Here is my first voice acting demo reel!!!

Hey guys, Giantbomb is my favorite community, so I wanted to share something that means a lot to me with you all. This is my first voice acting demo reel. Becoming a voice actor has been a dream of mine since I was a kid, so I thought I would give it a shot. I am by no means a professional, but am looking for ways to break into the field, so if you have any advise or can point me in the right direction, I would be very grateful.

Pretty awesome, but the barney gumble impression was way below the quality of the rest. You also might want to look into spending more time normalising your recordings, the levels were a bit crazy in some places eg. elmo voice.

Solid work though, some great impressions. Nolan North had some interesting stuff to say about changing your voice to make it unrecognisable, you might want to check that stuff out if you haven't already.

These impressions are really good, but I've done some research on this subject and many voice actors (such as Yuri Lowenthal voice of Yosuke) say that it's much better to have original voices on your demo reel than impressions.

Quite good! I appreciate the Rocco's Modern Life, Claw, and Full House references thrown in there.

I definitely agree with eskimo, as well. While I think the Barney Gumble was fine, definitely not one of your best, the biggest thing to possibly fix would be the normalization of the audio. With some of the yelling or high-pitched moments, it kind of hurt my ears instead of simply sounding loud. You can pretty easily just modify the audio track and replace the one already in the youtube video.

Other than that, it was far better than I was expecting. Along with this, you may want to make a few clips of you doing a voice continuously for a minute or so to show you can stay in the voices, too. The highlights reel is nice, but some solid little performances can go a long way.

I wish you the best of luck. :)

(also, in case you weren't aware, you can insert videos in a post, too! Like this: )

I'm not an expert, but I thought most of those sounded really good!

These impressions are really good, but I've done some research on this subject and many voice actors (such as Yuri Lowenthal voice of Yosuke) say that it's much better to have original voices on your demo reel than impressions.

That's pretty good. I wish I had the proper equipment to record a clear demo reel.

@eskimo:Yeah, I did notice that, but hey, I put it in there for the Hell of it, lol.

@PeasantAbuse:I absolutely appreciate that!

Some sounded a little off((for obvious reasons such as: You're not the characters original Voice Actor :P)  but that was pretty damn good! Keep that up and I'm sure you'll get someones attention sooner rather than later

@vegetashonor: Where do you live?

@cinemandrew: I live in good ole West Virginia, lol. There isn't much in the way of this kind of stuff around here, but if I eve landed anything, then I would definitely relocate. There is no question there!

@vegetashonor said:

@cinemandrew: I live in good ole West Virginia, lol. There isn't much in the way of this kind of stuff around here, but if I eve landed anything, then I would definitely relocate. There is no question there!

Good stuff sir, and ummm. I am from good ole West Virginia as well. If your brave enough to admit it, I guess I can too. *coughcoughwildandwodnerfulwhitescoughcough*

Keep up the good work!

@ZeForgotten: You have no idea how much I would like that, lol. Seriously, ever since I was like 5 I was doing voices. I have more, but I cut this one down for time reasons. I didn't feel right about asking people to watch a 10 minute video, lol.

elmo and kermit are giving me 3 AM hallucinations.

However, the rest were all pretty damn good. Would love to hear what you could do with something like a quieter Uncharted moment, or something like that.

@Bolt: Lol, thanks. I have lived here all my life. I can definitely say that some areas are just...well...more special than others, lol.

@SirOptimusPrime: I'm working on more "scene" related pieces right now. I'm trying to write up some, but I'm better at playing things out then I am at writing them, lol.

@vegetashonor Me to, I live in one of the more "Special" areas near Charleston lol. Ok done hijacking your thread to talk about the state.

@SirOptimusPrime: And btw, I laughed extremely hard at you having hallucinations at my voices, lol. MINDTRICK!!!

