Hello

Jerome Pennington · Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006, 01:40 (GMT) Post subject: Hello

I'm a dot com refugee--former online content producer--and a freelance photographer based in Los Angeles, looking for another creative endeavor to complement photography that I can turn into a serious career. (Yes, I do headshots.)

As kids, translator and "radio announcer guy" were my and my brother's dream jobs. Now he speaks five languages and is a translation project manager, so here I am. I always felt I had a good voice, and could "do" characters and such, but for whatever reason I recently began singing more (just to myself) and as my vocal chords warmed up and got a workout I started hearing a quality and consistency in my voice I'd never heard before. That, and a recommendation from a seasoned pro in the business, prompted me to begin formal training. Still can't sing, though.

I do know that it's not just about having a great voice. There are at least a couple of years of training, practice, and auditions ahead of me before I can expect it to become a real business and career, and I'm gonna love every :60 of it.

I've begun by completing my first six-week VO course in Burbank with a great instructor who is an experienced professional in the business, and I'm now even more motivated to take it all the way. I do have some experience voicing characters for games on Disney.com.

I already have some recording gear and it seems to produce acceptable results. Soon I'll be ready to throw more money at it, but at the moment I use an Azden SGM-1X microphone connected via XLR to a Marantz PMD660 portable digital recorder that writes uncompressed audio files to Compact Flash cards. The Marantz is not ideal for serious recording--the built-in preamp is a little noisy, among other things--but the upside is that I can carry the whole kit into our 7' x 7' walk-in closet that is pretty much acoustically dead, clamp the mic onto a shelf and get to work. The voice actor's Guide to Home Recording is on my Amazon wishlist, and my birthday is coming up, so here's to hoping that a certain someone's spam filter doesn't have my name in it.

Anyway, that's me in a nut's hell. I'm an avid PC enthusiast, having custom configured and assembled my own, so hopefully I can contribute some knowledge in that regard. Oh yeah, did I mention that I do headshots?

Take care,
Jerome

Freddie Molina · Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006, 13:51 (GMT) Post subject:

Hello Jerome,

We are very glad to have you around. We hope this service is useful to you and you find it to be a great communication tool for the VO community, where you can participate in open discussions, submit your inquiries, ask technical questions, suggest new ideas, get critique and feedback on your profile and demos, look for help and help others, find new information related to the industry or just share your mind.

Welcome.