 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop, and we are at V.O. North where we have an actual audience everybody applaud You and we want to have your questions So if you got questions get them in your mind and then raise your hand when we tell you to and We will get to those questions. It's right. We will yeah. All right. Are we ready here? It's time for voiceover body shop right now Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect Jmc demos when quality matters The oh heroes calm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites calm where your voice actor website shouldn't be a pain in the butt Voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success and by world voices the industry association of Freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George My hair is fantastic I'm Dan Leonard, and I'm George Woodham, and this is voiceover body shop or V.O. Oh Right well, we are here at V.O. North at the fabulous Pantages Hotel in Toronto, Ontario Yeah, I'm trying to get that right Toronto. Yeah, is that close or is that going too far the other way? Toronto Toronto. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm sort of from around here. So So we've got a lot of people been asking us questions out in the hallway, so we figure Why not just have everybody ask us questions on the show and then we can do tech talk Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. All right. That's what we want to hear so You know, we're here, you know to help you with your home voiceover studio Which is more than just trying to figure out how to use those rubber bands on your shock mount and get it remounted Which can be a real problem. Do you think Neumann will ever upgrade from hair hair elastics to something better? Calling you out Neumann We can hope but we've been having a great time here so far. We've seen some people we haven't seen in eons and meeting some new people and That's the the the the pandemic has not been good on social relationships I mean, we all know what we look like perfectly on zoom. Yeah and stuff, but It's it's kind of tough to Reassimilate. Yeah, I mean, it's you know, there's significant hug debt Yeah There's also the awkward moment of like are you are you actually still are you okay with hugging now? Or are you still yeah the hugging thing that also is a little bit of a weird weird awkward moment Yeah, but we're here in Toronto and Toronto's a it's I've been following the Toronto scene for a long time since I'm originally from Buffalo and the Toronto's like their neighbor just up across I just yell and they can hear us here, but But the Toronto market's interesting a lot of people were this was a big production hub And so a lot of people were used to just oh I go into the studio where you know where CBC is or CTV or whatever whatever the other networks and recording studios that were here some big post-production studios and It's interesting to note that When we started doing it online and people started having home studios It seemed that Canada was a little bit behind the rest of us until of course they started watching our show So I helped help them catch up maybe it did I mean we're not trying to take all the credit But I'm hoping it helped. I was a lot of other countries get on board with Australia too Australia was not I mean because I do the show now with some Australians and they're saying how home studios were Definitely not a thing and not taken seriously at all right, so they were even farther behind really yeah But now that we've been you know, there's been VO north and people have been joining world voices and going to all the other Conferences they perhaps caught up with home studios At least they have home studios now whether they know how to operate their home studio is another question And that's why we're here. We're here to make sure that people understand how and It's very important to make sure that you have professionals help you which is what George and I do we tried to do it's it's it's our it's our you know one of our main things Yeah, I'm a full-time voice actor George is a full-time engineer and But you can work with us you can actually Call us or find us on the internet and work with us personally And let's see if I can figure out how to do this unless you know how to do it Let's see here Where where is the the the? We don't have our TD are yeah, we don't have our producer. Yeah, we don't have we don't have Sue So we've been leaning on Sue's Sue's capable hands and shoulders for a long time to run a lot of little Elements of the show. Maybe it's banners. Yeah, I think it is so for they want to work with you. Where do they go? They go to There it is nicely done George the dot tech That's my home on the web for tech support and there's a lot of information on there blog posts links to all the social media I'm on that all the information But if you just want to get down to it just book a 30 minute support session over there and get right to the Meet in the matter. We'll get a lot done Very very rapidly in a 30 minute session So that's where I recommend most of you get started with me and Dan provide services himself over at voiceoverstudio.com there it is there it is and you know, so it's really important that you work with the professional and To get the sound because every voice is different every room is different and It's important to make sure a professional hears it and determines that It sounds the way it's supposed to sound and you've got whistle whistle what it's supposed to sound like Yeah, that's very that's a thing We we really encourage people to at the very least get a sound check or get a specimen collection cup sample over to Dan Yeah, to just make sure that you know, we can can help confirm that the audio you're sending out It sounds like it's supposed to sound like that's really important for a lot of you Maybe we're getting started and don't already have mentorship or a network But a lot of folks here and I'm looking at you in the audience are here because and a lot of you have that Which is fantastic. The best thing to do is share your audio with your Trusted colleagues in voiceover that do it every