@vegetashonor: You should move. It's good that you're willing to relocate if you get a job, but it's unlikely you will from sending people links to your youtube video. Next, you should get an agent. You don't know how to get work, they do. Lastly, I wouldn't use that demo reel. It will probably be ok to send to agents to show your versatility until you get some actual work, but after that, you're going to want something original. You want casting agents to see what you, as an individual can do, not just what you can imitate. There are thousands of other men and women out there who can do the same, so why should anyone pick you over them? Also, even though most of your impressions are pretty good, they are all going to be immediately compared to the original. Anything that falls short, makes you look bad.

Something that has been bothering me is that if you do research for this field online, you get bombarded by a mountain of sites that want you to use their "services" to connect you with people looking for voice actors. Its a slew of traps to sort trough, and its basically made it even harder to get the information I need. With that said, anyone got any hookups for me? Lol. :P

@cinemandrew: I've been doing some research on finding an agent, and I'm kinda turning over stones with no reward. I keep finding sites that want me to basically pay for connections. Its frustrating. I would contact some agents soon if I knew how to.

@vegetashonor: Yeah, it's sort of a minefield, you should definitely avoid any of those 'services'. They just want your cash, and don't give a shit if you get any work ever.

@TruthTellah:Oh, so you like the Full House bit? Lol...Joey Gladstone FTW!!! LOL!!!

@cinemandrew: Seriously! So, I heard there was a book that exists that has all of the agents that are still in business, and its apparently updated each year. It, quite literally, is a phone book of agents, lol. I just can't seem to find the name of it. :/

@vegetashonor: http://www.sag.org/content/find-agent

Might be a good place to start.

@vegetashonor: I immediately clicked on this because I'm interested in voice acting and wanted to see how a demo reel works. This is pretty solid stuff, some excellent impressions here.

I am (as probably everyone else here) no expert, but I kinda feel like if you want to do a voice acting reel you should not focus on ... cartoonish stuff that much? ... Think about video games (the field where voice acting is probably needed most in the US): How many cartoonish voices are there in games opposed to more serious stuff. Even really fun(ny) characters like Wheatley or Glados as not so much cartoon as they are unique.

You should probably pick some of the best you think you did there and add some more serious stuff ... well thats what I would do :)

Those a great! I hope you break into the field because, at least from my ears, you have the talent!

Thats really impressive :)

Pretty awesome job, dude.

I don't know how, but everyone I know can do a spot on smeagle voice, but I can't...and I'm usually ok with voices. Something I'm not getting I guess.

No expert, but they sound great.

I have to echo what was said way earlier in the thread though: do some original voices, try to stay away from existing voices. Famous people and characters are nice to have in your portfolio, but if you are using this reel not as a complement to your queries, but as the basis, I'd fear you would be shoved aside. It's like having an art portfolio of all Star Wars themed illustrations, or a writing clip book for of Naruto fan fiction pieces -- it's all very low hanging fruit.

I feel like you are lucky to have been dodging bullets on the reply posts so far...not that your work is bad, but the interwebs can be a cruel place. If the nastiness does start rolling in, do your best to ignore it. I think your voices are good, and I agree with @H2Oyea you should try drafting some original characters on top of the impressions.

I have taken all the advice you guys have been giving me, so I decided to make a ROUGH demo of a coffee commercial to go along with my voice acting reel. Keep in mind, I recorded this one at my house with a small microphone, lol. If you think I'm on the right track and direction, then I will take this to the professional recording studio I go to. I appreciate it all again!!! Thanks!!!

@plainplease:I appreciate it. I have thick skin man. I am also an ammature cage fighter, "see my other videos on YouTube", LOL!!! So not much worries me!!! ^_^ I contribute the lack of negativity to me actually doing okay at my attempt at the voices. Also, I take all criticism at face value. The praises are nice, but the ones I need to listen to ARE in fact the naysayers, so with that mentality, I come out on top either way! ^_^

Those actually sounded pretty awesome!

Good stuff. You've inspired me! I might actually give a go at recording an original voice or two tomorrow. But yeah, as eveyone has been saying, you should draft up a rough scene/script/characters, wouldn't even need to be well written or anything, just to give any potential employers something original that could potentially be used.

@Hector: Thank you very much!!!