Jodi Krangle

A Sound Connection: An Interview with Dan Friedman – Part 2

May 18, 2022 by Jodi Krangle

“It bothers me so much to see companies out there that are taking advantage of people or, you know, preying on their hopes and dreams. I mean, I have never, ever told anybody that this was easy, as being a voice actor, and I never told them that it was fast. I’ve always said that it’s a crock-pot career, it’s not a microwave meal.” — Dan Friedman

This episode is the second half of my interview with audio engineer, voiceover coach, and author Dan Friedman as we talk about voice performance, the changes the pandemic has brought to the voice recording industry, and how his family helps inspire him as a voice teacher.

As always, if you have any questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, just visit www.audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find all sorts of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter (on the www.audiobrandingpodcast.com webpage) will let you know when the new podcasts are available.

An Expressive Job

We start the episode with Dan’s practical vocal advice on everything from breathing through your diaphragm to staying hydrated, and a look at the differences between voice and television acting, something he’s particularly familiar with after filming a television pilot. “It’s expressive,” Dan says about voice performance. “This is an expressive job, so it doesn’t really work so well on camera, but it works really well for voiceover.” Dan also talks about how he’s working to preserve some of the unique qualities of voiceover that might get lost in the age of new media and streaming video. “I’m old enough that I can certainly help teach a new generation how to be the best that they can be at this and help communicate more effectively because we really are losing a lot of that in our society.”

Communicating Your Intentions

Dan tells us about some of the more memorable clients that he’s helped with communicating their intentions, and how a good performance brings the words on the page to life. “When you’re not communicating that and you’re just reading the words off the page,” he says, “obviously it’s not really moving anybody. But when you’re trying to present these things, let’s present them in a way that people want to connect with it emotionally.” We also look at how the pandemic has changed the home studio market and made the technical aspects of voiceover, from soundproofing to microphones, more accessible than ever before. “Now it really comes down to talent and the environment they’re in,” he explains, “and to how they ultimately sound and whether they’ll be able to do all that.”

No Day is the Same

As the interview comes to a close, we share anecdotes about how, in voiceover, no two days are the same, and Dan takes the opportunity to tell us more about his family. “I’ve got the platform,” he jokes, “so I’m going to brag on my kids for a second.” He tells us about his wife and children, and how their support has inspired him as a voice coach, “If I can turn out kids that are this good,” he says, “I must be able to teach somebody something.” We end the show with a look at some of his upcoming projects and how you can get in touch with him. As he puts it, “I love seeing great people being successful.”

Episode Summary

The distinctive challenges of video and audio performances
How streaming video and social media are changing voiceover
Effective audio communication and bringing a script to life
How Dan’s family has inspired him and how to reach out to him

Connect with the Guest:

Website: www.Sound4VO.com

Follow Dan Friedman on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dan.friedman.sound4vo

Connect with Dan Friedman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danfriedmanvo/

Dan has also very kindly offered a $30 discount on your 1st coaching session with him – or 1 free session if you book 12 –
through The Studio resources page that you gain access to after subscribing to the podcast newsletter at https://audiobrandingpodcast.com .

Get your complimentary mini e-book and learn how to create your personalized and branded audio branding strategy with my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategy.

Do you need a voice talent for your next project? Visit my voice-over website to find out more about how my voice can help you with your audio brand. You can also subscribe to the Audio Branding Podcast on YouTube to watch the show’s latest episodes.

Please leave the Audio Branding Podcast a written review or a spoken review so others can find the show on their favorite podcast player!

This interview episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco.

A Sound Connection: An Interview with Dan Friedman – Part 1

May 11, 2022 by Jodi Krangle

“But we do have to remember that when we are communicating, when words are coming out of our mouths and reaching somebody’s ears, that’s a connection, that’s a strong connection, and if we are not really believing in the things that we are saying, or feeling the things that we are saying, or able to create a feeling that’s strong, then that connection won’t be strong enough. And that’s really important in both communicating and advertising and providing information, and all of the things that we do as voice people. We are communicators first and foremost, always.” — Dan Friedman

This episode’s guest has been in the voiceover industry for nearly two decades, voicing projects for Crowne Plaza Hotels, Hulu Plus, Walmart, Hardees, Aetna, and many more, and a professional audio engineer for twenty-five years. He’s produced, directed, and provided his voice to thousands of audio productions, and in 2010 he published a book called Sound Advice: Voiceover From an Audio Engineer’s Perspective. A first of its kind in the industry, the book covers audio engineering and studio session etiquette as it relates directly to voiceover talent.

