About 90 percent of our clients return to engage our services again, or refer us to other clients.
The reason is simple - we provide excellent service and a high quality product for a reasonable price. Indeed, in the Advertising and/or Corporate world, fast, courteous and professional service is paramount - you have a deadline and....you need it done right the first time.....
We also provide a lot of "free" services that many other voice talents charge for, like script consultations, FTP services and re-takes. Some voice talents will charge you a hefty fee because you had to change a single sentence or a couple of words in your script - we're simply not that greedy....and furthermore, our clients deserve to be treated better than that.
I have a script I need narrated. Where do I start?
First thing to do is fill out our quote form here. Send us a short portion of your script. We'll record an audition featuring a few versions of various vocal stylings and send you the audio right away; you can hear for yourself whether Todd's voice talent suits your project. And please, feel free to give us direction: Todd's vocal range is 18-45 years of age. So, if you'd like a voice that's younger or perhaps an older sounding voice, something really natural and laid-back or may a sound that's very authoritative - the audition is yours to direct. Click here for more on auditioning voice talent.
I'm not sure if my script is ready for voiceover. Can you help?
There's a lot more involved than simply writing a script and giving it to your voice talent to record, if you never done it before. The script needs to be checked for "people speak" issues (in normal conversation we don't say "It is over there" we say "It's over there", etc. (See Script Services for more information).
Also, there's pronunciation issues IE: "Taelons Inc." How would that be pronounced? Tay-lons Ink? Ty-luns Incorporated? How do you pronounce it? We need to know.
Don't forget phonetics....is RDAT pronounced R-DAT or R-D-A-T? And phone numbers...."1-800" - is that One Eight Hundred, or, One-Eight-Zero-Zero?
Basically, we look at your whole script and quickly point out the stuff you need to address before the recording process gets underway, to minimize mistakes and avoid cost over-runs....and, it's a free service.
I need additional voice talent, do you provide this service?
Yes, and we've been providing this service for a very long time.
Perhaps you require a female voice, or an alternate male voice to fill a role or two. We can help. We mainly work with professional voice talent whom we've worked with before, so there's no surprises.
There's also a very deep talent pool of actors here in Toronto. Being active in the thespian community, we have access to an unprecedented number of very talented vocal actors, along with many pro VO talent who run their own studios locally.
Please keep in mind that the more voice talent you hire for your voice over project, the higher your rate will climb - this goes for any voice talent service. The more talent you hire, the more people have to be paid. Rates for additional talent vary, depending on who you choose and the amount of material that needs to be recorded.
Please feel free to ask us for additional talent VO demos.
What kind of audio quality can I expect?
As good or better than some of the finest recording studios around today. I won't get too technical here, but you should know....that "Custom Audition" I mentioned earlier serves another, critical purpose: you get to hear what my studio sounds like. It's very good.....:-)! You can check out all our studio gear here.
I have a long background in recording engineering and I've spent the money on the right audio equipment to properly record the human voice. There's no noise, just clean, clear audio, fully mastered, edited and ready to be inserted into your project as soon as you pick it up.....
How do I pick up my audio?
Most of our clients use our FTP server. Nothing like a nice, high-speed connection to pick up your audio - especially useful if your project is of the "larger" variety. When your audio is ready for pick-up, we'll send you an e-mail with our FTP address, username and password. Your personal, private FTP account is there 24/7 and never expires - it's also a free service. If you are unfamiliar with FTP, we'll help you out, or we'll find an alternate way to deliver your product....no worries. (Click here for more on FTP file transfer).
What are your rates?
Rates vary depending on type of project, length, usage, Commercial, Corporate...basically more variables than we care to think about. We've done our best to explain them here.
What's included with my purchase?
A) The buy-out (ownership) of the audio.
B) Studio time to record and edit the audio, using professional gear and software. (Additional studio time is calculated at $150.00 per hour, minimum 1 hour).
C) Studio costs to deliver the audio, be it ISDN, FTP or Internet/Bandwidth.
D) Staff to handle project management (I actually have a staff, where most other voice talent do not). And yes....we answer the phone! Bonus!
E) Minor revisions (up to 1 minute or 160 words, within 30 days of delivery).
F) FTP account and free archiving service.
G) Friendly, courteous service, the odd joke, mild ego-stroking, discussions about the weather, strange voices that come as if from nowwhere...and an invite to the company X-mas party if we like you and you happen to be in the area... ;-)!
What if I'm not satisfied with the audio?
This, never happens.....well, almost never....lol!
This is why we go through the audition process. What you have approved during the audition process will be what's delivered, including pacing, vocal style, quality of audio, etc. In effect, when you hear the audition, you're basically hearing your final product.
If you don't like it, or need changes done for pacing, inflections and so on, these are done free of charge – within reason, of course. However, if you come back and would like a different voicing style other than the approved audition, then revision fees apply.
Revision fees also apply to script changes on behalf of client, post-delivery. If revisions are minor (under one minute of finished audio per 10 minutes delivered) these are done free of charge.
If a client is being very particular about vocal performance, then we will insist on a phone patch recording session where, upon the end of the recording session, audio will be considered “approved” for the final time and any changes thereafter will result in additional revision fees. (We do understand that some things don't translate well down a phone line so we're flexible regarding minor changes after a phone patch session).
Obviously, it's important that you're educated on the importance of the audition approval process.
Rest assured, our work is guaranteed. We've been providing this service since 1998 - longer than anyone else on the Internet. In fact……we've set the service and product standard for professional VO.
What kind of payment terms do you offer?
There's a few options. Interac (only if you deal with one of the major banks in Canada), all major credit cards via PayPal, International Bank Transfer, or "check in the mail" 30 day terms for clients we have an established relationship with.
First-time clients must pay for their audio up-front via PayPal - no exceptions.
At this time, we don’t do enough major credit card transactions to warrant their exorbitant fees for on-line transactions. PayPal is affordable, secure and actually provides far more payment options than the major credit card companies.
That said, PayPal is VO industry standard for international transactions, because it gives both parties recourse in the event something goes awry. Indeed, if our first time international clients do not wish to use PayPal…we simply don’t do business with them – again, you’ll find that’s standard policy for hiring VO talent in general.
I may have a lot of work. Do you have a discounted rate?
That depends. If it's a number of smaller projects for a single company then yes, we can "bundle" your projects together, based on per minute finished audio, within 30 days only. That is, you'd only pay the $325.00 minimum fee once (within a 30 day period) and then your per minute rate would be based on the final total amount of finished audio.
However, if your projects are for different, unique clients (companies)….then our standard rates apply. The reason is simple – each project for each client must include a buyout on usage.
Preferred (discounted) rates are available for clients with which we have worked for in the past and have a business relationship with.
We’re sure you can understand - the promise of more work does not constitute a "business relationship" with your company.
That said, depending on the volume of work we do for you over, say…..60 days, how smoothly those projects are executed, how promptly payment is made and subsequent satisfaction of process on behalf of both parties, will ultimately determine whether or not we’ll consider extending a preferred rate to your company.
For references, feel free to check our Testimonials page.
