AJ Fidalgo

Hi there! I'm AJ Fidalgo (he/him), a 40-something Philadelphia-area amateur voice actor. I predominantly work in the indie audio drama podcast realm, but if you've got something else in mind, I'll entertain it.This website exists primarily so that creators and producers -- and maybe even audio drama fans? -- can find out a bit more about me as a voice actor, hear demos, check out my credits and recent & upcoming appearances, and contact me. I'm also documenting my adventures in slowly building a new recording booth from scratch!ABOUT MEMy journey to audio drama voice acting is a bit of a meander. It started with high school theater way back in the '90s. After graduation I left acting behind, but I always intended to come back eventually.In the mid '00s, I discovered audio drama podcasts as a means to entertain myself during a tediously long commute to and from work. I started with old time radio rebroadcasts, and eventually discovered the Escape Artists network of anthologies. As I listened, some part of me kept thinking, "Hey, maybe I could do this?"In the early 2010s I left my job and moved a couple hundred miles away from home to go back to school for an advanced degree. Life just kind of moved on for me; I stopped following music, movies, podcasts...Eventually in the late 2010s, I came back to listening to audio drama podcasts, and eventually I found my way into AD fan spaces. Before long I was running fan communities on Reddit and Discord, as a way of giving back to the community. Through that, I ended up befriending a bunch of AD creators, and I got a good peek behind the curtain at the production side of things -- and it was extremely interesting!Cut to a few years ago. One of my creator friends needed a small role filled in an episode and invited me do it. I had no equipment, no experience, and no clue what I was doing. Seriously, I recorded it on my phone in a bathroom, because that seemed like a good idea at the time! Wow! Still, it was a fun experience and I quickly decided I wanted to do more.Since then, I've been steadily upgrading my equipment, knowledge, and experience. I may even be starting to have a clue, finally! In just a handful of years, I've had parts in dozens of AD episodes (65 credits on 23 different feeds, at last count, though some of those are repeats or trailers), playing a range of characters from mean to pathetic, noble to sinister, background to fore. I was even selected once as a finalist for the Audio Verse Awards! It's been one hell of a wild ride, and I'm still hanging on and growing!Outside the AD world, I keep extremely busy as a good husband, a great toddler dad, and a halfway-decent professionally-licensed arguer. Life never stops, although I really can't complain!

Here's a demo reel I made to give you a feel for the types of parts I can play:

If you want to hear more, Brady Flanagan put together this reel from my submissions to the 2024 Monologue Fest on his Voice Support Community (VSC) Discord server:

October 4, 2025

Oh hi, is this thing on?Last time we spoke, back in July, I said I was hoping to get my booth finished by end of summer. Well, summer got away from me, and weekend after weekend, if I wasn't off doing something with my family, I was too dead tired from juggling my job and my three-year-old to work on the booth.Today, that changed. We're hosting a kids' party next week, so I needed to get the lumber and stuff out of the garage. Naturally, I took this opportunity to invite a friend over and we got to working. And we made some good progress.First, we cut the wood. Using a Sawzall is a bit trickier than I expected. We had a hard time getting clean, precise cuts. But it turns out the cheap wooden boards I bought for the frame weren't that great of quality anyway, so the frames were never going to be precise. All good. As I mentioned previously, I cut eight 80 inch lengths for the vertical portion of the panels, then I cut the remaining boards into six 5ft and six 3ft boards for the cross beams.Given the low quality of the wood we were using, it was clear that my original plan of screwing one board to the other with long wood screws wasn't going to work. The wood was going to splinter, and the frames would be lopsided. So off we went to the hardware store to buy some metal brackets instead. We also needed some spray paint, so we picked that up as well.We spent the rest of the afternoon building up the frames, one by one. Putting together the frames actually took a lot more time than I expected. The first frame took forever as we tried to put everything together very carefully. "Measure once, cut twice," as the saying goes. We realized about 3/4 of the way through that first frame that we were never going to get these things exact, since the wood was so cheap and our cuts were so rough, so instead with frames two through four, we lined everything up as best we good and just bang-bang-bang, got it done. The frames are roughly the right size and shape for what I wanted, but I wouldn't build a house or anything load-bearing this way.Somewhere along the way I have given up on my plan to have this booth be collapsible. it should be relatively easy to dismantle if I move (hypothetically), but it doesn't need to fold up for space. I've abandoned the need for a spacer between two of the panels, and instead I built in a little cutout in the bottom corner of one of the panels, for wires to get in and out. The cutout is roughly 8 inches square (give or take a few inches, I eye-balled the thing), but it's big enough to get two hands through, but not an adult head. The plan is to leave that cutout free of paneling and insulation so it's just open to the exterior.It was getting dark by the time we finished the last frame, and it was past dinner time and I don't know if I mentioned this, but I'm middle aged and out of shape, so I called it a day at that point.I could have done this all myself, but having a friend help me saved me hours of time. I'm so glad I had help!Next up, I have to spray paint the frames. After that, I will attach the cloth siding (stapled on the inside of the panels to avoid exposed staples or cloth edging), then put in the insulation, and finally attach the MDF siding on the other side. I plan to attach the panels with door hinges, and use something -- perhaps eye hooks -- to keep them at right angles from each other. I also want to get rubber feet for the bottoms of the booth, and something else for the door panel so it can swing open easily. I'm probably also going to have to build a desk internally, and figure out some sort of solution for my mic arm(s).The interior space of the booth will be roughly 3'2" by 5'2" by 6'8", and the exterior footprint will be roughly 3'8" by 5'8" by 6'8". This thing will fit in the space where my current booth sits, though the footprint will be different... slightly narrower but much longer. This extra space will accommodate a desk, which currently juts out of my existing booth.I don't know when I'll be able to wrap this project up, it's taken much longer than I expected, but it's coming along at least.Oh, and one more thing to discuss: when I started this project, my hope was to get the whole thing in under $500. I could spend more, but I was hoping that when I finished, I'd have a guide for others to make their own booths on a not-exorbitant budget. Well, since then, the US economy has gotten... volatile... and prices are all over the place. You'd probably need $750 or $1000 to buy the stuff I have so far, and maybe that moots half the point of this project. So maybe now budget isn't really the driving force, but instead I'm just trying to get a really nice booth. Maybe.

So that's where I'm at for now. I'll post later with more updates. Questions? Comments? Feel free to contact me or hit me up on socials!

Cost So Far - $360.50
• $115 (17 yards of fabric at Joann, 50% off)
• $28 (14 8ft 1"x3" boards at $2/each)
• $55 (16 2'x4' MDF panels at a discounted price of $3.44/each)
• $96 (3 40sqft rolls of R-13 grade fiberglass insulation)
• $30 (discounted delivery from Home Depot)
• $31 (32 2in double-width inside corner brackets)
• $5.50 (2 cans white spray paint)

July 19, 2025

Hey there, long time no posting! Sorry for the silence, but I've been busy with life and I'm still trying to find a free weekend where I can borrow a friend and get started.I've been thinking about practicality and I decided that the booth will be 80 inches high (roughly 6 2/3 feet), and the footprint will be (about) 3 1/2 feet across and (about) 5 1/2 feet long (slightly more because of the added width of the vertical 1x4s, which will add 2 inches to breadth and width (but not to height).This width is the same as my current booth, with just enough space to get in and out of my chair, but making it slightly narrower (I wanted 4"x4" before) gives me a little extra front/back room to work with, which I'll need to fit a small desk in there. I'm still not sure how I'll load up my mics. I don't think my mic stand will fit in the booth with me. We'll see, if I have to pic up new mic arms, so be it!I hope I can have this done by end of summer. We'll see!

