Voice Talents Peter K O’Connell and Trevor Johns in her Atlanta voiceover studio, July 2019.

The audition had to be delivered quickly.

I was in Atlanta, Georgia and knew many voiceover friends who were relatively nearby (nothing really is nearby anything in Atlanta, it seems).

I called my friend Lance Blair….he kindly offered studio time but it was in the afternoon. Grateful, but the audition needed to be in by noon.

Called my pal Jill Perry but she was also booked in the morning.

However, she’s Jill Perry…she just gets stuff done.

Male Voice Talent Peter K. O’Connell at Trevor Johns Voiceover Studio In Atlanta Georgia, July 2019

She said, “I cannot help you but you are going to call Trevor Johns at this number and she if she’s available, she will help you because she is awesome. Here’s the number, call her now.”

Trevor Johns, as you may recall if you’ve been to FaffCon, is a terrific, positive ball of happy, voiceover gladness.

Trevor Johns is awesome. Jill Perry said that and it is so.

Trevor had time and said for me to come on over.

Trevor works with Twisted Wave on an Apple computer…just like home.

Session was recorded and edited in record time. We even changed microphones…awesome!

So grateful for Trevor, Jill and Lance. Thanks for helping me out. You all know you have voiceover studio coverage in Raleigh when you need it.

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Oh Canada. Today you lost a great one.

In the 8+ years that I have been friends with Pat Sweeney, he had become one of those rare fellows of whom I only heard positive, kind words said.

Marking his passing from Cancer this morning, those kind words are being reiterated and certainly shouted from the roof tops. As they should.

Family was first and foremost to Pat, as he would often speak of his wife and sons. They were his everything.

But second, I think, was his love of the voiceover industry and of the community that Patrick Sweeney helped foster in Toronto and pretty much everywhere else he went.

Before I moved to Raleigh, NC, I lived most of my life in Buffalo, NY, nearby to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where Pat and his family live. My affinity for Canada is well known (my Grandmother was born there and I spent my summers in Fort Erie, Ontario for decades). So I was especially happy to hear many years ago that a pair of my voiceover friends had gotten together in Toronto to create a local Voiceover Meetup Group called VO in TO.

One of the group’s founders was female voice talent Jodi Krangle. The other (and to hear Jodi tell it, a driving force behind the group) was Pat Sweeney.

To watch Pat navigate the room at a VO in TO meetup was a thing of beauty. If you didn’t know Pat before you walked through the door, you would know him by the time you left. And he would introduce you to one or two other people there who he thought you should know, so you could have someone to say hi to at the next meeting. Pat was a wonderful community builder.

Another voiceover group where we shared many happy times together was at an annual event called FaffCon. This is a wonderful group of talents from all over the world who would come together to share best practices in a very inclusive and welcoming format. It was an event tailor made for Pat, who certainly learned a great deal from his fellow voice talents but possibly shared even more, especially in one on one conversations. Pat’s supportive and encouraging spirit, attitude and actions positively impacted more people than he may have ever realized.

All of this ignores when Pat and I would chat about his visits to Buffalo or mine to TO. Or when we worked together as part of a voiceover marketing collective called MVO: The Voice-Over Guys. Or when he would commiserate with me on the phone about my (usually losing) Buffalo sports teams.

You always left a conversation with Pat feeling better.

All of this kindness and help from Pat made it so challenging for us (his VO pals) when Pat got sick and we couldn’t help the guy who had always helped us. There wasn’t much we could do but support and pray for Pat and his family.

Hard as we’d pray, it never felt like enough of a repayment for a gentleman who so positively impacted so many people. We are deeply sorry for his family’s loss but are grateful for their many family memories and for Pat’s final peace.

Me? I’m selfish. I will miss my friend.

Eternal rest grant to your servant Patrick, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Tags: buffalo, requiescat in pace, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Faffcon has given me many things professionally over the years but probably one of the best things it did was introduce me to Pandora.

Pandora — as the best music and media service around — is known by just about everybody. But not everybody knows about the exceptional talents that manage Team Audio.

These talented women and men have produced (and continue to produce) some outstanding advertising. I am thrilled that I have been a VERY small part of some of their great audio branding.

Well this week, I got to see their HQ/home in Oakland and what an amazing place it is.

You would expect a super creative company to work in a super creative environment and that is especially true at Pandora. If all offices created workspaces as cool as this…people would be a lot happier at work.

