If you call the Centre de santé Saint-Boniface Health Centre in Winnipeg, Canada, you may recognize the voice on the recorded greeting – that would be me. Chances are you’ll never guess where the recording was made.

I’ve been lending my voice to commercial VO, documentary narration, e-learning VO and countless corporate VO projects for clients across North America for over thirty years. I’ve been recording in my home studio since 2006. It’s my happy place.

Fast forward to 2021. After 18 months of a global pandemic, I was thrilled to accept a gig as a venue announcer at the Kuntai World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2021, a test event for the 2022 Beijing Paralympic Games. Travelling across the world for two weeks – and again for seven (7!) weeks for the upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games – is a privilege (Thank you Christy Nicolay and Karla Piper!). It’s also a long time to be unavailable to voice-over clients. I always keep the door open for emergencies and shorter projects.

In the past, I’ve brought my RODE shotgun mic and trusty Zoom H5 recorder along when I’m on the road. Hotel rooms are a surprisingly good recording environment, with heavy curtains, carpets and loads of pillows, though the ventilation system and traffic can be noisy.

Enter the VOMO – Portable audio recording booth by Vocal Booth to Go, a sweet little home away from home studio. It’s easy to travel with, a snap to set up and, when used with a RODE NTG-1 mic and Zoom H5, it sounds fantastic! It even comes with a reading light and stand for my iPad. The mobile voice booth fits perfectly on the little desk in my hotel room with the velvet curtains pulled behind me; and did I mention it sounds fantastic?

In my first week away, I recorded four short VO projects: a TV promo for Canada’s APTN, the world’s first Indigenous national TV network; two e-learning projects; and one bilingual VO for an IVR phone message system for a local clinic. Listening to them, you’d never guess I was so far away from my home studio.

So, the cat’s out of the bag. The next time you call the Centre de santé Saint-Boniface Health Centre, you’ll know: the phone greetings were “MADE IN CHINA”.

*I am not associated in any way with the products or brands mentioned in this blog post. I’m just a fan!

Sounds Good
From the desk of Monique