June 16, 2025

Things are happening finally!As mentioned earlier, I've been waiting on a coworker to lend me his Sawzall, and that has taken some time as he had to locate it, and then this happened, and that...Well, yesterday was Father's Day and my wonderful wife purchased a Sawzall for me, so I have it. it'll arrive sometime this week. Then I need to find a weekend where I can borrow a friend and together we'll do some measuring and cutting.

May 17, 2025

Everything's coming up Millhouse!I had some free time this weekend and wanted to make some progress on planning and building my booth, since things have been sitting for over a month. When we left off, I more or less knew what materials I needed, but I was trying to figure out the best way to get them to me.The plan has evolved somewhat over time but currently my intention is to build four 4' x 7' panels using 1"x3" boards, which would make up the four walls of the booth (one doubling as the door). (I'm going to make the panels slightly less than 4 feet across for reasons, but let's call it 4 for planning purposes.) Each panel would have MDF board on the outside face, and fabric stretched across on the inside face, with fiberglass insulation inside. I already have the fabric. What I've calculated I need for materials is:• 104 feet of 1"x3" boards
• 4 4'x7' MDF panels
• roughly 112 square feet of insulationHome Depot sells 8ft lengths of 1"x3" boards, for $2 each. At that length, I calculated that I needed 14 boards (8 for the length, 6 for the width), so that's $28.Home Depot also sells 4'x8' MDF panels, for $13 each. I need 4, so that's $52. Now unfortunately, my local Home Depot didn't have those 4'x8' panels, but they did have 2'x4' panels for $7 each. At that size I would need 16 panels, so that would be $112. Thankfully, the customer service person I dealt with (more on this later) was able to knock the price down to match the 4x8s, so I paid $55 altogether for the 2x4s.Home Depot sells fiberglass insulation in a variety of grades and lengths and prices. If I'm filling four 4x7 panels, I need 112 square feet worth of insulation. Since I'm just doing sound treatment for a booth and not worrying about heat retention or longevity, I settled on R-13 grade rolls (40 square feet per roll), which look to be their cheapest price at $32 each. I need 3 of these rolls, so that's $96.The hard part now is getting all of that stuff over to my place. I can carry the insulation rolls and the 2x4 MDF panels in my car, but I won't be able to transport 16 8-foot boards. So I went in hoping to rent a pickup truck. The rental price for an hour would have been about $35. But Home Depot was out of vehicles to rent when I went in. The rental manager suggested I have it all shipped, but I wasn't about to pay $80 to ship (what shipping would have cost me) when I can rent for $35. However, the rental manager was helpful and offered to knock $50 off the shipping cost, bringing it to $30. That's cheaper than what I'd pay for a rental truck, so heck yeah!All of this stuff is getting delivered to me sometime this week. I'm going on a trip with my family next week, so I won't have time this week to construct. But I can store everything in my garage until I am ready to build. I still need a Sawzall, but my coworker has offered to lend his to me, so that's covered. I'll also need screws and hinges and spraypaint, but I'll deal with that later.

May 3, 2025

I haven't forgotten about this project. April has been a busy month for me, and May will be even busier. I will continue planning and building when I have some free time!

