Voice actors without recording facilities are already at a competitive disadvantage. A studio of your own will soon be a necessity, not a luxury. Personal recording is the only cost-effective way to compete globally.

What's tax deductible, convenient, saves you money, can make you money, and might also get you more voice work?

It's not a new agent. In fact, the odds are likely you already own a large part of this moneymaking, convenient magic device. It's a recording studio of your own, and if you have access to a computer, even an older, slower one, three-quarters of your in-house recording studio is right there in front of you.

Assuming you're like most actors, you probably find the thought of recording at home either intimidating, expensive, or unnecessary. After all, aren't there enough recording studios in the world? And you have no desire to compete with them.

Besides, as a serious actor, you likely feel confident discussing the subtleties of Meisner's versus Adler's approach to acting, but probably think "Proximity Effect" is a sci-fi movie and an "XLR" is a radio station in Jaurez.

However, recording at home in a studio of your own offers you many opportunities to save, and even make, money. And you don't need a Ph.D. in recording or computers to do it. Truth is, with modern audio software recording and basic editing is as simple as writing a letter in a word processor. All the basic functions of copying, pasting, and moving text remain the same, but now, you're moving blocks of audio instead of blocks of words.

First, you'll save money producing your voice-demos. Using an audio editing program, you can then "rough-cut" your demo over and over again until you are ready to have it professionally finished by a top-notch audio engineer. This game of "what if?" is usually the most expensive part of creating a new demo, but by moving elements around at home until you and your agent are happy with it, you can greatly reduce your final studio bill. (We do recommend you have a professional finish your demo and prepare it for CD/DVD mastering, but now you'll only be buying an hour of two of his or her time.)

Second, assuming your agent is Internet connected, you can record auditions or even sessions, at home or on location, never missing an opportunity simply because you're in North Carolina shooting a scene with Nicole Kidman (I'm allowed a minor fantasy...). Instead, back in your hotel room, you'll fire up your laptop, plug in the mike, read the script, and e-mail it back to your agent or client. If your computer has a CD/DVD burner, you can also record your tracks to it and just overnight the disc.

Third, as your skills and confidence evolve, you may develop clients who want to record finished audio tracks with you, but are on a tight budget. They'll cast you because: (a) you're talented; and (b) you have your own studio, and that saves them time and money. Are you going in competition with major recording studios? Hardly. You are, however, filling a "niche" market, and at the same time making the rent. By the way, this scenario has been in place in the United Kingdom for years; most voice-overs work from home studios, usually connected via ISDN phone lines.

Amazingly, the electronics and computer revolution means you need very little money to build your in-home studio. I already mentioned that you'll need a computer, but a fairly slow "old" computer will suffice. I discovered that adding a second hard drive to my old computer worked wonders to speed up recording and editing. You install the recording software on one drive and record on the other, which improves performance remarkably. Here again, costs for gear have plummeted and hard drives are inexpensive.

Recording software, which not only gets better every day, gets less and less expensive, with more and more professional features. "Lite" versions of many popular digital recording programs such as Sound Forge, Cakewalk, and Peak are less than $75, and there's even a free version of Pro Tools available on the Web. Most audio programs can save your auditions in the MP3 format, so you can simply e-mail them. Considering just the cost of parking in a major city for auditions, recording equipment can pay for itself in no time, let alone the wonderful convenience.

Before you buy any recording software, go online and download various trial versions and experiment with them to see what you find easiest to use. Make a friend of a local recording engineer if you can and offer to pay him for his time in helping you choose equipment and set up your studio.

In addition to a computer, you'll need a fairly quiet room in which to record. You don't need a totally soundproof room, but the sound of busses, airplanes, and weed-whackers in the background aren't going to make it. Walk around and clap your hands until you find an area where there aren't any obvious echoes. For simple auditions, almost any room will work. If you are recording finished tracks, then you'll need a more professional setup. I purchased a "Whisper Room" sound booth, but many voice-over actors have assembled great-sounding studios in their homes or apartments at little cost.

Ask that friendly engineer for an old copy of Mix Magazine or EQ Magazine, too. Inside are lots of ads for sound equipment companies like Sweetwater and Full Compass. You'll also see ads for sound-absorption and sound-shaping supplies. Auralex Acoustics, for example, offers a ready-made, inexpensive, "Studio in a box" and a free booklet entitled Acoustics-101. Of course, some browsing on the Web will get you plenty of suppliers to choose from, and I've included some names and numbers in the resources section of this book. Jeffrey's Profiting From Your Music and Sound Project Studio has lots of tips on setting up a home-studio and great promotional ideas as well.

You'll need a decent microphone, but again, the electronics revolution has made great- sounding microphones relatively cheap. For example, the AKG C-1000 cost well over $400 just few years ago and was a bargain even then; now you can buy one for as little as $200. The Rode NT3 is another excellent microphone in the same price range. Don't forget to purchase an inexpensive microphone stand as well. If you're on a really tight budget, browse www.ebay.com or www.digibid.com to bid on used audio gear.

For recording just auditions, the "soundcard" already built into your computer may be sufficient. If you want better quality, you'll need an "interface," which converts analog signals-like your microphone's-into the digital format computers understand, and amplifies its signal. Interfaces are also called A-to-D converters, and they, too, have become much less costly. There are interface converter "boards" that you install inside your computer, and a there's a host of new "USB" (Universal Serial Bus) and "Firewire" audio interfaces that simply plug into your computer. Some interfaces even come "bundled" with free recording software, like Roland's UA-30-a nice USB unit that's roughly the size of a paperback book and includes Cool Edit Lite software, all for less than two hundred dollars. Midiman's USB Duo gives you professional quality sound, too, at only around a hundred dollars. Now, you are all set to plug in your mike, your headphones, click on the record icon, on your computer screen, and start talking.

I almost forgot, Proximity Effect occurs during the winter solstice and an XLR is the leather-lined, luxury edition Audi Quattro. I'm allowed at least one big-whopping lie, maybe two. Actually, as you get closer to certain microphones the bass tones are magnified resulting in a deeper sound-you are closer in proximity to the mike, and that's the proximity effect. XLRs are the type of audio connectors you usually see on the end of professional quality microphone cables.