day as well And they'll give you a very fresh ear of your audio if you can't get a hold of me or Dan. That's right so What we figured we do is we would have people ask questions because there were a lot of people say Yeah, I have questions for you, but they're out there drinking coffee or whatever it is that goes on all there Sure, but which is where all the fun is at most conferences by the way But oh, I've got to take that down There we go. No, right. Yeah. I'll go back to here Yeah, we have the door shut because it's loud but down the doors are shut so no one else is gonna come in That's right. It's a double-edged sword. Yeah, it's a problem, but but we're working on it Yeah, this is the problem with doing things remotely which we've done many times We just haven't done it for a long time. That's right. This is our first true remote in quite a long time Yeah, I mean we used to do it from a lot of different conferences and we had it down Of course, you would bring a suitcase full of all sorts of crap. Well, I'll tell you what we're in Canada, right? All right, what does every Canadian seem to be complaining about since I've been here? Internet hmm Internet up here is not as plentiful and costly and We found that out pretty quickly and we've been learning to adapt Once we got on the right Wi-Fi network and got the right credentials for the right, you know access Things started to pop and now we're really able to be productive But that's one of the things I hear I hear having mobile data here and things like that can be quite costly Compared to stateside. So we've just been rolling with it, right? But we've still been having a good time. Absolutely. There's been some really good sessions and Yeah, well That that'll do it. So perhaps we should open the floor to questions. Well, yeah, that's what we're here for That's right. I mean, I don't I don't have a whole lot of tech news But I mean I would rather get right into it and if we exhaust The source of your knowledge of your of your energy and your questions then maybe I can we can petrificate more But let's let's really get right to oh questions. I there's one already over there So what we're gonna do is we do actually have a camera over here. It's small It's an iPhone, but if you're willing to appear on camera Let's have you pop over next to Kim where Kim's purse is and you'll be on frame and That is this is your microphone Because we only have two mic channels, right? And let's see if we can point that in his general direction So, all right Dan you're gonna have to share mics. Okay. What's your question? All right, Matt Silver long-time listener first time caller Hey, Matt. Thanks for calling it. All right. So on the topic of the Internet I was hope I had a home networking question for you And I was wondering if you have thoughts on power line Ethernet Yeah Yes, it's efficient and is it equivalent to just running a long ethernet cable through your house? I found that it's rarely equivalent in speed And it's and many times it's even slower than the Wi-Fi network So it's often a pretty big compromise. It's it's a trade-off because It's more stable than Wi-Fi, which it's so weird like how could it be slower? But still better, but it just it's because it's wired. It's still more consistent. It's not subjected to Wireless nests wireless noise, right? however, like if you live in a if you don't live in a 70-story building in the middle of the city where there's if you turn on your Wi-Fi and there's like an Endless list of Wi-Fi networks. Your Wi-Fi is gonna suck Guaranteed it's gonna be an hell and that's when you really got to make the extra effort to do these kinds of things running Cabling and using these adapters and stuff if you're more in a rural area And there's only maybe two or three Wi-Fi networks your Wi-Fi is probably gonna be Dead stable because it's not fighting Tons of other Wi-Fi networks, so it kind of depends like I wouldn't normally say use Wi-Fi only But I've got plenty of clients that just still use Wi-Fi only and it's stable enough and it works perfectly fine So yeah, it does depend on where you are and how bad the Wi-Fi is in your area, you know, yeah Can I ask a follow-up? Yeah, go ahead. You may flash a follow-up. All right And so if you're working on say just standard source connect standard type of session are there minimums you're looking for in terms of up or down? Yeah, it's you want to have basically somewhere in the ballpark of like Two to three megabits up and down Which isn't that fast, right? But it's consistency, right? Although I've even seen it work on DSL Which usually only goes up to maybe 700 kilobits upload something like that like really slow, but it's just rock solids consistent as solid So, you know if you're using the lower quality settings on source connect like 96k or lower You can use even lower network bandwidth if you're going fast Yeah, best quality you probably need at least a meg up and down it still doesn't sound like much It's just that you want to guaranteed Absolutely non-wavering never dropping never interrupted not start trumped on by the kids playing games or what? You know, you just want that solid connection. That's really more important than anything But that's why again power ethernet is probably your winner for Absolute stability or just rolling out a big-ass cable if you don't use it every single day Just roll out the cable that and that is if you're wearing is up to code because I know there's still places in Toronto with two wire Oh, yeah, I won't what are listed. You see these things about Toronto real estate. Yeah, there's still places in the US with you What was just no ground? