Hydrus - Voice Contributor - English (AU)

About the Project

We're looking for native-level English (AU) speakers with professional voice recording experience to join the Hydrus Project.

The project consists of two scheduled recording sessions from their own home studio.

Because the recordings go straight into production, the audition validates two things equally: your voice and your recording environment. 

What You'll Do

• Audition with two 30 second samples using your home studio set up
• Once approved, you will complete two scheduled recording sessions of approximately 4 hours each
• Participate in natural conversation, prompted discussion, and scripted customer-service scenarios
• Record from your own home studio setup across both sessions

Your Recording Environment

Three things are required, and each is judged separately:

1. An external microphone: A separate, dedicated microphone is absolutely required — see below.
2. A dry room: Your voice should sound close and clear, with no echo or hollow, distant quality. Untreated rooms with bare walls, hard floors, and high ceilings usually fail. 
3. A quiet room: No HVAC hum, fans, traffic, appliances, or household noise during recording.

Minimum Required Gear

• Dynamic Mics (best for untreated rooms): Shure SM58, Shure MV7 / MV7+, RODE PodMic / PodMic USB, or similar.
• Condenser mic (great in a treated room): RODE NT-USB Mini, Blue Yeti / Yeti Orb, Blue Bluebird, Blue Baby Bottle, or similar.
• Room Treatment: Your recording space should produce studio-quality sound samples – isolation shields, sounds absorbing pads, etc… 

Immediately rejected: built-in laptop microphones, phone mics, AirPods, Samsung Buds, headphone-attached mics, headsets, and gaming headsets.

Technical Specification

You must be able to produce audio samples in the meeting the following specifications:

WAV format, 24-bit, 48 kHz, no compression. Free software such as Audacity can produce this. If you cannot export in this format, please do not apply — this level of technicality is required for this role.

Who We're Looking For

• Native-level English (AU) speaker
• A natural, authentic, friendly, conversational customer-service speaking style
• A dry, quiet home recording space and a professional microphone, as described above
• Good background, but not required: Podcasters, youtubers, streamers, recording artists, voice-over actors, etc – anyone who has experience recording audio in a high-quality home studio

Commitment & Compensation

• Estimated time: approximately 8 hours total across two scheduled sessions
• Compensation: $55.00 USD per hour