An Italian voiceover with his home studio: can be reached from anywhere in real time…
A dear friend of mine, owner of a recording studio, recently asked me a few weeks ago if I wanted to organize with him an “open day” involving all recording studios, inviting producers, directors, dubbing directors, advertising agencies and final clients. A bizarre idea, I thought at first: why should such a day be organized for advertising and industrial voice over recording professionals? All audio recording professionals involved in this business should be perfectly aware of how it works, who are the key people, what are the italian voice talents and advertising voiceovers on the market. I was wrong. My friend – by the way hello Michele! – pointed out to me how, since the pandemic forced us to work remotely, a habit that progressively got always more adopted, how recording studios have seen customers and advertising voices disappear from their studios, gradually transforming themselves like connectors of audio services and voice casting. The result is that, three years after the outbreak of the pandemic, more and more italian advertising voiceovers work in their home studios and so are the agency copywriters, accounts, and final customers as well. In this way the recording sessions become kinda zoom conferences and the relationship vanishes. My friend Michele pointed out to me how live interaction is more profitable for a great artistic result. And he’s absolutely right.
Remote connected home studio is a solution to a certain type of voiceover project
While the “open day” idea was bogged down in a series of misunderstandings between studio owners (or perhaps even various laziness, since conducting business as usual is so convenient), I made a reflection on the web connected home studio that allowed us to shorten distances and work with an effectiveness and speed never experienced before. In fact, with the available broadband internet connection, connecting a home studio of an Italian advertising voiceover with a remote professional studio, even located thousands of kilometers away, and consequently also with the customer who can safely not move from the agency, is disarmingly easy, and allows each producer to arrange ane Italian localization of an international production in a very limited time. This is no small advantage, in all those situations in which the creative professional, the producer and the customer are at a distance that cannot be bridged without taking a plane or with several hours by car. Somehow this is also a way to maintain a sustainable carbon footprint- While nothing will replace the pleasure of having a live-in-person chat before and after a recording session of an Italian commercial in the studio of my friend Michele, together with his client and the sound designer, I find that the opportunity to activate high audio quality recording sessions with a simple setup based on an efficient internet connection, is really priceless. So let’s see what are the main tools that allow us to connect with a professional studio around the world by sending the Italian voiceover for a commercial in real time, and in very high quality.
Source Connect. The first tool. You pay for it, but it extraordinarily works!
The American company Source Elements has produced a software that perfectly integrates with all the audio recording tools that can be used by an Italian voice talent. Systems such as Audition, ProTools, Nuendo, connect to this web-based platform with a high audio quality to an Italian advertising voice talent with any studio in the world equipped with the same system. It’s called Source Connect, and it’s a software based on a subscription fee, as most software are nowadays. At the beginning of its history, a version of Source Connect was released, called NOW, absolutely free and able to allow good quality connections with limited functionality. But apparently it is not a supported software anymore, therefore for a great quality and reliable service, you need to subscribe, with an entry cost of about 75 dollars and a monthly subscription of 35. Let’s say that for an italian voice talent professional it is a price absolutely proportionate to the advantages that the solution is able to offer: connecting an Italian home studio with any recording studio in the world that adopts the same system. Personally I have used it a few times, since with all my contacts abroad, I use another software solution that I will describe right now.
Sessionlinkpro. The web-based software that has reduced the distance between producer and voice of advertising.
Sessionlinkpro was suggested to me by a Spain based studio for the first time, for the Italian voiceover of an international commercial. All I had to do was follow a link that was emailed to me, enter my name in the appropriate field, and connect with the remote studio with my Chrome browser. Surprising! In a moment my home studio, through the computer, was connected with all my audio devices, to the remote connection. Sound card, microphone, all of them recognized and ready to work. And that’s not all! Unlike other solutions, which require as many licenses to be able to activate connections with multiple users (imagine the producer in his studio, the advertising agency in his office, the customer in his headquarters, all virtually at a distance of hundreds or thousands of kilometers!), with Sessionlink pro you are all connected and able to interact as if we were in the same place, in very high audio quality and with the convenience of avoiding any physical movement.
Recording an Italian voiceover in video synchronization? No problem, with Sessionlinkpro!
Another surprise within the surprise: the commercial that I had to record in Italian, had a video track to follow in lipsync And even in that case, here in the chat of Sessionlinkpro appeared a new link to another browser window (thanks to the sound engineer of the studio in Spain), from which I could swatch the video, controlled by the sound engeneer I was connected with! Everything without delays, without alignment problems and without recording a take in my DAW: everything was recorded directly in the studio abroad and I, from Italy, had to do nothing but focus on the right delivery to give to my voiceover.
More time for relationships and more productivity with my italian home studio connected with other studios in the world!
Being an advertising voice talent is an extraordinary job: creative, flexible, it allows you to free up mental resources and time to always be brilliant every time you are chosen for an advertising commercial as an Italian voiceover. And it also allows you to enjoy physical interaction when you want to meet friends and colleagues in front of a console full of professional recording tools (also a passion I have!). So the two things are not at all in conflict and, on the contrary, help to increase productivity and professional opportunities to offer their Italian voiceover for international productions! Long live the so-called “far end recording”!