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. Thanks man. All right. Thank you Kim has a question So the first one is for me. So I just put a whole home Generator and my yeah, my country house and we got we finally got high-speed internet and I got this so We put a insulation underneath for reverberation in the outside But what can I do to? to sound Is to sound for not soundproof, but to make the minimum to minimize our of the Generator when it's gonna fire up my my country house generator now generators that that's a tough night Because they make a lot of noise. Yeah, and my my old landlord in Topanga in the canyon. He had 20 megawatt, but no sorry 20 kilowatts. That's what we got generator, right? Yeah, and He said yeah, if it kicked on at night, they couldn't sleep because it was right outside their bedroom window Oh, geez and they and they got these blankets that are for industrial soundproof sound damping Of machinery They're they're kind of silvery looking like a giant quill, but it's kind of silver-looking and You know he told me that he got these and I'm like don't don't count on it making a big difference But it did he said that he made a basically a curtain just a wall of these blankets between the generator and the house and It made it much much better. He said he was able to they were able to sleep and stuff Damp it down to get it go to go away completely not gonna happen But hopefully you can get it quiet enough That you would be able to continue recording. Are you also in an iso booth as well? Yeah, yeah, and the iso booth is on another floor Yeah, like this the generator just at the back of the house. Yeah, it's at the front of the house There's separation, but I just like it's a home, right? It's like a yeah Sounds a little bit like that. Yeah, you're getting a lot of power outages or that why you have the backup generator Yeah, exactly. I mean we're experimenting with possibly living in a living remotely And I just wanted to make sure that I still have I can still work. I would recommend getting a power wall Yeah, and so you guys buy those up here. It's a power wall. Well the main brand is Tesla. Yeah, it's a power They call it a power wall. It's a it's a wall-mounted power station that you charge yourself So you you charge it you can charge it on your own house power And then instead of being on a noisy generator, you're running on batteries Now it may not run for weeks. It might even run only for a few days But obviously it's silent. So you remember the old you have UPS battery backup You yeah unwrapped uninterruptive power supply those things you put under your desk to run your PC those things It's like that for your house Yeah It's called a power wall. Now, of course, there's other companies making them Tesla just did the most marketing but it's it's the same concept and That may be way more practical than trying to completely soundproof that really allowed generator the money You might spend on trying to do all that it may it might pay for a power at least most of the power wall So that's an alternate way to do it. Yeah, yeah, and solar power Which works well in Southern California. Maybe not so much in Montreal Yeah, yeah, and yeah, I mean the solar power is great But you still don't need it because you're you're gonna be charging off grid all the time And you're only gonna click out kick over to the power wall Know when you need it. Yeah, you know when from the power goes dead So it's just for yeah, it's an inter uninterrupted power supply Battery backup for your whole house is what it is. Yeah, what was the second question question is actually for for students that I coach Who are new to the industry and when they are ready to start putting their studio together? Like they don't necessarily have all of the money to be able to take care of sound chain and room at the same time Which is more important to make the initial investment. I think well We hit in our session today. It was like the environment is far more important. So You don't have to necessarily spend a lot of money on a vocal booth or anything, but you can certainly Cree if you can find a quiet room you can build a PVC booth with blankets George has his tri booth and There's there's a number of other other ways you could do that But you the environment is is most important because if you want to invest in technology Then you have to learn the technology and And that's an issue and that can be a real problem because that's a whole nother learning curve you're too busy be trying to be a voice actor and That's not what's happening. You're you're busy trying to engineer everything and then go back and and and try and fix it. So I would think that Finding a quiet place Okay Shelly has a question You've broken the rule of home of coming to a conference use your indoor voice Even if you're in a loud bar, you know, yeah, so for my students as well I want to you guys to kind of let them know how important Set in your level is Before you start recording. I think coming from you guys. Can you give them a little bit of a? History about why it's important to do that and That's gonna give a spiel and then I'm gonna give the new version. Okay, this is a new version. Well, we'll see Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a nice way of saying I might have a different opinion Okay, I have found that all software has a VU meter in it, you know a review the recording meter, you know Audacity has it twisted wave has it All of them at anything pros you have a view meter or a little LED lights that go up and down Right that just doesn't work well with Reaper because Reaper's just one color. Oh, yeah, they don't have the color Oh, no, it's just green Reaper. Yeah, I know that has advantages as it disadvantages. Here's the rule for setting your levels Always in the green always in the yellow Depending on the software or the interface you have like like a focus right has a little halo around it Always in the green always in the yellow Maybe going into orange an occasional flash of red That's proper level. If you're just green You're kind of lean Also, I'll say like if you're in the yellow you can kind of let it mellow So in the yellow let it mellow if you're in the green it's a little if you're always in the green It's a little lean, you know, so that's my little mnemonic if you're in the red. You're almost dead That's right. Was it was that your your spiel on that that well, that's my version of the same spiel Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna expound on a little bit, but I don't want to complicate the topic for your students So don't repeat what I'm about to say necessarily But the bottom line is we