What Babilon offers

Babilon is the Swiss voice-over boutique. We are professional voice-over artists working in almost all world languages and Swiss voice actors of all Swiss German dialects.
We are the perfect partner for e-learning agencies, producers of explainer films, advertising filmmakers and film production companies. Making it simple for anyone looking for just the right voice-over narrator, male or female, whatever the language.
Want to be invoiced just once a month regardless of how many orders you place? Prefer a SINGLE point of contact to be confident that everything’s in hand?
Then Babilon’s for you!

What does Babilon do and how

We pride ourselves on being solely and exclusively native voice talents because unfortunately it’s often the case that Swiss dialects – of which this country has many - are imitated, which rarely sounds good and never sounds authentic. There is one exception to this: “International English”. It often happens that clients making a production for a linguistically or geographically broad target audience wants a type of English to be used which, though not necessarily native, is spoken slowly, is easy to understand and is not associated with any one country. We also specialise in the languages spoken by migrants. The more people come here from other countries, the more important it is to ensure that audio-visual content is as accessible as possible to all those who are part of our nation. So there might well be a need to produce a version in Tamil or Albanian, for example. Because audio is always more powerful than subtitles and the content likely to have a greater impact.

Areas of expertise

Voice recordings using professional voice artists are needed wherever something needs to be narrated. Most typically that means commercials - TV, radio and cinema ads - but also telephone messages, answering-machines, billboards, trailers, jingles, bumpers and teasers. Male and female voice actors can also be heard in internet commercials, pre-roll ads, at POS and as station voices, in documentaries, image films, audio-guides and radio plays, as well as explainer films, animated videos, tutorials and e-learning courses. For synchronisations, animations and games we have special dubbing voice-over actors who are expert in the art of lipsync (lip synchronisation).
And good old corporate films are still going strong too, while audio-books and podcasts continue to boom. 

Our approach

As distinct from other bog standard voice-over agencies we are a voice artist boutique.
We keep it simple, to save you time.
Clicking through thousands of voices and then listening to as many recordings as possible of each artist is hard work and really time-consuming.
Most of our voice talents are trained actors who know how to adapt their style to any production. We also know who is available at any one time which means we can avoid a scenario where you fall in love with a particular voice only to find that that person has gone away on safari!

Collaboration and personal contact

For us effective collaboration means feeling as though we’re working right there with you.
A short phone call, a quick visit, a friendly chat.
Being voice actors and voice actresses means, of course, that we love to talk and we find that many misunderstandings can be avoided with a simple phone call. Writing is fine too, but in our experience telephoning is often more productive.

We pride ourselves on being easy to get hold of - what the Americans would call ‘highly responsive’.
And so that the whole thing isn’t just electronic/digital - we are always up for a coffee. Because every now and then it’s good to get together in person.

Not all projects are the same. And not every client has identical needs. Just as your project is individual, so too is our approach to meeting those needs. And that can’t be done without a one-to-one exchange of ideas. 

You the customer

The client’s project or product lies right at the heart of the process. Sometimes there’s a budget to cover the hire of voice actors for three weeks, sometimes a client needs a voice-over in two hours’ time. It is not uncommon for last-minute revisions to be made there and then over the phone, allowing the client to give immediate feedback.

Free voice-over casting

Just let us know which language and sex you need for your voice(s). Depending of course on what your project is. If you already have a clear idea of the kind of voice you want, feel free to tell us that too. We’ll then send through your free casting samples in super-quick time. In a personal folder ready for you to download.

Free custom demo

We can provide custom demos on request. Because sometimes it’s difficult to imagine the finished result. 
How will this product sound with this voice actor? Or that project with that female narrator? Will my commercial sound too much like ‘ad-speak’ with that voice-over? Is this woman’s voice too ordinary for this radio play?
This is precisely why custom demos really are worth their weight in gold. Just send us an excerpt from your original text and we’ll send you the audio file in quick turnaround time.

Voices currently available

We have online samples of all the most commonly requested languages, all Swiss dialects and most of the languages used by the migrant population of Switzerland. Browse samples of both male and female voice artists with current availability. Because sometimes time is tight or a layout needs to be narrated.

Sound studio – online and offline

Babilon is not just a voice-over boutique, it’s also a professional sound studio as well as an online recording studio. 
Our voice talents have their own studio facilities or are close enough to be able to record with us here in Zürich. 
This means we can guarantee fast response times and produce recordings quickly, sending you the file in your preferred audio format ready to download.
Digitalisation makes all this possible: thanks to remote recording you can often take part in the recording at your end via internet and headphones. Either direct yourself or just listen in – it’s up to you! You will be sent a Session Link PRO, ipDTL, Cleanfeed or Source-Connect Now link that takes you straight to my vocal booth. Or of course a simple Skype or phone call will work just as well.

Process

The process is quick and easy. Once you’ve chosen a voice and finalised your text then it’s time to talk to us. Ideally by phone so that we can iron out any ambiguities there might be in the text or discuss any special expressions or emphasis you wish to have, but if you want to write instead, that’s fine too. Then we can get started! We the voice actors will self-direct the recording independently or you can listen in and direct live via a remote connection.