Elaine Singer Sounds Great - Voiceover Blog

Here is the transcript of my TV interview. I didn't in get half the information I had on hand in the time allotted for the segment - but it was fun anyway. Check here for a transcript of the whole show (if you're interested).

>>Leo: how does that sound to you? Lend us your ears. After a break, we'll help you make your site something to talk about. Amber Mac interviews Elaine Singer. You stay right here.
>>Amber: if you think adding audio to your website is only about adding your favourite song or that weird, mini sound effect you're behind the times. Elaine Singer is here with us today with some helpful do's and don't's when it comes to bringing the voice of your site to life. Hi Elaine. How you doing?
>>Elaine Singer: I’m doing good Amber.
>>Amber: all right. So you have some ideas about what to do when you're adding audio to your website.
>>Elaine Singer: right. There's a big, this is an ongoing debate.
>>Elaine Singer: 10, 15 years ago people were talking about should we be adding graphics to websites? Now you, you can't even imagine a website without graphics.
>>Amber: that's true.
>>Elaine Singer: that's where we are now with audio.
>>Elaine Singer: but technology is advancing. People are used to sound. You, you walk down the street somebody's always with something hanging out of their ears or on their phone. They're listening to podcasts, to music, listening to audio books, and then they go to the web and there's nothing.
>>Amber: so people really expect now to have sound and multimedia on their webpage?
>>Elaine Singer: exactly, they're demanding it. And adding audio to your site lengthens the stay of the visitor, which means that people are more likely to buy something.
>>Amber: how do you do a good job of that? Because I go to so many websites including my space where I go there and the audio comes up. It's kind of frustrating. Is there any way you can do a good job of adding audio?
>>Elaine Singer: there are certain things you have to keep in mind. You've got to keep in mind who's your audience. What type of thing do they want to hear? You want to make sure that the file isn't too big. It doesn't take too long to load. You want to make sure that the audio fits the website. Let me just show you, a couple of examples.
>>Amber: yeah, that'd be great. Hopefully, you have some, some examples of bad audio as well, cause there's lots of bad ones out there.
>>Elaine Singer: oh absolutely. [laughs]
>>Elaine Singer: okay, let's just quickly open up.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: here's a website. I like this sound. I think that it, it prepares you for what the website is. Can we hear that?
>>Amber: yeah, we can hear it fine.
>>Elaine Singer: great.
>>Amber: so this is, what is the sound? What's happening here? I can't quite.
>>Elaine Singer: it's like tom-toms.
>>Amber: oh.
>>Elaine Singer: okay. So now you go into the site and it's about an aboriginal production house. So the, the sound leads you in to what the site is about. And it's, it's not too obtrusive. It's, it's quiet. It's calm.
>>Amber: it's almost transparent in a way.
>>Elaine Singer: exactly.
>>Amber: cause you can go there and it's very smooth and soothing and --
>>Elaine Singer: right. And here's another quick example of maybe a little kitschy but um --
>>Amber: kitschy's okay sometimes. [plane flying]
>>Elaine Singer: yeah. The name of the company is Redjet films.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: so they have a jet. Again, it's short. It's sweet. It just adds a little something to the site.
>>Amber: a little something. I kind of like that sometimes on websites when they have something really, just a little bit of audio off the top when you visit the website for the first time.
>>Elaine Singer: exactly, exactly.
>>Amber: but I don't like when it loops and keeps going and going and going.
>>Elaine Singer: that I don't know if you can really do anything about as of now. I mean I would love to be able to put audio on my site so that if you go to the front page you hear it. You go back to the first page you don't hear it anymore. But when it reloads, it reloads the sound.
>>Amber: it loads up again.
>>Elaine Singer: what can you do?
>>Amber: what about some examples of really bad audio? Cause ah --
>>Elaine Singer: well, here's an example of a site that first of all you've got to enter the site.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: right?
>>Amber: cause that they had kind of a splash page there.
>>Elaine Singer: right, okay.