used to be Dan and I very much were like you need to be minus four minus six to minus four peaks Right, that was really kind of what we were saying is really best practice, right? But now we're recording almost everybody is recording in 24-bit resolution Now we have way way more dynamic range to play with which means now if we're recording on Average a much lower level if we are staying really mostly in the green The signal doesn't suffer the way it used to now we can we really can Normalize or add gain in post and we won't we won't compromise the quality of the audio And this is especially really important for video game character voice recording because they are super dynamic and And those producers will insist on 24-bit and they'll tell the the actor record with quite low levels Much lower than we would have normally said they say peaks around minus 18 or something like that It's very low like if you look at the wave you're gonna be like that's a pretty low level Until you are in the middle of you know, you have to do a death screen and how you're gonna be way up here So you want to be able to capture the whole the whole dynamic range So in other words always in the green always in the yellow with a flash into the orange or red But just like that. Yeah, and I think it's important to stress to maybe that you know Your levels you have to change your levels depending on what you're doing Don't just set it at one and leave it there because it's yeah my placement is going to change too It depends on the job and so always check your levels, right? You can you can it can work with placement but also What you can do with your interface is set two levels and mark them have two specific places This is animation. This is this is car spots. This is conversation and and keep it that way Think ahead before you do that. Yeah, I mean it's hard to have a lot of different levels It's hard to always micromanage your levels that's what engineers do all day But if you do have like two distinctly different presets that either in your mind You know where they are or you physically mark them with the grease pencil China marker what? Nail polish whatever it is You'll be able to much more quickly just recreate that same and another thing is repeatability of your gain setting is also important so If you just do it by meter and by ear the problem is if you have to do a pickup later You might be off a little bit and then they won't match to black marks on my yeah, so if you have a repeatable setting Hey come on in have a seat. Yeah, if you're Sit next to Kim if you have if you have that Distinctly marked setting where you know, it's gonna be next time Repeatability how far away from the mic you are the distance from the mic the gain setting all those things if they're very consistent Your life is so much easier when you have to pick up something a week later a month later a year later It's so much better, you know, and that's I can tangent on this all day But it's another reason why I don't like temp booths or well I just set up the mic in my closet and then I put it away when my wife It's how you're gonna be consistent and if you're always having a set up take down set up So these are those things that we cross over from being a beginner and just practicing to being a professional where you've got a Dedicated consistent set up that gives you consistent and predictable results, and that's what's really Yeah, yeah So that's talking about gain. Should we talk about how much noise is acceptable? Yeah, well, there's there's a standard noise floor that we we established with our rovo audio standards That's true. Yeah, which was we originally thought a minus 55 But I think we were probably thinking noise gating anything that would if we get your noise floor down to a Level where if you need to correct for it, it's very transparent Yeah, and the thing is about that number minus 55. What does that represent to you? What is minus 55 minus 55 is Where noise becomes perceptible versus imperceptible because generally that background noise is very low frequency Although sometimes it's you know how much not like yeah, it's 120 Hertz or something like that. Yeah, but then we decided maybe move it down to minus 60 And I think minus 60 is enough that if you if you do any correction with noise and noise reduction or something like that It's going to be a lot more transparent. How about are you measuring by? peak or Average or RMS when you're looking at that number I'm just twist away if you're looking at the top one number or at the bottom number on twist I'm I just run it look at the VU meter and see where it is and in a dead spot Oh, so you're looking at the peak meter like a lot of kids Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been going on RMS more lately As my measurement and I think it's because that's the ACX audio book way of measuring it. They do RMS Not to say that it's right But there's so few standards in this world and they've kind of by momentum sheer force That said we wanted to see it below minus 60 dB RMS So I've kind of adapted using that as my way of measuring that but the thing is about noise is noise isn't noise isn't noise some noise is some of its Some of its, you know rumbly some of it I've seen some really weird stuff some of its helicopters, you know So it's and that's the thing so just because you might your meters might say I don't know 40 and you're like oh, you're my you're at minus 40 you're going oh my gosh, this is not gonna work Oh, but did you know that that's all low frequency and if you add a simple high pass filter or low cut? They mean the same thing I can get you can drop that number very rapidly without actually ruining the you know The sound of your voice right so that's always the first place will look is a low cut or high pass Filter it could be on the mic like this is a road NTG for it actually has it has a high pass filter Probably on because right now we sound very very very high passed. Let me see Where's the buttons? Oh here it is Yeah, right now. It's right now. It's it's on Now it's off. Yeah So this mic has that built in some mics don't some audio interfaces have it many of them