converse with three of his buddies and I'll wonder if "buddy #3" is worth giving a distinct voice or not. Know what I mean? I hope that makes sense, haha. The series I work on will usually have the "second/third friend" type of character; not a lot of lines or background, but will be part of the conversation for 2 chapters or so. How would you approach that?

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Glad you found this helpful! And I know exactly what you mean. I’ll approach it a couple different ways depending on the situation. 1) Usually if they recur I’ll note a relatively distinct voice, but simply balance it with the other characters in the scene(s) they appear in. Vocally if Protag is “neutral”, Buddy #1 is “lower,” Buddy #2 is “higher,” then Buddy #3 might be “low and nasally” or something like that. That can be any variation but I won’t really plan minor characters out much, since listeners won’t be tracking them outside of THAT scene more often than not I’ll usually make an arbitrary choice as they show up that still makes sense in the world. 2) I’ll rely on the text to delineate the characters rather than any vocal choices. If the book doesn’t have a broad cast of colorful characters, sometimes I’ll feel a simple ‘neutral NPC’ voice is best. The character is background, and doesn’t require much effort on that front. Hope that helps!

[@iamjigzzy]

@@jaymyersvoiceover tremendously, thank you! I actually have a _very_ similar process to number 1, and use it for almost every book I record (I narrate Romance novels) and I was just wondering if maybe that’s the wrong way to go about it or not.

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Nah, if it works for you there's no wrong way. At least in my opinion. @@iamjigzzy

[@dianaelena3804]

Would you be willing to provide more information on the actual voice mixer you referenced in your video?

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Sure! I just made another video going into more detail. To clarify here though, it’s not an actual voice mixer, it’s just an image I use to explain my thought process in voicing different characters.

[@dianaelena3804]

Oh, super : ) is it linked anywhere to this video? I can also just look it up... what's the title? If I have a question to ask, more about advice on how one might navigate an odd narration job, where would be a good place to ask you?

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Sure! Here’s the video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rGbLqJ-KnLeCq68si=pMKinu3k8uGsmqa9 And you can reach me directly via my website!

[@marymiller2200]

gold! the motherload!

[@jaymyersvoiceover]

Haha thanks!