Forum Moderators: open
I am in need of a speaker for a product video. Due to authenticity reasons, a North American native speaker would be required.
Any advice regarding WHAT "dialect" is considered to be THE industrial/technological dialect for a worldwide audience? A broad Texan accent might be considered "typical" American, but would certainly hinder acceptance/understanding on a global scale.
So is it the Californian/Silicon Valley accent? The Los Anageles accent? The New York accent?
Are there any high-tech accents at all?
Accent is indeed very important to consider for things like this. For instance, I recently signed up for the Skype VoIP service, and could hardly understand the English-accented voice on the system answering machine when I tried to set up my microphone. It took a couple of times through before I understood what they wanted me to do. My grandfather, who comes from Minnesota and has the typical Northern accent, tells a story from his childhood about meeting a cousin from Boston. Neither of them could understand anything the other one said. Kind of funny when you consider that it's all the same language.
If you want me tae dae i' ah'll dae i' 'na broad west 'o sco'land accent fur ye.
(Where i' = a glottal stoap)
BDW: i'm surprised you mention the Scottish accent. I always thought that it is a pretty broad/unique one.
I considered an English voice too, but my American colleagues think it's too "eclectic" and "upper class" like.
BDW: i'm surprised you mention the Scottish accent. I always thought that it is a pretty broad/unique one.
It is, but someone from Scotland who speaks well speaks English that can be universally understood. I have heard it said that people from Inverness in the North of Scotland speak the best English anywhere.
Aside: I used to work with a lot of Americans who could not tell the difference between a Scots and an English accent. I thought this was very strange because to us in the UK they are very different. Also, I think most of us in the UK would be able to tell a US southern accent from a New England accent.
The most neutral North American accents can be found in Ontario. Hire someone from Toronto.
Riiiiight....
What accent is THE American accent?
Victor Kiam?
THE industrial/technological dialect
Surely that's the woman with the really weird American accent off the IBM(?) adverts? Other brits may know who I mean.
Connie from the AOL ads
LOL! I'd forgotten about her!
if it's nothing too long, i'll do it for you. i'm from Texas but no one ever believes me when i tell them (don't have any accent).
All the others: I never EVER heard any of the names mentioned here! That CNN voice rings a gentle bell, but - alas - no voice forms in my mental ear.
My gut feeling says that I am looking for something like the voice speaking the "Men In Black" trailer.
That CNN voice rings a gentle bell, but - alas - no voice forms in my mental ear.
This is exactly true, I am not just saying that because I was born in Toronto. You go to any American city, turn on the radio or the local TV news, and you will hear the crisp, clear, neutral tones of somebody from Toronto. All the major networks employ announcers with a neutral accent as well. I am not saying you do not hear the local flavour (Canadian/British spelling) sometimes, but listen how a local news guy in Dallas, does not sound like somebody from Dallas. Dan Rather was a great example of this, when he is on the air, it is all Toronto. See him interviewed on Letterman for example, it is clearly Texan. They must teach it in J-School.
A broad Texan accent might be considered "typical" American, but would certainly hinder acceptance/understanding on a global scale.
NOOOOOOOOO!
I once heard a comedian say something to the effect of, "Try to imagine a nuclear physicist speaking in a southern accent."
Not trying to offend anyone (Southerners have their crazy-Californian jokes to counter, after all), just wanted to point up that what is "charming" to the ears of one region may have a very different effect in other regions. Sure it is irrational and unfair, but that is beside the point in marketing, where the goal is to charm and sell customers from various regions.
A distinct regional accent can be useful, but only if there is a good reason for it. Two cases in point: actor Paul Hogan selling Australian beer, that campaign worked fabulously, I'm sure- a great case study in Branding. During the heyday of those ads, there was another commercial running with a strong Australian-sounding accent pushing "Mid-oww-lee Mar Jareen." It took many exposures to finally understand that the product was "Meadow Lee Margarine"- at least I think. I don't have statistics, but I know exactly how ineffective that campaign was for me!
I am in need of a speaker for a product video. Due to authenticity reasons, a North American native speaker would be required.
Majel Barrett [en.wikipedia.org] would have to be the obvious choice...
Failing the availability of any native [indians.org] North American speakers, of course..;-)
Syzygy
Walter Cronkite spoke with a General American accent, and he grew up in Texas. Of course his parents's Missouri accent (General American) might have been a large influence... ;)
I am in need of a speaker for a product video. Due to authenticity reasons, a North American native speaker would be required.
How?
Once upon a time, if you wanted to work for the BBC, you had to speak the Queen's English (or in those days the King's English...) and have the stereotypical 'Home Counties' accent.
That, chummy (he expresses in his best Kentish tones), is an awful long time ago.
Syzygy
During a late conceptual phase, I was in need of a voice over. But we were still in discussion what voice to use and most part of the discussion was about the cost involved. So I googled a bit around and found a few pages on speech synthesis. I played with speech synthesis many years ago, but haven't looked into it for some time. But it has really improved in the meantime. And when I say "really" it spells R-E-A-L-L-Y!
So I downloaded a demo from Cepstral, made it synthesize my few lines, loaded it into an audio editor, did some post processing like pitch adjustment and speed and put it into the video. It was only just to see how the voice and the video interacts and whether the whole thing would fly.
And guess what! Management BOUGHT IT! They didn't even REALIZE that it was a synthesized voice!
Well, I thought to myself, even though one of them lived in the US for a decade, they are all Germans after all. So I sent the demo to our US partner. He didn't mention anything either. So I asked him "What baout the voice?", and he replied "Yeah, what about it?". So he BOUGHT IT TOO!
So I registred the voice which cost me a fraction of what a speaker would have cost. Isn't that unbelievable?
I bet though the tool has a Toronto accent :-)
(took me years to figure out what many here said; that the 3 American Network newscasters weren't "from" anywhere in the USA, they found a neutral voice to avoid annoying anyone, ergo Toronto-accent. glad to hear I'm not the only one with this theory.)
If you listen closely it's obviously a synth voice BUT the track was actually using sythn-based music to describe a technology product. In other words, its the perfect voice for it.
Not sure if it'd be right though for describing Mama Edna's Natural Egg Farm.
BUT the track was actually using sythn-based music
Thanks to Magix Music Maker - my favourite tool for this kind of work.
