Discussion about voice acting for mods [split from Breagar NPC mod for BG1 and BGII (Kerzenburgforum)]

[Graion Dilach]

As someone who actually have voiceacting experience (although I haven't recorded anything serious for half a decade now), how I see is that it's not that hard nowadays to try for an audition (for most of the hobby projects, a mid-tier USB condenser mic would be enough, even something like an Auna 900S would be passable) if you can provide a silent-enough environment for sessions (I frequently abused days when I was alone in the house for such). Fair, I haven't looked at mic prices and availability in the recent years but I noticed that novice streaming sets are also operate with noname condenser mics with pop filters and if one learns how not to pop during recordings, then it's just all about experimenting and experiencing.

The biggest problem with Breagar though is that while D&D is mostly lacking accent expectations and would tolerate foreign accents up to a level, pop-culture ensured that for a dwarf (especially for a blacksmith), you'd expect a deep gruff Scottish accent which could be hard to achieve convincingly if you're a foreigner and/or your natural tone isn't enough deep or rough. Accents are haaard and the thicker the accent, the more harder it is to act alongside with it. The SHMEL Trooper on my Soundcloud page actually damaged my throat for a while because I overdone it and I don't think I would be able to pull that one off today, 9 years later.

On a semi-related note, I did toy with the idea for trying to audition for Brandock, because my vocalization might be fitting to him (my natural acting tone would be the BMP set from my SoundCloud) but I haven't played with him enough times to know what to expect beyond the bio.

[The Artisan]

I got experience in finding voiceacting talent for my mods this year. To put things plainly, before I paid for a subscription at a site it was basically a hopeless cause for me. Voice acting is one of the most scrutinized and risky things aspects of modding. No voice is probably better than a voice that people hate. A voice that isn't up to standards will instantly turn people off a mod before they've even tried anything else.

And finding that talent that people are satisfied with basically is like ten times harder without paying for exposure. Literally. I went from ~10 auditions to 100+ on Casting Call Club after subscribing, giving me a much greater variety of people to find exactly what I'm looking for instead of a setting for 'good enough'. Is it worth it? That's up to the modder. Most modders would rather not pay a penny and it's entirely reasonable since it's a passion project with no physical returns. In Breagar's case it's probably even harder.

[xiaoleiwen]

I saw a lot of new skyrim modders were referred to Skyrim Voice Alliance Discord and got the help free, and some have really good quality. I also remember some modders of other game got the help from there. Probably it is also a place worth asking.