don't so you may end up Doing it in post or while you're editing. Yeah, but whatever it takes to get that Rumble out of there. It's gonna be really critical. Yeah, and that's generally where the most of it is and I find you just run a high pass filter That can get you under minus 60 in a hurry. I'm so like and you know I think men especially are a little worried like well I don't want to lose the very low end of my voice and I and I understand that We get a little bit in love with our other with our voices sometimes We want that resonance, but at the end of the day the producer who's mixing it an uncle Roy sitting over there He's worked on a lot of stuff You do you pump up the bottom end of the voice and make it rumble or do you roll it down more usually a little of both Depends, huh? When they send a sample high-pass filter first, but then if it sounds like we could really use a little more body I may boost it on a hundred but filter it at 80. Yeah But I'm here So Not if the high pass filters like at 80 The men aren't gonna really lose too too much. Some won't lose any and some will lose a little right depending on what some of these mics lately I don't know these are like even some of the 416s. It's like where's the bottom, huh? So I pump up a little at 100. Yeah, everybody's different. I call it like chest resonance. Yeah, or I just add a little bit I say fullness. Yeah. Yeah, same same basic idea. I just call it my voice Well, you're you're blessed. You just have a very well distributed voice in terms of frequency Exactly Exactly. All right. Anybody else have a question? Yeah. What Kim has another question. It's in the right seat another question Okay, so I have so it's not right in frame. Sorry Kim. We did the mic is directly in their frame of field of view Yeah, thank you I'm a job production So my question is about my My focus right which I've had forever and I have I want to I want to do an upgrade But I don't want to have something with too many bells and whistles and the reason that I want to do an upgrade is because It goes when I'm when I'm when I get a request to increase the input It goes it's like there's like it goes Increase increase increase. There's no like, you know, there's no it just kind of jumps. Which one which one do you have right now? It's a 2i4 2i4. Okay interesting. And then what Mike is it? It's a TLM 103. Yeah, okay. I don't understand why the Interface companies don't give us more gain. We're running it at three o'clock Yeah, and it's just barely and gets up past three or four on your little doll Then it goes crazy. It kind of ramps up rapidly at the very top. Yeah, the audience do that a lot Yeah, they were designed that way. Yeah, they said that was on purpose I don't know why it's some quality thing. But yeah, it's just made it really difficult to get that sweet spot of the game You know You know It'd be nice if they if they would that's the thing guys 99.9% of this gear isn't designed for us Yeah, it's designed for music production and We're always having to adapt this stuff to make it work for our drums are louder than your voice Drop it So it's yeah, no, it's it's it's a it's frustrating So you're looking at things with more gain The yeah, my the next one I've been recommending for someone that has a 2i2 a 2i4 is the SSL 2 Made by SSL It's to me the next it where do you go next? What's the next step the next increment without adding more complexity? That's without having a something like this thing. I have a revelator right here. It's great, but it's it's all software driven So it's a lot more It's a lot more complicated, right? So the T that SSL 2 is nice because They just put the money into the important stuff a better preamp a better headphone amp Better hardware. I think it's built kind of not it's built really nicely All the knobs are on the very top and very easy to see it's just very clear to easy to operate, right? I mean if it looks kind of like a really simple like a really really simple mix or like this big knobs But only four or five knobs on it doesn't have a this probably has 40 knobs this little thing right here You don't need that so it's it has the basics, but with better overall quality And that's the thing there's not much else out there in that ballpark in that in terms of giving you more quality, but not trying to Sell you millions of features Apollo That you don't need, you know, which is what you're gonna see a lot and a lot of gear is about more features Yeah, yeah, what else do you like I? Love the I love the Apollo, and I hate the Apollo all the same time if you're not technical It's a it's a hell of a right brain left brain battle to operate it sometimes Yeah, it has to be set up that's I set up hundreds of them I've set up hundreds of I know how to do it but people buy them all the time because I get recommended by another voice actor and then they Don't know what they're doing. They get it just barely working, and then they never really take advantage of So many features it has Well, that's that's what he's for I'm still not gonna recommend it most the time unless there's a very particular need for it now There's the new sentence Stuff like the mixer face and then my pro-pro-pro-pro 2 Which has a lot they've built extra game into it. Oh, you actually have one on there And it also has a limiter Yeah, it's that's a that's a nice nice little feature But we're using this right now to do the show yeah mixer face and it's this is the pork castor So this is like the the next the next mixer face. Yeah, it also has an inbuilt an inbuilt recording feature So sorry guys, that's work. We're Michael cable length challenge This has a built-in recorder as well So it acts as a nice backup recorder for whatever you're doing. So if you're doing really long directed sessions two hour long Phone patches and you never you never save and you never ever want to lose anything having something internally recording as a backup It's pretty sweet And this has the sound quality I would say of the SSL Combined with that recorder and then combined obviously with a portability. Yeah, that's a pretty nice one Not cheap. It's not cheap. It's in a five to five to