He continues to write a popular blog on his website, Sound4VO.com, and he’s a well-known voiceover coach, teacher, and home studio consultant., as well as a certified coach in the Roger Love Voice Method. His name is Dan Friedman, and I’m looking forward to sharing his perspective on how we can learn to better communicate. He’s seen it all, from both sides of the glass, so I know he has lots of golden nuggets to share.

Hearing and Getting It

We start things off with a look at Dan’s earliest memories of sound. He tells us about the first song he ever fell in love with and the chills that Mary Clayton’s voice in “Gimme Shelter” still gives him. He recalls his early career, and how a surprise job opportunity as an audio engineer inspired him to pursue a deeper understanding of the science of sound. “Here I was,” he says, “working for these big acts at times, and just thinking ‘I get it, but I don’t get it. I can hear it, but I don’t get it.”

An Emotional Connection

Dan tells us about his experience becoming a certified Roger Love Voice Method coach, how he discovered an unexpected talent for singing, and the further insight it gave him into the different elements of voiceover and voice performance. “All of these things,” he explains, “are interesting nuances that I can add to my repertoire of coaching and direction, and that’s just really been transformational.” But the most important aspect of voiceover is something less tangible: “To be successful,” Dan says, “you have to have an emotional connection in some way.”

We Are Communicators

We continue as Dan elaborates on the emotional core and personal connection that voice can provide between the speaker and listener. He explains how a voice coach can help with forging that connection, and talks about some of the mistakes that even highly trained professional voiceover artists can make. As he puts it, “people don’t hear their own voices that way. So when you work with a coach, when you work with a director, they’re able to steer all this so that it’s a cohesive package.”

All the Pieces of the Puzzle

The first half of our interview ends with a look at how a flexible tone and sense of nuance can bring a script to life, how experienced performers can sometimes find the process even more of a challenge than artists who are just starting out, and how a voice coach can help them both. “Part of the benefit of coaching,” Dan says, “is that we get you to slow down and think a little bit, so that we can make sure that you’re putting together these things so that all the pieces of the puzzle are there.”

Episode Summary

Dan’s first musical love and how he became a sound engineer
His experience with the Roger Love Voice Method
Forming an emotional connection with the power of voice
How directors can help create a more dynamic performance
Finding the heart and the story inside each script

Be sure to tune in next week for the second part of our interview as Dan offers some practical public speaking advice, as we talk about the differences between video and audio roles and how social media is blurring the lines. We also take a more personal look at his life as a proud husband and father.

Connect with the Guest:

Website: www.Sound4VO.com

Follow Dan Friedman on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dan.friedman.sound4vo

Connect with Dan Friedman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danfriedmanvo/

Get your complimentary mini e-book and learn how to create your personalized and branded audio branding strategy with my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategy.

Please leave the Audio Branding Podcast a written review or a spoken review so others can find the show on their favorite podcast player!

This interview episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco.

Musical Branding: An Interview with Sam Parvin – Part 2

May 4, 2022 by Jodi Krangle

“Tap into who your consumer is, really know. And I don’t mean like ‘males 25-34 years old who live in cities.’ No, it’s like ‘what’s important to this person, where do they spend their time,’ you know, those kinds of things, really thinking about who that person is and then what your company’s role, what your brand’s role, plays in their lives. And then, just naturally, you know how music can kind of work in there, and I think from there you’ll start to see some natural potential opportunities. And if you brainstorm that internally with your colleagues, I think some things will just shake themselves out.” — Sam Parvin

This episode’s the second part of my interview with music supervisor and branding expert Sam Parvin as we talk about how different branding perspectives can lead to very different licensing strategies, Sam’s three best practice steps when it comes to music branding, and how a more fluid and mobile audio landscape is creating both new challenges and opportunities for musical marketing.

As always, if you have any questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in these show notes. If you have questions for me, just visit www.audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find all sorts of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter (on the www.audiobrandingpodcast.com webpage) will let you know when the new podcasts are available.

What Your Music Means

We begin the second half of the interview with a look back at some of Pepsi and Coke’s most famous advertising campaigns, and how their distinct marketing strategies and approaches to branding led to very different choices when it came to licensing music. “They’re using music in different ways,” she explains, “because of what their brand DNA is as well as the campaigns that they’re working on at different times.” She tells us how a famous song isn’t always the best marketing choice and shares a success story that came from adapting a licensed composition to meet her client’s needs.