>>Amber: I think that's really --
>>Elaine Singer: and you're sitting in your office. You've got cubicles and -- [bells ringing]
>>Amber: ah! [laughs]
>>Elaine Singer: okay. That's exactly -- [both talking at once]
>>Amber: Elaine, leo just fell down so I think -- [laughs]
>>Elaine Singer: what we don't want.
>>Amber: leo, are you okay?
>>leo: i'm all right.
>>Amber: okay, good. [laughs]
>>Elaine Singer: but look at. You're not even in the site yet.
>>Amber: oh boy.
>>Elaine Singer: okay.
>>Amber: I never want to see that site ever again.
>>Elaine Singer: okay. So that is definitely a no-no.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: all right. [laughs]
>>Amber: so that's kind of that jarring sound when someone goes there, and you can imagine that someone's sitting at their desk and they might have their headphones on.
>>Amber: they go to a site like this and you know they're just shocked and never want to visit ever again.
>>Elaine Singer: yeah, exactly, exactly, or they, worse, what they do to get rid of the sound is they close the browser. Well, you don't want people closing the browser. You want people to go into your site.
>>Amber: mmm-hmm.
>>Elaine Singer: okay. Now here's an interesting site because it has good and bad.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: all right. So let's see if we can just find this one. Here we are. First of all what you notice on this site, there's no sound that comes blasting out at you. You actually have to decide you want to listen to it.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: and this gentleman talks about pet food and what's good and what's bad. I don't think it will --
>>Amber: there we go.
>>Elaine Singer: um if you decide that you don't like it any point you can turn it off.
>>Amber: so do you like that element, that you can actually choose what -- [both talking at once]
>>Elaine Singer: absolutely.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: I think it's very, very important.
>>Amber: cause I like that too. It's nice to give the user actual control over the website's in --
>>Elaine Singer: exactly. [both talking at once]
>>Elaine Singer: he's, he's sort of augmenting information on the site, so it's interesting to listen. So okay, we've finished listening to this very, nice gentleman and we see that we have another choice here.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: oh goody, we're gonna listen to this one. This is a, a veterinarian. It takes a little bit longer for the --
>>Amber: for it to load up.
>>Elaine Singer: to load up. But she starts talking pretty soon. And you wouldn't believe it's the same --
>>Dr. Jane Bicks: hello, my name is Dr. Jane Bicks. I'm a veterinarian -- [both talking at once]
>>Elaine Singer: it's terrible audio. I mean it's terrible. How can you --
>>Amber: it's a little bit dry. [both talking at once]
>>Elaine Singer: but it's not clear. It's not clean.
>>Amber: yeah.
>>Elaine Singer: why do they have two totally different --
>>Amber: totally different.
>>Elaine Singer: you can't, I can't even listen to her.
>>Amber: yeah.
>>Elaine Singer: i'm just going to turn her off.
>>Amber: all right. So we don't have too much longer. Are there anything that you want to show off that just to give people an idea of you know how to actually create the audio, audio and add it to their site and
>>Elaine Singer: well um, you've got to think about the mic.
>>Amber: okay.
>>Elaine Singer: if, if just, if you're gonna use just a little mic you're gonna get not good sound. You've got to think of the environment. Is it noisy? Is it, do you have a lot of fan noise from the computer?
>>Amber: or air conditioners in the background.
>>Elaine Singer: or air conditioners, the room, whatever. You've got to think about the content. For, for voice, when you're gonna have, use words get it written professionally. Use professional talent who know how to speak, who know how to speak into a mic. So people aren't popping their p's all over the place.
>>Amber: you also do voice training, and so I maybe a little nervous because i'm thinking I probably do all of these things.
>>Elaine Singer: and then of course you need software to, to upload, to record the audio and to upload it to your site.
>>Amber: all right. So generally speaking though it's a good idea to add, just to have some you know additional content and to make your site more interactive. But just kind of be careful how you add it.
>>Elaine Singer: absolutely.
>>Amber: all right.
>>Elaine Singer: absolutely.
>>Amber: well, thanks so much Elaine. Elaine Singer is a voice artist with acting and formal voice training. And she's also managed help desks in the IT world for more then a decade. Read more about her at soundsgreat.ca.