How Do I Get Into Voiceover?
Short answer: you get into voiceover by learning to act before you learn to record, and by treating it as a trade with an apprenticeship rather than a thing a good voice qualifies you for. The realistic order is: take a performance class, then a voiceover workshop in one specific category, build a home setup that produces clean usable audio, get one professionally produced demo once your coach says you are ready, and then audition constantly, because auditioning is most of the actual job.
This page is the map. I am Tyler Shamy, a voice actor represented by Atlas Talent. I spent years as a series regular on Netflix's Ridley Jones, and my credits run through Marvel animation, video games like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, anime dubbing, promo, and commercial work. What follows is the order of operations I wish someone had handed me at the start.
Start with the part nobody wants to hear
Almost everyone arrives at voiceover because someone told them they have a great voice. The voice is maybe ten percent of it. Voiceover is acting performed into a microphone, and the people booking consistently are actors who can take a direction like "warmer, less announcer, you are talking to one person" and change the read instantly. That skill comes from training and reps, not from the sound of your instrument.
So step one is not buying a microphone. Step one is a class: improv, scene study, or a beginning voiceover class taught by a working professional. If you have acting experience already, you are further along than you think. If you have none, this stage matters more than everything below it combined.
The five steps, in order
1. Train in performance first. Improv is the single best value in this business because commercial and animation auditions both reward people who can make fast, specific choices. Group voiceover classes are worth it when the teacher is a working voice actor, director, or casting professional. Be careful with anyone whose business model ends in selling you a demo on day one.
2. Learn to record yourself. Nearly every audition now happens in your home. You need a quiet treated space, a decent microphone, and files that need no rescue work on the other end. Treat the room before you upgrade the gear; a closet full of clothes beats an expensive microphone in an echoing bedroom. I keep a separate guide on home studio setup that goes through this properly.
3. Pick one lane. Commercial, animation, video games, promo, narration, dubbing, audiobooks. They are different skills with different demos and, at agencies, different departments. Pick the one your natural read fits best and go deep there first. You can expand later; I did.
4. Get one demo, once you are ready. A demo is your resume, and a premature demo does real damage because it spends first impressions you cannot get back. The working test: when your coach, not the studio selling the demo, says you are ready. What that demo needs to sound like is its own subject, covered in what a voiceover demo should sound like.
5. Audition like it is the job, because it is. Work comes from three channels: online casting platforms, direct relationships with producers and studios, and eventually an agent. Early on, the platforms and your own relationships are the realistic ones. An agent multiplies a career that already has motion; the path there is covered in how to get a voiceover agent.
What it costs to start
Real numbers, so nobody sells you fantasy ones: classes commonly run a few hundred dollars per course, a workable starter recording setup lands somewhere in the few hundred dollar range if the room itself is quiet, and a professionally produced commercial demo typically costs one to a few thousand dollars. That is the honest cost of entry. What you should not pay for: agency registration fees, guaranteed placement schemes, or a demo pitched to you in the first week of a beginner class.
The traps
- The day one demo. The most common expensive mistake in this industry. A demo cut before you can act direction is a very polished recording of someone not ready.
- Voice first thinking. "People say I sound like Morgan Freeman" is not a plan. Casting wants believable, specific, current reads, and mostly wants you sounding like a person, not a Voice.
- Buying gear as progress. A new microphone feels like momentum. It is not. Reps and training are.
- Doing it completely alone. You cannot hear your own blind spots. Feedback from someone who books work, or casts it, shortcuts years.
Common questions
Can I get into voiceover with no experience?
Yes, and nearly everyone does, but not with no training. The realistic entry is a performance class and a voiceover workshop before any money goes into gear or demos. What you cannot skip is learning to act direction; what you can skip is years of on camera work, since plenty of working voice actors never did any.
Do I need to live in Los Angeles to do voiceover?
No. Auditions and most sessions are remote now, and voice actors book from everywhere. Los Angeles and New York still carry the densest concentration of animation, promo, and network work, and in person relationships still compound there, but living elsewhere is a manageable disadvantage rather than a wall.
How much money do voiceover artists make when starting out?
Expect very little in year one, which is mostly training and setup. Early bookings on online platforms commonly run from under a hundred to a few hundred dollars per job, and income builds as your demo, speed, and client list do. Established full time voice actors span a huge range; rates are covered properly in how much does voiceover pay.
Is voiceover worth getting into with AI voices around?
The low end of the market, basic narration and simple commercial reads, is genuinely being squeezed. The work that pays well, animation, games, promo, and brand campaigns, is being hired for performance and legal clarity on a human voice, and that end has stayed strong. The honest read: it raises the bar for entry rather than closing the door.