six hundred dollar range, right? Like That was like three three fifty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's just a single mic channel. Yeah, this is called a pork castor This was like this was their answer to People that do a lot of podcasting and live streaming So it's got a few extra bells and whistles you may not need but it does have a limiter Which is really nice to have it's got a high-pass filter. It's got the built-in recorder I told you about it runs entirely on batteries. So it'll work with iPhones and iPads And it's got pristine sound quality I mean, you're not gonna really hear the quality here today because we have too much noise in the room But the quality is stellar the sound quality the pre-empts and it has a lot of gain And on that now we're gonna take a quick break. Oh, is the time already? It's that time already. It is alright So we'll be right back with more questions. So if you got questions, come on up And we'll be happy to answer them here on voiceover body shop. Do not go away This is Bill Radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem VOBS it's time for me to lean in and do a source connect spot Source connect which is made by source elements and actually while we're here via north They're actually a sponsor of via north as well and I got to meet I'm gonna say isn't I think it's Russ Russ Gildiard. Is it Russ? Yes. Thank you for remembering his name. I got to meet Russ from source elements and Super knowledgeable gentleman who's from Toronto. He's been a recording engineer here forever and Obviously a really great addition to the team, you know over there providing tech support and set up certain setup assistance things like that but Source connect is the tool that is predominantly being used now for I would call the best paying work in voiceover Most of right. I mean if it's on source connect, you already know the budgets at a certain bar, right? Because that means they're hiring a proper recording engineer to record the session. There's gonna be somebody directing It's gonna be run like Commercial recording session should be run right now and most agents are now Saying you must have the paid version of source connect to get work, right? Which is by the way, the paid version is standard called source connect standard. There is a pro version Voice actors really don't need to make that much bigger investment standard is absolutely really what you need to use And it's what's expected for you to have you can buy it outright and have it for for life or you can do the subscription and Depending on your use case One it might be better for you if you like having the most up-to-date and on-demand support at all times that you can hire or Not hire but get for free. You might want the subscription So anyway, check out source elements over at source that source that's elements calm And you can get a free trial and get started with it right away We'll be right back to wrap it up right after this. You know, I used to live in Buffalo, New York But now I'm in sunny Southern, California But no matter where you are when you need equipment strictly for voiceover There's only one place to go and that's voiceover essentials comm and right now is the time to get with Harlan Hogan Signature series V01 a voice over microphone They also have the fabulous centrance mic board Pro 2 with limiter in stock In fact, it's the only version they sell now a limiter is a must-have Especially when recording oneself with no engineer to ride game for you. By the way, it's the most amazing limiter They've encountered it's impossible to detect and it's incredibly quiet And they've upgraded the port-a-booth pro quick script LED light now It has two goose necks all the better to read your script Go on over to voiceover essentials right now to get these great voiceover essential products Well, hello there, I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice denouncer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat Were you this is virgin radio? Well, okay. We're not that innocent There's jeans for wearing and there's jeans for working Dickies cuz I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values a leader for California and a voice for America It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smartphone, but it's so much more It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song It's the end of the road for rent When hope is lost the I8 from BMW Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's J. Michael Collins Bet you think I'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email It's J. Michael at JMC voiceover.com now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute. We'll get back to the show This is Arianna Ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Whidham VOBS.TV And we're back. I could take that camera out We can remove the audience cam So, yeah, so we are what we want to do now is we got to do a little interview with Trevor, right? Yeah, yeah from Bariclaw Studios, and this is a fascinating thing. He's it's hard to get a Vocal booths here in Canada. Well, anything made in the US forget. Yeah, it's it's very difficult It's much and much increased. So he's he's an indigenous Canadian citizen He started doing voiceover a musician and He decided to start his own vocal booths and he's building them now and he's doing very well with them. So Let's take a look at What he's doing with his vocal booths. All right. We're here at Vio Norris and we're talking with Trevor McKay and He is the owner of Bear Cabe Studios. What a great name for vocal booth. What's the origin of of your company? Well, it came out of like Just necessity of a Paris Sound Friendship Center. They were looking to build a recording studio within their building They couldn't build within the existing wall So they asked me if if I could build a room within a room, right? And so I said hey, I'll give it a go, you know, and you had no experience at building No, no, no, but back in 2015. I went to school at recording arts of Canada for music production So and I've been a musician lifetime musician So I knew a thing or two about like, you know sound, you know reduction