April 12, 2025

So I headed over to the hardware store, as promised, to check out my options.The good news is that the 1x3s I want to get, in 8ft-lengths, are super cheap and I can get all I need (14) for less than $30. Wonderful! I did some back of envelope math and with 14 8ft-lengths I should be good on lumber. (math: 8x 7ft planks, 12x ~4ft planks, and maybe a few 6-8 inch planks for an experiment that may or may not work out for this project).The slightly troubling news is I could not find the MDT hardboard sheets I wanted to use. The website says they have plenty in stock, but all I was able to find were more expensive sheets that would drive my project cost way up.The bad news is that the rockwool or similar I planned to use for the panels' interior to help with sound absorption and treatment appears to be very expensive. I will have to price that out and see if I can source it from somewhere cheaper.As far as attaching the panels together, so far the best option I can find is door hinges. I can buy a multi-pack for $32, and that should be more than I need. I may want to explore other options, as hinges are quasi-permanent and I may want some kind of solution that is easy off easy on.The experiment I mentioned above with the 1x3s involves building in a spacer between two sets of two panels. The plan, as you know, is to build four panels and attach them together to act as the four walls to a booth (with one wall doubling as a door). The part that's giving me pause is getting wiring and boom arms and so on into the booth. I also want the booth to fold up and away, and with four panels hinged to fold in on each other, that won't work efficiently. The two end panels will fold in well, but then it won't be able to fold any further. However, what if instead of attaching the second and third panel together panel-hinge-panel, I instead attached them panel-hinge-spacer-hinge-panel. If I made the spacer wide enough (roughly 7 inches), there would be space for the two sets of two panels to fold into each other so that, when folded completely, the booth would have a footprint of 7'x4'x1' and could just sit in a corner, out of the way. Also, the gap those spacers build into the booth, while minorly mitigating the sound treatment, would allow me to run cables, boom arms, and so on, into the booth without having to make ports or holes in the process.

April 11, 2025

I think I'm heading over to the hardware store to look at options for connecting the four panels together. As I believe I have mentioned, I would like to connect the four panels in such a way that they can fold away when not in use. Not that I'd do that, personally, but if I'm going to design something like this I like to give it a versatile functionality.
I also want to see what they have as far as materials go, and maybe get some ideas on how I'm getting this all home when I actually buy it.I'll be borrowing a Sawzall, which saves me the trouble of buying one myself. I might need to procure a couple of sawhorses too. I have a staple gun and a hot glue gun, which should cover me for the fabric. I have some rockwool but need to get more, and I may need some spray paint (I'll need some for other purposes anyway, so might as well pick some up).

April 9, 2025

My friend, voice actor Pandora Beatrix, suggested that instead of surfacing the booth with cloth inside and outside, I use some sort of hard surface on the outside. She suggested dry wall, but I think it would be easier (and cheaper) to use MDF hardboard panels instead. If I switch to a hard surface exterior, I should have enough fabric and I'll probably cut at least $50-75 off my final cost, since I'd need to spend over $100 on the fabric but the hardboard would probably cost me $30-40 tops.I shared this blog on BlueSky, where there seemed to be some interest in following my progress. I have to stress, I'm making all of this up as I go, but I'm happy to share the experience in the interest of transparency and common progress. Whatever I end up with, if someone copies me and iterates on my ideas, they'll end up with something better. If they share that, we'll all be better off for it.

April 7, 2025

I'm working on building a new recording booth, and I am documenting it here in case others would like to follow along and learn what to do (or what not to do).First, a little history about my current booth. About a year or two ago, I made my current recording environment using an upcycled playpen frame that my daughter had outgrown, hanging old moving blankets my parents had lying around for the walls. It was a fun, low-cost (in my case, practically free) project, and if you need a recording booth on the cheap I highly recommend it.If you wanted to build a reliable, standalone cheapo booth like the one I currently use, you can buy a similar playpen, brand new, on your online marketplace of choice for as low as $45. Just make sure to get the XL (65" x 50") variety so you have enough length to frame out your booth. From there, you can get three heavy duty moving blankets for as low as $25. Zip ties to hang the blankets and you're good to go, $70 all in. I doubt you'll find a cheaper way to build a standalone, dedicated 7'x3.5'x3.5' recording booth.You don't really need detailed instructions because the construction is simple. The playpen comes with a metal frame with plastic joints, which you assemble and then stretch the fabric playpen overlay over for your kid. What I did was take the metal pipes and plastic joints, and reconfigured them to make a 7' x 3.5' frame. Four corner pieces on the bottom, four corner pieces at the top, and four connector pieces around the middle. I taped some bars together around the middle for structural support. I'll update this with more pics when I can, to illustrate.Once the frame was set up, I hung three blankets from the top with zipties. I set them up so that two blankets came together in the middle of one side, to make an entryway, and I folded up the third blanket for a double thick layer of blankets behind the mic (in front of me when sitting). The way the blankets hung, I could reach in a microphone boom arm or wires without worrying about angle or space. I'm going to miss that in the new booth, which will be more rigid in structure.