A Living, Breathing Vessel

“Your brand is a living, breathing vessel,” Sam tells us, “and so too is your music strategy.” Music, she explains, has a more dynamic, versatile quality than more visual forms of marketing, and how there’s a much more diverse range of music and audio inspiration available out there than many companies have considered. “They’re getting their music choices either from Spotify or production libraries,” she says. “But there is an entire world of amazing music in between those two.” We talk about her three best practice tips when it comes to audio branding, from finding your company’s musical point of view to making sure that you have somebody overseeing your musical brand from start to finish.

The Democratization of Music

We wrap up the interview with a look at what she calls the democratization of music, and how everything from Spotify playlists to innovations in augmented reality are changing the role music and musical branding plays in our lives. As she puts it, “brands’ biggest challenge now is being flexible and being able to move quickly, because the whole world is moving quickly.” We talk about the deepening connection between musical branding, marketing, and culture, and how they’re only becoming more interconnected over time. “They’re the ones who are telling us what’s okay in the world and what’s acceptable in the world,” Sam notes. “It’s a great responsibility that we have as marketers.”

Episode Summary

Marketing strategies and meeting a wide variety of musical needs
The dynamic quality of music and its cultural flexibility
Sam’s three best practice steps for a successful musical brand
The future of music marketing and how branding shapes the world

Connect with the Guest

Website: www.parvin-music.com
Follow Sam Parvin on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parvinmusicusmx
Connect with Sam Parvin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samparvin/
Follow Sam Parvin on Twitter: https://twitter.com/samparvinmusic
Click here to download Sam’s “Choosing the Right Music for Your Brand” worksheet: https://voiceoversandvocals.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ParvinMusic_MusicPOVWorksheet_Blank.pdf

Get your complimentary mini e-book and learn how to create your personalized and branded audio branding strategy with my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategy.

Please leave the Audio Branding Podcast a written review or a spoken review so others can find the show on their favorite podcast player!

This interview episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco.

Musical Branding: An Interview with Sam Parvin – Part 1

April 27, 2022 by Jodi Krangle

“The way that advertising agencies, for example, are structured now is still based on the Mad Men era where only billboards and print existed. So we have an art director and a copywriter on every project, but we don’t have a sound person, we don’t have a sound director. And so much of the way that we interact with the world, or ‘consume’ content, is through audio. I think it’s just about thinking about us as humans, and how we intake information and interact with external things in our world, and audio is just always there.” — Sam Parvin

This episode’s guest specializes in helping senior-level brand marketers use and strategically execute music to create a stronger brand that also creates value for their consumers. She’s a globally-awarded music supervisor for brands like Coca-Cola, Maker’s Mark, Corona, and GMC, and she’s passionate about sharing her very specialized expertise in navigating the music licensing space to help people inspire the world with their marketing communications.

Her name is Sam Parvin, and if you’ve been wondering how you can use music to enhance what your brand offers to the world, this is going to be a discussion you’ll definitely want to hear.

Music Has Been My Path

The interview starts with a look back at the way sound shaped Sam’s earliest memories from the soothing lull of watching televised golf with her grandfather to the Bonnie Raitt concerts and her first job handing out band flyers in Atlanta. She remembers studying the business of art in college and how it connected her back to the music industry. “I didn’t realize I was the person who always knew what I wanted to do,” Sam tells us, “but in retrospect, music has always been my path.”

Making an Impact

“My clients typically come to me and say ‘we’ve got this new project, here’s what we’re trying to achieve with it, we know we need music: help.’” Sam goes on to talk about how her early career led to a deeper appreciation for working directly with her clients and helping to perfect the audio identity for each one’s particular brand. “I saw an opportunity,” she recalls, “for brands to mainly structure the way that they handled music differently, to be more effective and also efficient.”

Emotional Beings

We go on to talk about the importance of sound and how deeply it influences people and emotionally connects us with them in ways that go beyond the marketing lingo. Sam tells us about the importance of knowing what the brand means to the world, and how she works with her clients to make sure that the right music is licensed, adapted, or even composed from scratch to fit their marketing needs and connect with their audience. “The people who are in charge of or own who the brand is for the world,” she tells us, “…should also be clear on what that looks like from a music and audio perspective.”

