 We've got lots of tech stuff to talk about because that's the other reason you guys come here is for tech stuff So stay tuned for that George's tech update a little bit of explanation about stuff some really good questions and more two men Twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voiceover recording technology and the desire to make recording easy for voice actors everywhere together in one place George Whidham the home studio engineer to the stars a Virginia Tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voiceover today Dan Leonard the home studio master a voice actor with over 30 years experience in Broadcasting and recording and a no-holds-barred myth-busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is together to bring you all the latest technology today's voiceover superstars and Leading the discussion on how to make the most of your voiceover business This is voiceover body shop Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements Remote connections made even easier Vio to go-go.com everything you need to be a successful voiceover artist J. Michael Collins demos award-winning demo production voice actor websites.com where your voiceover website won't be a pain in the butt and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and Now live from their super-secret multimedia studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are George Wittem and Dan Leonard And we're back and it's voiceover body shop We've flipped things around here a little bit and now we're gonna do the tech part Second I like it. I know I like it because I really love starting with the guest to get the energy up up in the studio for the guest Right, it's a lot. It's a lot of fun, right So we've got lots of stuff to talk about a couple of great questions from our audience Let's start off with your tech updates. What's what's up in the world of voiceover tech? Well, I mean the thing that's been, you know, the newest thing in our world really that's had any consequences the new computers from Apple and The the new Mac Mini is the one that I was really excited about well people are starting to buy them now and I'm finding out that it is legit. It works well It works well and there was a lot of concern about I'm seeing my notes aren't here So I'm just gonna wait. There's a lot of concern about the performance of the new Mac Mini as well as the new Mac book air because the Mac book air has Arguably pretty low-end specs You know the low at the Mac book air is like They say it's like a like a low-power chip. It's a very low-class level chip But I'm telling you even the Mac book air with its low-end spec. It's so Snappy and responsive that it's not gonna feel sluggish to you The people you are and the people are probably not gonna want to go run out and buy a Mac book air people who are trying to do a lot of 4k video editing, you know, you got a new action cam gopro 4k or I've been playing around with the Osmo pocket. Yeah, it's 4k. Yeah, and like the little thing it turns around It looks like a chicken head All those things you need a you need a bit more horsepower for doing that kind of work But for the vast majority of what you're doing, especially voiceover actors. These machines are all fantastic. They're snappy The Mac mini is a six core processor So that means that you can multitask like crazy You can have chrome with 25 tabs open going on you can have your your recording software going everything can be running Simultaneously, it's especially someone like you who loves to have all those tabs open I tend to be a bit of a power user and it handles all that stuff. No problem Again, the Mac mini is not a graphics powerhouse either like if you want the most All-round computer you're gonna be dabbling in YouTube. You want to be shooting 4k stuff Maybe that's something maybe you want to look at a Mac book pro or the iMac There's also the iMac pro that came out about a year ago That is like a crazy tier higher than almost anybody needs. I mean that thing is a monster I think the low-end iMac pro is 10 cores. Mm-hmm. You can get it up to 18 cores What do you need that's a computer and cores for crap loader processing power I mean if you're doing like models of global warming and yeah, exactly Yeah, if you're trying to Bitcoin Bitcoin mine, you know, maybe that's what you need all that for But we don't need that stuff Now if you get a Mac mini and you find that the the video performance on it ends up being a Weak point for you, which I don't think that's possible because the new Mac mini can drive two 4k monitors I mean if you got one 4k monitor, you're kicking butt if you got two you are a serious power user And it can drive them no problem, but it also can take an external e what they call an e GPU External graphics processor unit so imagine getting a video card that costs. Oh god I don't know three four hundred dollars right shoving it a little box and putting it next to your Mac and Then plugging your your computer your