World-Voices wrestled with this issue from day one.
WoVO is not in the business of making subjective decisions about whether you are a good talent, can give a compelling promotional read, or can kill it on a commercial read.
But, there are some objective and measurable criteria that our crack WoVO audio engineering team CAN evaluate you on concerning your technical recording knowledge.
We’re not a certifying body (claiming that actually gets into some thorny legal issues). Similarly, we’re not endorsing or accrediting anyone. We’re not judging your talent, we’re qualifying your audio recording chops.
We’ve settled on granting a “Studio Approval” based on 25 multiple choice questions (open book), and submitting a recording from your studio using your audio chain without processing. Our team is Cliff Zellman, Dan Lenard, Roy Yokelson, and some others we can call in if we need to. I can think of no others who are as well prepared to evaluate the HOME STUDIO RECORDING environment than these three. Within days you should have your answer.
Let’s say you don’t quite pass muster. This is where the good stuff comes in! One of those gentlemen will actually contact you to go over the things they believe you didn’t quite make-the-grade…things like inadequate noise floor, bad plosives, or improperly addressing the mic. Either you get their passing grade, or they will HELP you get a passing grade…all around worth the $50 to be “approved”.
A caveat. You must be a professional-level World-Voices organization member first. Not a member? Apply at 
http://www.worldvo.org. Still an associate member? Take advantage of our mentoring program to be graduated to the pro ranks. We’ll help!
If you are a member, just go to the World-Voices Organization home page, log in, and click on the members drop-down menu. Then click on studio approval. Everything is done online. It doesn’t take that long, and if all goes well, we send you a nifty logo you can include in your promotional materials, and your email signature.
I’ll admit it’s taken me months to do this myself. I was afraid I wouldn’t know the answers. I was afraid my voice-track sample would be noisy. ‘Turns out none of that matters. You will learn, and grow in this process, and in the end have something to be proud of.
Whadya say?
CourVO
