By Deb Faul, Spectrio Creative Consultant
“When I was little, my uncle was in the Air Force. He came back from Japan with a gift for me: a portable tape recorder. I took the thing into my room and spent hours recording little shows, creating character voices, and editing out the pauses. Some 45 years later, I’m still doing pretty much the same thing.”
Steve Faul began his voiceover career in the 1980’s during college while working at WNOP radio in Cincinnati, where he worked beside a number of local legends including former NBC announcer Bill Nimmo. The station’s contemporary jazz format lent itself to a more casual conversational approach that carries over into his work today. At about the same time, Steve began working at WLW, where he gained a solid background in audio production techniques and character voice acting. And at Northern Kentucky University he learned voiceover technique from instructors such as Bob Norris, who did regular voice work for Proctor & Gamble and Disney.
While working in radio in Lima, Ohio, a local advertising agency asked Steve if he would be available to voice a series of agribusiness videos. This was his first foray into narration. “I was fortunate that my wife came from a farming family,” Steve says, “so the script wasn’t completely foreign to me. The compliment I kept hearing was that I sounded like I knew what I was talking about.”
Over the years, Steve was asked to do more voiceovers, and when his radio career came to an end, he made an easy transition into advertising and instructional narration. “It’s a different discipline compared to radio,” Steve says. “My persona needs to reflect the subject I’m voicing. It’s more like acting in that sense. I enjoy immersing myself into a particular business or industry, such as metallurgy, logistics, specialized medical professions, law firms, insurance – yes, insurance can be interesting – and finance.”
And then there’s the recent Admore campaign that featured Steve performing as a pirate. “I love projects like that. There aren’t too many jobs in the world where you can have that much fun.”
Take a listen to Steve’s voice demo by clicking his name below, and be sure to call us at 800.584.4653 x6377 or email us to request him for your next production with Spectrio!