Last post I told you I was looking at getting Tedrick his own audiobook because, hey, even an octopus needs his own voice. Findaway made the process very easy indeed – they give you a little form to fill out asking for the details of what you expect the sound of the reader to be, how it should be matched. They did a pretty bang up job, cutting through what I imagine would be a sea of voices to narrow it down to ten or so faces.
Then comes the next part – listening to audio samples of those faces and seeing if they suit the narrative. Considering Tedrick is told from a first-person perspective, it only made sense that the voice was that of Tedrick as narrator. The audio samples are of previous works that they had done, some for non-fiction, some for fiction, some with male voices, some with female. There was dialog and action and I think one might even have been reading out the shopping list for that week. All that is there to give you a good idea of just what’s possible.
Myself, wifey and Binsky sat around the machine, listening to the samples closely. Of the bunch, I’d say five were close to the mark. The others were just too smooth or too young or too, as the French would say, I don’t know what. They just didn’t work. I’d close my eyes and picture the octopus telling his tale and it just wasn’t there. I’m no sound producer or anything, but I guess I had an idea of what Tedrick would sound like.
Of the five that were close to my idea, three really stood out. Findaway has a nifty feature where you can ask those you’ve shortlisted for a sample of five minutes from your narrative. The samples came back on the weekend and we huddled about the machine once more. Yes, yes and no. From hundreds to ten to two – who would it be? Both were a match, both had that grittiness and deeper tone I was after, both read the passage exceptionally well.
In the end, I am very happy to say, I chose none other than Larry Gorman, voiceover artist extraordinaire, for the gig.
You can find him at http://www.larrygormanvoiceover.com/ where you can hear samples of his work for other authors and commercials. Head on over there and give him some love, listen to his audio, get a feel for his voice and sign up to his blog. You hear that voice? A little bit like Mike Rowe, a touch of warmth, yet gritty and tough? Can you hear how he’d be ideal for a gumshoe octopus, down on his luck?
That’s why he’s Tedrick. This is going to be bloody awesome!