Audio is Always There

As the first half of our interview ends, Sam talks about how brands have their own personalities and, even without a jingle or slogan, sound plays a vital role in expressing that identity. We discuss the tools she uses to find a brand’s personality, from workshops and interviews to a worksheet you can download by following the link below. “Audio is always there,” she explains, “and music is very often, and so that’s why it’s always important to have music in production.”

Episode Summary

Sam’s early life and the sounds that have stayed with her
Helping clients find the right audio marketing for their brand
How Sam’s career has given her deeper insight into her clients’ needs
Using sound to engage an audience on an emotional level
Audio branding’s integral role and importance in our daily lives

Stay tuned next week for the second half of our interview as we talk about Sam’s process for putting together licensed and original music for her clients as well as some of her most recent success stories, and where she sees commercial music and sonic branding heading in the future.

Connect with the Guest

Get your complimentary mini e-book and learn how to create your personalized and branded audio branding strategy with my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategy.

Please leave the Audio Branding Podcast a written review or a spoken review so others can find the show on their favorite podcast player!

This interview episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco.

Signature Sounds: An Interview With Jon Brennan & Sean Beeson – Part 2

April 20, 2022 by Jodi Krangle

“Through our research, we also found that anything beyond four notes, if we were to create a pattern that had more than four notes in it, that it started to sound too much like a jingle and just out of place for an automobile. Automobiles really just had single-tone dings, and so we knew we couldn’t stray too far from that, or we would start sounding too much like a cell phone or something out of context.” — Sean Beeson

This episode continues my interview with Jon Brennan and Sean Beeson, formerly of Sonic Signatures.

Keeping Your Brand Current

We begin the second half of the interview with a look at what might happen when a product or company changes, and how an existing audio brand can be impacted by something as simple as a new speaker design. “The more specific you’re intentionally creating audio for something,” Sean explains, “the more often you have to go back and fix things when something changes.” Jon tells us about the detailed audio guidelines that Sonic Signatures uses to help guide their clients through such changes and offers an important tip about making sure that your sonic branding is up-to-date.

A Human Touch

The episode continues with a firsthand look at the work Jon and Sean have done for such clients as Union Home Mortgage and KeepTruckin. We start with Union Home Mortgage’s sonic logo, how it combines technological innovation with a warm, human touch to reflect the company’s brand, and the process used to create its distinctive sound. As Sean puts it, “we continued to make the harmonics richer by layering sounds that really only serve to… add to the overall richness and brilliance.”

Listening on the Road

We then listen to samples of the audio interface Sonic Signatures designed for KeepTruckin’s vehicle monitoring devices and discuss how they met the challenge of creating distinctive sounds based on chimes and mid-range tones that the fleet drivers would recognize right away without becoming distracted or irritated. “We kept having the sounds get closer and closer to the sound of a car,” Sean says, “because that’s what the drivers are trained to hear.” We talk about the research that goes into such an innovative audio interface, and wrap things up with a peek at their upcoming projects.

Episode Summary

How business and product changes can affect an audio brand
Sonic branding and conveying the essence of a business through sound
Vehicle interfaces and creating a safer, more pleasant user experience
Upcoming audio projects and how to get in touch with Sonic Signatures

Connect with the Guests

Website: www.sonicsignatures.io

Follow Sonic Signatures on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sonicsignatures

Connect with Jon Brennan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbrennan/

Connect with Sean Beeson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbrennan/

Follow Sonic Signatures on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sonicsignatures

Get your complimentary mini e-book and learn how to create your personalized and branded audio branding strategy with my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategy.

Please leave the Audio Branding Podcast a written review or a spoken review so others can find the show on their favorite podcast player!

This interview episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco.

Signature Sounds: An Interview With Jon Brennan & Sean Beeson – Part 1

April 13, 2022 by Jodi Krangle

“I think that the future of audio is one that’s customized, personalized, interactive, intelligent and dynamic, you know, instead of always treating audio as on and off, we need to treat it in a way that’s delivered to each person as a unique experience.” — Sean Beeson

This episode features a rare two-for-one interview with a powerful sonic duo, Jon Brennan and Sean Beeson, formerly of Sonic Signatures. Jon Brennan’s a music composer and sound designer with twenty years of experience creating sound for iconic brands and multimedia platforms. With the rise of voice, podcasts, and streaming, he founded Sonic Signatures to enable brands to effectively use branded audio across every campaign and platform. He’s created audio logos, original music, and sound design for leading brands including Amazon Alexa, Tide, Southwest Airlines, IBM Security, Mercy Health, Union Home Mortgage, and KeepTruckin. His film scores include internationally distributed feature films and documentaries, and he has an MFA in Music Composition for the Screen from Columbia College Chicago. Very recently, he decided to work with Sixième Son in the US.

