How a voice sound affects the way we process the information given in that voice. The sound of a voice easily affects if we are going to assimilate the story or just let it pass as it doesn’t sound interesting. The mere way a voice sounds impacts listeners’ attention and that’s why which voice to choose can be tricky. Especially, when it comes to choosing between a male and a female voice for your recordings. A suitable voice is crucial even for the most persuasive messages and stories to make an impact. The pitch, tone, and sound of a voice influence our brains and is pretty much decisive in how our mind is going to respond to the message. So, before you choose to go with a male or female voice-over always consider which one is going to suit the recordings.
Although the world is moving towards gender neutrality even in voice-overs, there are certain in-built or say natural advantages of using male or female voices for voice-over purposes.
Advantages of male voice-overs:-
Male voices are mostly associated with authority, intensity, energy, power, and sometimes neutral. The resonance of male voices allows them to be sharper when you need to cut through a noisy environment and snatch the attention. The distinctiveness of a good male voice makes the delivered message more agreeable.
Advantages of female voice-overs:-
Female voices are great in calming and instilling trust and are considered to be more reassuring and soothing. Due to the natural instincts about females, they are often considered to be more caring and nurturing. That’s why most of the AIs that are being developed have a female voice. Female voices are often sought after to deliver a message in stressful situations.
There are ample number of factors that influence the choice of dynamic male or a professional female voice actor but some major players in this are as follows: –
Product or Service: the gender of the voice is greatly impacted by the type of product or service you are selling. Like if you want to sell some heavy machinery male voice is suitable as it is deemed to be more physically stronger. Similarly, for baby diapers and kitchen stuff, you might want to go with the female voice, as a female voice would sound more caring and trustworthy in this case.
Target Audience: Who are you targeting? Who do you want to speak to? Who do you want to get influenced by your ads and voice-overs? Answering these questions could help decide the right gender for the voice-over. Like, for muscle cars that is a preferred choice of most men, a male voice could certainly be more appealing and assuring.
Objective: the purpose of the ad or the video is detrimental in selecting the gender of the voice. If creating an explainer video, not so technical just a simple explainer, female voices, as they are perceived more friendly, are favored the most. On the other hand, if it is just about informing then a male voice is more sort after.
Style: the style of recording also decides which gender voice would be more suitable. Style varies depending upon the medium on which the recording will be played. A voice should be directly able to talk to the audience and therefore for traditional radios and broadcasts, the old school announcer style is found to be more productive. On contrary, in the modern era of internet radios, a mix of male and female voice-overs are backed the most.
Target Emotions: gender of the voice also depends on the emotions you want to trigger through your voice recordings. Like for IVRs, female voices are more preferred as they are believed to be more soothing and have a calming effect. Similarly, if you want to strike energy and make yourself sound authoritative or induce an energetic enthusiasm in the audience male voice is what you should go for. Thus, not only choosing an expert voice actor is important but choosing the right gender voice for your project is equally important.
Brand Persona: what your brand stands for? How it benefits its customers? what is its image in the eyes of customers? how it approaches its issues and what measures it take to resolve them? In totality, define how would your brand sound if it was a person. Warm, caring, strong, authoritative, etc. find out all the adjectives that would define it and then select the gender of the voice accordingly.
Although, it depends upon various other factors the gender of the voice can be the reason your recordings/ads/ videos are interesting audiences, engaging them or turning into a complete failure. The correct timbre and pitch of the voice can easily cut through the clutter and instill trust in the audience. Therefore, selecting the right gender voice is critically important for your voice-over recordings to grab audiences’ attention and resonate with them. The idea behind a voice-over is to deliver the intended message with such impact that it drives the intended outcomes, results, or emotions. That’s why Voyzapp – the pioneer of the Indian voice marketplace has put in efforts to bring out the best male and female voice talents and has created an online platform where one can easily find the right voice. Voyzapp ensures the quality of its services i.e., voice-overs, dubbings, etc., and provides you at the most competitive prices.
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