and whatnot. So Yeah, so when I got into it. Yeah, it just I started falling into place like, you know, like I I Went through several designs at first and finally landed back on this one and then yeah, and then like So the name the name came out of Well, of course, I'm native and I wanted to kind of reflect my heritage. So One day I'm thinking like, you know, I literally I'm on a treadmill. I do my best thinking when I'm like jogging, right? Yeah, yeah Inspiration came to you Yeah, so I'm jogging. I'm thinking, okay, what needs a quiet place like, you know, and I'm thinking like, you know Wolves and this I was like, no, no, like I got it I was like a bear was a bear do it hibernates. Where's it hibernate? It needs a quiet place a bear cave, right? And I went bear cave silent boots And yeah, I called up to Andrea and I said Andrea, I got the name as she came down She's an artist so she came up with the paw and everything and great What goes into the design of one of these things for you? Well It's made out of one inch MDF that the single wall is made out of one inch MDF Then we have the inserts. This is the double wall inserts in here. Okay. That's what those Yeah, and they're made out of three-quarter inch MDF with three-quarter inch sonopan and everything's wrapped with this like felt material And oh, yeah, and we got the ventilation system on the side There's a it does a slider on it so it could like, you know, give more air or you know And it takes a while to you have to try things and until you find the right combination to do it Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly when I first started like I was literally the double wall was just the three-quarter inch MDF and that really wasn't reducing sound So I started doing research and I found a lot of other the other companies were using foam and behind there So I went, hey, let me try foam, but of course we all know it foam doesn't reduce sound No, no, it's for preventing sound reflection. I'm gonna put soundproofing foam in my studio Exactly and then one day I'm like walking through a home depot and And a gentleman pulls me aside. He's like, hey, can I ask you a question? What are you doing? I tell him what I do and he's like, I got the product for you He's like, have you ever heard of sonopan? I hadn't you know, that was the first time home depot was really taken on this product And so I walked over he showed me what it was. He had a little box made up You got a speaker in there and I went kidding. This is what I've been looking for So now that's what we do we put the sonopan on in behind and yeah, it's yeah, we get like incredible reduction in sound And if you can keep it really tight, I like you've got these bolts. Oh, yeah. Yeah, make sure that it's really tight Okay, and the roof is the same material. Yeah, yeah with it Is sonopan in there also and there's to cover it over here is a quarter-inch MDF so it's probably like Including the felt and what nuts about two and inch two and a half inch like thick roof, right? So yeah People need to understand if you're in a right a regular house where you've got all those types of noises If you can reduce the outside noise by 10 to 15 DB, which something like this will do it makes a home studio Totally doable. Oh, definitely. Yeah, we've had people like right beside like The 401 highway literally the windows right there and the traffic on the 401 doesn't actually move. Oh, yeah Yeah, well, it's all the honking going right Interesting and the floor and how do you do you have it on wheels? No, no, but but we could there we have installed castor wheels on them if you need it Right, it would be a little bit mobile But yeah, the floor is basically the roof without the sonopan Yeah, yeah, so it's it's pretty lightweight the roof the floor is but the roof it's you definitely need, you know a couple of guys with a Little bit of muscle and what about the door? The door is this I actually made it It's an inch and a half thick Yeah, uh, right off the bat. I made an inch and a half thick plus with the, uh, you know the bean wrap You know makes about an inch and three quarters And the reason why I did it was because I didn't want to get into the double wall Doors, so I figured why not make it thick enough right off the bat and no matter what So, you know, you don't have to go like kind of, you know, add an extra screw and end up this and that so Yeah, so that's how I constructed that and and then also like, you know, I put on the backing here Uh, just so, you know, it the sound can't really travel in and out and I got like, you know, the Gaskets here, you know, like uh the block of sound from the cracks And that was actually like you said with trial and error, right that that came from a A voiceover artist also, right? I was in his house and this is sort of near the beginning too Maybe a year and a half ago or so and I had the door closed and he was like, you know, it's like I can still hear Noisily he's like, uh, watch let me put let me put my stereo in there and he put a stereo And he's like travel your ear from here and when I went I could hear it like And it went away and I'm like, oh, okay. He's like, yeah, what if you put a gasket in there? Well, yeah, you've got a door has to be tight. This is like one of the most essential parts The door doesn't work. The rest of it is just, you know, a closet. Yeah, exactly So now, you know, like I said, you know, it's been trial and error to get it to this point And you know, I'm super happy with it now and like we've been getting like great great feedback So it's it's been an amazing journey so far. Yeah price point on these Well, they range it depends from like, uh You know, they're smallest booth four by fours, but it could go from like 4,000 to about 9,500 that that's for one of this model here. This is a four by six Thanks so much for coming with us. Oh, thank you. It's a very nice product And that's what people need if they're in a noisy neighborhood You're still watching VOBS Hey there, I'm David H. Lawrence the 17th and with my company VO heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent We guide voiceover actors along their journey and