Sean Beeson is a composer and sound designer who’s worked on hundreds of scores for video games, ads, trailers, and podcasts for clients like Google, Disney, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, State Farm, Wizards of the Coast, Neoglyphic, and Sony. He helped develop the sonic identity of Google’s Pixel phone, Pixel Buds 2, and Google’s Home and Max speakers. He’s contributed to three Emmy award-winning projects and has been nominated for multiple Game Audio Network Guild Awards. He’s now doing independent music and sound design work.
If you want to understand why audio is so important to your brand, Jon and Sean have a thing or two to tell you about that.

The Essence of a Project

We start off with a look at the early influences that shaped Jon and Sean’s interest in sound. Jon tells us how his older brother’s Depeche Mode album sparked a lifelong career in music, while Sean recalls his very first encounter with audio branding when he played Sega video games as a child. The topic turns to the versatility of sonic branding in everything from mobile games to casino slot machines. The goal, as Sean explains it is, is “to boil down the essence of a project or product or brand to what really makes it unique and what really helps make it relate to the consumer or the user of that product.”

Supporting the Brand

The interview continues with the story of how Sean and Jon met at a gaming conference, and how their combined experience in commercial music and interactive audio gave them a unique perspective when it comes to audio branding and marketing.”We feel that we can best help a company through our one-on-one relationship,” Jon says, “and it’s through that personalization that we can come up with the most custom and creative results that are the most effective in the long run.”

Everything is Interactive

Next, we talk about audio branding, what it means to them, and how video games in particular have always been ahead of the curve when it comes to dynamic audio and using sound to continually shape the listener’s experience. Jon sees interactive audio, guided by machine learning, playing a more vital role in our everyday lives as smart devices become widespread: “Sonic branding,” as he explains, “extends beyond just having a jingle or a piece of music, and it really needs to kind of aid the user to be able to identify, interact and interpret the audio so that it creates a better experience.”

Delivering a Unique Experience

Jon and Sean tell us about the process of creating a sonic brand for a client, and how it can vary from one project to the next. “It’s less about what you personally like and dislike,” Jon says, “as opposed to what has been shown to work the most in testing.” We look at how they communicate with and work to keep their clients engaged in the process, whether it’s creating a variety of audio logos for a new app or testing the sound interface for a new piece of hardware. “Everybody is integrated into the process,” Sean tells us, “from the creative planning parts to the actual creation to the implementation.”

Episode Summary

Jon and Sean’s first memorable experiences with sound
Casino sounds and the importance of creating a positive impression
What modern sound interfaces can learn from video games
How machine learning and voice-first technology are changing sonic brands
The importance of working with clients to create a unique audio package

Check back next week for the second half of our interview as we take a closer look at some of the clients that Jon and Sean have helped, and actually listen to the audio brands and interfaces that Sonic Signatures has created for such companies as Union Home Mortgage and KeepTrunkin.

Connect with the Guests

Website: www.sonicsignatures.io

Follow Sonic Signatures on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sonicsignatures

Connect with Jon Brennan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbrennan/

Connect with Sean Beeson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonbrennan/

Follow Sonic Signatures on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sonicsignatures

Get your complimentary mini e-book and learn how to create your personalized and branded audio branding strategy with my Top Five Tips for Implementing an Intentional Audio Strategy.

Please leave the Audio Branding Podcast a written review or a spoken review so others can find the show on their favorite podcast player!

This interview episode was very skillfully made to sound beautiful by the talented Humberto Franco.

Jodi Krangle

A Sound Connection: An Interview with Dan Friedman – Part 2

A Sound Connection: An Interview with Dan Friedman – Part 1

Musical Branding: An Interview with Sam Parvin – Part 2

Musical Branding: An Interview with Sam Parvin – Part 1

Signature Sounds: An Interview With Jon Brennan & Sean Beeson – Part 2

Signature Sounds: An Interview With Jon Brennan & Sean Beeson – Part 1

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Jodi Krangle

Jodi Krangle

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