monitors into that because you want to now drive Four 4k monitors or something crazy like that You can do that with a Mac mini now You can plug external graphics into it and make it into a mega powerful machine in fact It's so powerful now that if you get the higher-end version It's better than the Mac Pro was that trash can one, you know that little the one it looks right looks like a trash can It's they're really quite amazing now There's been a lot of concern of course about Mojave, of course It's the new operating system every year we have a new one every year We tell you not to upgrade on over and over we do the same thing, but Mojave has been proven to be pretty darn Pain-free for the most part the only problem I've had so far personally with Mojave is installing a new installation of the Apollo system and again Not a lot of you need the Apollo. That's something for Doing source connect sessions doing commercials if you are like I mean if you're producing commercials and multi-tracking and recording music and stuff Yeah, I mean the tools that are in the Apollo really make a difference for people doing Source elements source connect type sessions or ISDN sessions things where They are recording you live and you want to give them the best version That of you that you can the cleanest noise floor you want to have always processing You can do that with these tools a lot of you if you if you're lucky enough to have a pristinely quiet studio like this one You need very minimal processing tools But many many of you are going to be relying on those kind of tools to get that stuff done. Yeah So yeah, so Mojave. I think it's okay I'm still gonna say don't upgrade unless you absolutely need to don't upgrade unless it's it's something you feel like it It allows you to run a tool that's gonna improve your productivity Make you feel a lot more like you're you know gonna Be able to get your work done faster. This 2013 old MacBook. It's running Mojave without any problem Yeah, I mean as long as the machine's qualified to run it you should be fine I wouldn't install it on a really low-end computer. Maybe if you only have four gigs of memory Maybe not something a little more memory and it should run it much better. You know, yeah, I'm not gonna throw it on my g5 It's just not gonna happen. Yeah on the window sides at side of things There's not a whole lot of new exciting things in the world of windows I think the biggest thing with windows is trying to avoid Windows upgrading its self. Yeah, when you don't want it to at the most inopportune time and then causing you a lot of problems I mean Mac OS also has an auto upgrade feature, but you do actually have to Another auto update feature, but you have to turn it on and you can turn it off, right? Windows systems unless I think you have the pro license it tends to do updates automatically So just be really really careful, but yeah I mean, there's there's so much power in our machines these days You just don't have to have the latest and greatest But if you do you got to have it You know what the latest and greatest thing that is powerful that kind of blows my mind is there as the iPad pro I Can't wait to try when the iPad pro becomes a regular Mac Yeah, it has like a file system with folders. Oh, that thing is gonna be sick like it is crazy powerful Yeah, right now. It's still now. It's still just an iPad with a lot of horsepower built into a lot of cool stuff Yeah, I mean the in terms of gear that I'm looking forward to this year. I'm thinking I'm gonna make a prediction Okay with the deal. Oh, how good we've done with predictions. Well, I SDN gone in two years. Yeah, we always in 2010 Yeah, I stopped trying to predict ISDN's demise. That's impossible But I'm predicting that this year we're gonna have a microphone that Can steer the pickup pattern towards your voice automatically because we have those cameras from Facebook You know that Facebook. What's it called the portal? I think that's what they call it It's like a little cat. It's a little camera tablet. You stick on your table Oh, right, right as you walk around the room. It virtually follows you, right? It doesn't just follow the the video doesn't just follow you the audio follows you the microphones Steer themselves to point in the direction where you're standing. Do that. Yeah, it's pretty amazing And actually the Amazon echo dot a $40 little gadget does the same thing I can be in the shower a room away and yell echo and then have it play something Or they say I don't know I don't know that one Get that a lot. You can do that because the microphones steer and figure out where you are Well, I'm thinking that that's gonna trickle into like the professional recording world So you can put a mic up and have it be two three four feet away Or have it right next to a piece of glass, right and the mic will automatically focus on you I think that's what's coming for us because It's about time, you know all this technology goes into prosumer