you may be watching VOBS here And not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching You may not even have started yet And we actually specialize in helping you do just that. So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on VOBS and going I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know, but I really want to do this I'd really like to help you Please go to voheroes.com Slash start that's a voheroes.com slash start and you can take our getting started in voiceover class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again, voheroes.com slash start That's voheroes.com slash start In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites.com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites.com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites.com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites.com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra.com Whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports It's all here at voiceover extra.com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Yeah, hi, this is Carlos. I was rocking the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop All right. Well, that's gonna wrap it up from v. O. North. We came all this way You know of course I have to talk about my my booboo. Oh, yeah, it's still there It's it's always gonna be there for a while No, I'm opening the trunk of my wife's car to throw all the suitcases in the yesterday morning Very very early in the morning like five in the morning in the dark in in the dark And I turn and the catch doesn't open all the way. It's like hanging it. Well, it's hanging it right about that And I turned right in my bam cheese Oh, fortunately, as you can see, it's not that bad the swelling went down. Yeah, I have a half of frankenstein forehead And he's the best way to describe it. Well, it was nice of you to pick me up and take me to the airport Well, it's it's it's always a pleasure to hang out with you and travel with you and do our show Wherever it is, we do whatever it is. We do the show right we make it happen Yeah, but we'd like to thank the folks at vio north for having us here except that This is the last vio north. That's the rumor. This is the last vio north. That's what we're hearing right, so we're uh, We're we're just thrilled that they had us here and uh, you know, I came you know to do v obs representing world voices world dash forces dot org and So and we've had a good time so far. There's still a whole day tomorrow Yeah, there is there's a whole another day of events here and uh, and there's been great energy This is the first event many of these folks, especially up here have been able to attend Um, it's not the first of the year But there's first for for for for canada, I believe and and they're just so excited to Be physically in the same place. In fact, that's why we're in an empty room now because they all went to some dinner Everybody's getting dolled up to go to a mixer. That's happening at another location So we're just going to pack up and go. Yeah, we don't need to get dolled up. I mean, I'm already wearing the peps Possibly a shirt I could be wearing. Yeah Actually, I'm wearing my patsweeney shirt. That is really cool. Yeah, I'm actually going to change shirts into a button down Hawaiian shirt. Oh, then we'll match. Yeah. Yeah, but if patsweeney who unfortunately has passed away Just a super nice guy who was from this area. He was from Toronto Which is why I'm wearing the patsweeney shirt. Yeah, I get a package one morning And it's like, what's this and there's a beautiful this shirt is in there and it's just a note from him saying Thought of you when I saw this shirt I thought you'd like it and that's the kind of guy he was Absolutely, and we we miss him in the he was so well loved that at Wovo con Who made the stickers? I was uh, the dustin dustin made it. No, yeah If you got a pat in the back from from from pat It was it meant somebody gave you a good piece of advice and so we made these stickers and say A pat on the back because a picture of pat it said pat on the back And and you would you everybody would maybe we had a roll of them and you would just hang hand them out Whenever you got great advice from somebody and that symbolized who pat was. Yeah So anyway, well, we don't have to do with the donors. Everybody knows who they are, right? You know, I think so, right? We have a great list of donors who have been supporting this show In subscription form. Um, that's why you hear the same names mostly every week However, if you want to be on that list of names, you should just subscribe down below you can donate you can just do Excuse me a one time or an ongoing subscription. It's up to you, but you'll hear your name Written on red on the show, right? And if you have any questions I have to I have to turn off this one Why is that still on there if you have a question for us you can actually write to us at The guys at vobs.tv. Yeah, and that will get put you higher up in the queue Yeah, we get to those emails first and then we get to the chat room questions right after that right and We love your questions. That is the fuel that fires our engine is having your questions Absolutely And if you want to work with george, all you have to do is go over to George the dot tech and that's where my whole world of tech support knowledge base FAQ videos and everything else and if you want to work with then you go to There it is home voiceover studio calm Okay, wait, so that's going to do it for us from here in toronto, ontario Thanks for joining us and we got lots more cool stuff coming up on voiceover body shops. So To it in we will you're going to know we're there on facebook live We're on youtube live and of course our podcast So if you're listening to our podcast, you're going to go. Oh cool. There's actually visuals to this Anyway, you know, this is not an easy business voiceover requires a lot of training and good equipment And the right sound but the bottom line is if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan Leonard and i'm george with them and this is voiceover body shop or vo B s have a great week everybody