Boy, ya know, some clients are reeeelly picky… they've got a long narration, and they want it divvied up into separate, short, specific-name files….lots of them.
And they want it done tomorrow.
Doing it "manually" is about the most tedious, labor-intensive job there is for a voice actor. Thankfully, there's VOX Studio.
Vox Studio — according to their own website:
"allows the efficient production of
digitized messages for voice processing and telephone applications such as Voice
Mail, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Call Centers, Phone Banking, Audiotex. The
production of hundreds or even thousands of sound files is now automated and provides
consistent high-quality audio results."
Voice actors in this arena tell me they love this program. Read this Voices.com VOX Daily article on VOX Studio (names are a coincidence), if you want to learn more.
But…I guess there's a new guy on the block: Word2Wave. Or maybe it's been there a while, and I've
just now noticed. Either way, this software solution may be a worthy contender.
From the W2W website: "For studios or independent narrators who need to produce hundreds or
thousands of audio files for interactive training programs or video
games, Word-2-WAV saves countless hours of tedious file splitting
and naming – which inevitably entails naming errors and loss of time in
successive rounds of QA."
Hmmmm. Sound familiar? Anyone tried W2W?
If so, I'd like your opinion…especially if you've also tried VOX. Would you like to write a brief comparison for us? I'd be happy to post it here.
CourVO
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Thanks for sharing this, Dave… I knew about Vox Studio (I think Connie put me onto it a while back), but it’s good to know that there’s another option. Options are ALWAYS a good thing.
(Courvo sez: abbo-lutely Anthony… I’m gonna be giving it a try… I forgot to compare the price, though.)
I have Vox Studio and am testing Word 2 Wav right now. It seems to be working well – a few little bugs, but Herve is very responsive and has updated the software several times in the past week or so.
It is basically a capture, save and name software. Any editing needs to be done in another piece of software. But the key features for me are:
1. The text input format is a simple 2-column Word table.
2. The ability to see more than one paragraph on the screen at one time for continuity.
3. The fact that it saves ALL takes as backups.
4. The ability to change the copy and export an “as recorded” text file.
5. The ability to insert an alternate read and have it clearly labeled.
Any editing or batch processing (inserting silence, or compression, noise reduction, format change) needs to be done in other software…and the key batch processing feature for me is the inserting of specific amounts of silence at the head and tail – which can be done in Vox Studio (and Sound Forge?), but not in Audition – at least not the version of Audition that I am runnning.
(CourVO sez: Wow! Thanks for that feedback, Connie…invaluable for us ininitiated!)