Richcraft Studios

As a small business owner, I have to make all the decisions about my business. Good or bad. I can bounce things off of other people to get their take on the situation, but ultimately it comes down to me. So when I found this article about breathing and decision making, I thought, "What better place to start for a #voiceover artist? After all, my business would not exist without my breath, right?" Absolutely true. And, calm breaths are the key to clean audio so you don't end up having to edits the giant gasps that do not lend themselves to the artistic integrity of your work (unless you are voicing an #audiobook where the character is running or similar). And as the article discusses, slow, calm breaths are the key to good decision making as well.  I wonder what would have happened recently if I had stopped to breathe before jumping on an opportunity that, in retrospect, was not a good fit for me in terms of my personality? In taking a moment to breath, I might have ...

I periodically get the accusation that I am a robot and am delivering a machine voice. At the beginning of my voiceover journey, this would make me pause and send me into a bout of self-doubt as to whether I knew what I was doing. When I was first starting off and getting those first precious jobs, it was so easy to get sucked into the gaping maw of believing that the client's word is the truth. The imposter syndrome kicked in big time and regardless of my training and investment in my business (good equipment, professional booth, practice, coaching, practice), I would have to give myself a good talking to in order to get my mind back in the game. Then, as I got more "real" jobs and experience and started to gain confidence in my own abilities, I started to form a theory:  "You sound like a robot" = "I don't want to pay for your service" Now, "I don't want to pay" does NOT mean, I don't want to use your product. I'v...

Have you ever used positive affirmations? I didn't have huge experience with them even though I would often be that arm chair Olympian living the course as the athlete of the moment would visualize their routine or course or trick. And you know that they are visualizing themselves performing each element of their event perfectly. It is so common in sports and so yes, it makes perfect sense to have a similar process for everyday life. I had the good fortune recently to get a job to record about an hour's worth of affirmations for success, health, confidence, motivation, forgiveness, plus a few more. I was eager to take this on, because I thought that my voice was a good fit for this kind of work. What I didn't expect was the payback would be much more than what I earned for that job. My client partner on this job encouraged me to take my time on the job, which I took advantage of and spread the recording and editing and mixing with background music out over perhaps three...

I admit it, I resisted learning punch and roll recording for a long time, (I also resisted taking on audiobooks for a long time but that is another story) but about a year to year and a half ago, I literally forced myself to learn the technique. I did have to be a little strict with myself for a bit but it was OK - this is such a short and shallow learning curve that you, too, may find it a good short practice for self-discipline. I use ProTools for my DAW (digital audio workstation) and love it (yeah I know, I think I'm a bit of a weirdo there, but it was also an awesome investment) and it was just a little investment of time to figure out how it supported punch and roll. Then it was a little investment of time to play with the thing to figure out what length of time I was most comfortable with for the pre-roll (turned out to be 0.5 seconds), then figure out where best to insert the cursor, and then it was just practicing on the job to become fluent. I would guess that by well...

What's your morning routine to prep for recording? One important thing I do is getting hydrated as early and as fast as possible. I'm writing this because I totally boffed my routine this morning and now I have to wait to start recording because my mouth noise is horrendous! Nothing worse than a sticky mouth and, no, apples are not a real substitute because they can add sugars to your mouth and so I've only had short term success with apples. You can't beat deep internal hydration for the best results, plus I find that my stamina is better, and my eyes don't get quite as dried out from staring at my screen/script. In a pinch, I will grab a can or bottle of seltzer water and sometimes that helps me get going faster. I find myself doing that in the second half of the afternoon when I'm probably trying to do too much recording but if I'm in the middle of editing and need a pick up line and the mouth is smacky, then a bit of seltzer does the trick. #voic...

I've tried blogging in various forms in the past and while I love to write, I somehow end up selling myself short. Part of the reason why I want to do this is to share my thoughts and adventures and maybe make someone else think...or have an adventure.  Who knows! Shall we look to see what kind of fun we can have together?

In 2018, I finally let myself try the world of audiobooks.  When I say "let" I mean, yes, this was a purposeful decision not to venture into the world of audiobooks. Was I afraid? Yes, but maybe not for the reasons you think of. Yes, audiobook narration can be intimidating because you are making very personal choices about: what to narrate how to characterize people that are initially strangers to you but are intimately familiar to the author what emotions to share and how to express them can I really pull off that accent that I didn't know was in chapter 15 of the book? But I was really afraid of starting to do audiobooks because I had a feeling that I would be totally addicted...which turned out to be true. So at the same time that I was working other voiceover jobs, I managed to squeeze in about 13 or so audiobooks in 2018.  Some were good choices, some were not, but I chalk that up to my learning curve and overall I feel that I've established a soli...

Welcome to the new home for Richcraft Studios.  The new studio is ready and I'm excited to show you the production center that will support your custom voiceovers. The heart of the studio is an instance of ProTools to ensure professional quality recording and editing.  The studio itself is an acoustically isolated booth in a below grade room to take advantage of the earth's natural sound proofing.