The best part of course, were the people of Team Audio, many of whom I’ve been proudly working with virtually for many years on many spots.

They are each nice, cool and uniquely creative. I’m so honored and glad we got to spend time together. A great company with great people….which is what makes it a great company. Thanks to everyone at Pandora!

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Voice Talent and Admix Broadcast Service Owner Charlie Cooper with Voiceover Talents Peter K. O’Connell & Amie Breedlove in Charleston, WV

Traveling is not as exciting as people who don’t travel think it is.

But if you are a traveler and you’re on planes as much as I am…you learn the tricks that save you time and aggravation.

One of my tricks is to try and get together with people I know in the city I am traveling to…for a couple of reasons.

It gives you something to look forward to when you visit a city where you otherwise would not know a soul.

From a voiceover perspective, it also gives you insights and introductions to recording studios that are good to record at (as opposed to studios that are….not so much).

I’ve been heading over to Charleston, WV and the surrounding areas for years now and fortunately sometime ago I connected with voice talent Amie Breedlove. She introduced me to Admix Broadcast Recording Studio owner and voice talent Charlie Cooper. We all became fast friends.

So it was again this week that we all got together to solve the world’s voiceover problems. We handled some world problems too but those, as you can imagine, were pretty simple to solve compared to the complexities of script interpretation and microphone positioning.

If you get a chance to work with either of these two fine, talented folks (where ever you are in the world) I hope you will do so…very worthwhile and very fun. Plus Amie’s got a new Jaguar (see the picture)!!!!!

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The February 2018 Portland Voiceover Meet-Up included Clockwise: Cindy McGean, Doug Rank, Peter K. O’Connell, Kim Fuller, Roberta Solomon, Kevin Cooke, Dan Nachtrab, Ulf Bjorklund, Emma Miles, Jen Gosnell, Sam A. Mowry. — with Cindy McGean and Emma Miles.

Flying to Oregon for the first time was a pretty great way to kickoff February as I am now down to only 12 states I have not stayed overnight in.

Even better was the fact that the Portland Voiceover Meet-up was getting together while I was there and they very graciously included me in the event.

Voice actors and spouses Kim Fuller and Ulf Bjorklund put together this meeting to celebrate Ulf’s birthday!

Of course getting to sit next to and visit with pal Bruce Miles at dinner was swell (he’s not in the picture because he took the picture) as was visiting with Dan Nachtrab (formerly of THE Dayton, Ohio). Jen Gosnell was there as was Sam Mowry who I feel like I’ve known for a decade or more but whom I really only knew virtually via the VO-BB.com.

Roberta Solomon I had also never met – she told some great Dan Hurst stories because they used to compete in Kansas City radio (but are great pals). Kevin Cooke I had also not met – a nice guy! But chatting with shy, reserved, almost quiet to a fault Emma Miles (Mrs. Bruce….and she’s actually about as shy and reserved as I am…thus not much) was a super treat.

I was really very, very pleased to be included in the evening. Equally, I was pleased to also grab a meal with my friend Nikki Lu Lowe – lots of marketing talk and laughs.

Great people, great trip.

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It’s always nice when people come to visit me, especially since I visit so many folks all year.

But having a native BUFFALONIAN come visit – one that works in voiceover – well that just doesn’t happen very often.

So it was a very nice treat to get to have lunch demo producing supah-staaaah Eric Romanowski.

Eric is the proud owner of hot voiceover demo shop Ear Blowing Audio. He was driving through Durham, NC (about a 1/2 hour away from my studio) coming from his studio in Virginia Beach, VA, on his way to Charlotte, NC. He is presenting at the Voxy Summit, a voiceover conference for women.

We talked about most things VO, like demo producers who aren’t really demo producers (Eric is the real deal) and work-life balance (which is tough sometimes working from home) but the conversation really got going when we started reminiscing about Buffalo and, of course sports.

I’ve been gone from Buffalo almost two years but Eric left about twelve years ago. And while he’s followed the Bills somewhat, he has totally lost touch with the Sabres.

I explained to him in great detail why that was completely unacceptable. Somewhere in my rant, he escaped and I assume he made it down to Charlotte. 😉

It was great to see him. If you need a great demo, give him a call. But make it quick, cause he’s booked out for at least 45 days with the demo production work he has right now.

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