As for the new booth, the plan is to build out four 7' by 4' wooden frames (similar to stage frames) using 1x3 wooden planks, with fabric stretched over either side and rockwool insulation inside for sound treatment. Then I'd connect those four frames to make a four-sided structure. I am hoping to use hinges to connect, and I am hoping to figure out a way that this thing can fold up and out of the way for storage, even though I probably don't need that option myself.This project is probably going to cost me somewhere around $500. This is still a good deal cheaper than a professional booth, but it's much more expensive than my entry-level one above. I can afford it, some folks probably can't, and that's OK. The hope is I get better sound treatment for the extra money and effort. I recently switched to using a condenser mic as my main recording device, and it's a lot more sensitive to background noise, so I need a little extra oomph in my sound dampening to get the noise out.So far, I've mostly just been planning out how I'd do this, though I went out on impulse and picked up a bit of fabric last week for the frames, since Joann Fabric is going out of business and their fabric is half-off. However, I miscalculated (or rather didn't calculate at all... again it was an impulse move) how much fabric I'd need. I picked up 17 yards of fabric, thinking that was more than enough. Turns out I'll need something like 30 or 31 yards, all told. I'll have to go back for more.The other issue I have is getting the wood home. I can buy the wood I need in 12' planks and cut it down to size, that's the most cost effective way to buy, but unfortunately I don't have the means to transport the wood to my house. Cutting it down at the store is a nonstarter because I need 7' lengths, and I can't fit those in my car either. Paying for shipping would practically double the cost of the wood, which I'm not willing to do. I may have to pull a favor from a neighbor with a pickup truck. We'll see.

Here are some things that don't fit elsewhere on this site:• New Booth - I'm working on building a new recording booth for myself. I'm documenting the process on this website, for educational purposes.• AJ's Place - I have my own personal Discord server. It's a small, quiet place, but one could theoretically find me and some of my friends hanging out there, if one were so inclined.• Indie Audio Drama Creator Discord Server template - I have resurrected my old Discord server template for indie audio drama creators. Do you create and put out an indie audio drama? Do you want a Discord server for your fans? Do you not know how to do that? Look no further. I did (most of) the work for you. Totally free. This can easily be repurposed for other indie creators: visual artists, musicians, writers, whatever. And hey, if this helps you, let me know!• Voice Support Community (VSC) - You can also find me on this Discord server, created and run by my friend Brady Flanagan. It's much more active than my server, and the people there are very helpful to others wanting to get better at voice acting.• RQ PLEBS - Speaking of Discord servers, I co-founded an all-ages, inclusive, supportive server for fans of audio dramas (and in particular, Rusty Quill audio dramas), way back in 2021. I stepped down from my admin role in late 2024, but the server is still thriving with 2000+ members, many of whom are some flavor of neurodivergent and/or queer. It's a lovely, welcoming place if you like listening to audio drama.• Alhezar - In the first half of 2023, I participated in an online TTRPG writing exercise. Every day, I added a tiny bit to an undersea world of my own creation, for use as a setting in a roleplaying game. I shelved the project halfway through the year, but I'm proud of what I managed to make before then. Check it out!• My Portrait - I commissioned illustrator Juan Ochoa to create the beautiful portrait of me that I use as my profile pic on social media, and in the banner up top on this website. In truth, my hair is salt and pepper black, not fiery red, but Juan took some creative liberties and I'm not complaining. I've never looked so good; just ask my wife!• IMDB - Somehow, I have an IMDB page. I don't maintain it, so it only reflects a handful of my credits. If you want a more complete and accurate list of my credits, check out my Podchaser profile.

Whether you want to cast me for a new part or you just want to chat, I'd love to hear from you!

You could also hit me up on BlueSky, if that's more convenient. Or send me some stickers! PO Box 2, 08021.

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