or well consumer stuff But I'm waiting for it to trickle into professional microphones And it's gonna make it much easier for people to set up a studio. Cool. I'm hoping that happens All right. Well speaking of setting up studios. Mm-hmm. This place has gone through I Put it in a cocoon and it came out of butterfly Really has really become a much more usable space Yeah, and and mostly because Eddie Ferrier gave us this stand-up desk that raises and lowers Which is really nice. It has the world's most sensitive buttons. Yeah, you're like lean out It's pretty funny. Yeah, but awesome. Yeah, such a nice piece a lot went into Doing this and you were gone a lot So I ended up doing all of this completely myself the only yeah, you know And you know the only person that really helped in really doing anything. Yeah is Lewis helped carry in the new couch Let's think that it was a whole 40 second operation that I know you you would have tried to carry the couch I'd carry the corner piece in my yeah, so we used to have this there was there was one couch It was this the napping couch in our porch in Buffalo And it was it's L shaped and it was really nice, but only half of it fit on the patio here in LA so we took We bought a new one for the patio that fits better And we took the rest of it got rid of my messy desk if you've ever been in here You know what a slob I am and there you can act there's an actual shot of it right now You can it looks like that's the way of everybody John there's oh, you can see the new beer you can see the new beer keg. Yeah There's the new beer keg in the corner there's right next to sue and there's beer on tap at all time I know you know I'm going for the cold brew coffee thing that goes in there I Yeah, we can't change it. We're stuck with it. Yeah. Oh, you can oh, I guess it's time to break a bunch of stuff if we change it though Maybe we'll change that's the next thing but it was a major effort and now we're not in the corner over there that's just my booth over there now and You know, we're just on this set which one set camera stays locked It's simpler to operate it's and and this room's been dialed in acoustically as well Dan put up a several more panels in the ceiling It it sounds noticeably but yeah, and you had to do that because once you took all that stuff away from the other half of The room that changes the way the room sounds. That's right. That's right You know even you know and that's very important thing when you're when you're monitoring your sound as well because I've made You know where Sue is working now our technical director is also my workstation Yeah, and to go from the Mac to the the beast PC that we have running the show, right? I have to just look a little button. Yeah, just changes them on like a switch and flop the keyboards, right? That's right. So it's gonna be it's it's so much nicer. I now have a napping couch. My wife's like You're never coming back in the house. Are you? Well, I gotta come in we have a beer. Oh, there's I mean, there's a did I mention there's a beer cake? Yeah, but we Yeah, and it will be a coffee machine, but we've got a monitor up there that actually no cable It has an antenna. I get all the big stations and PBS so I can watch all the car chases Yeah, my wife walks in here. The car chase on she goes. Yeah All right, that's what you're doing out here watching car chases They're so compelling Well, you are truly now a local. I know yeah, that's right This guy's just driving along and how does he do that? But but I'm really happy with it and then the coup de gras was this this cabinet We I we bought because this desk was not wide enough to have both monitors and the student in the studio monitors the speakers on there Yeah, so I said gotta find a 37 inch tall dresser or shelf or something That will support the speaker mm-hmm and Marcy found one sure it was white It's actually a baby drawer. She painted it in no I painted. Are you painted in chalkboard material chalkboard paint? It's cool. So now it says tools batteries my crappy hand. Yeah, and then on the other side. It says homework read chapter 5 answer questions one through seven and Just to remind me where I came from Anyway, we got lots of tech questions coming up if you've got a tech question throw it in the chat room and We'll answer it as well. So stay tuned for that We'll be back with more voice over body shop and lots of tech right after this Are you confused about how to set up and maintain a professional quality voice over studio? No wonder the information out there is mostly Mythology, this is the best microphone to use. You have to have a preamp You need a soundproof booth This software is the best your audio must be broadcast quality Consult with someone who knows the truth someone who's been there in the trenches doing voice over for over 30 years Someone with unparalleled experience with voice over studios who's worked with hundreds of voice actors and designed hundreds of personal studios He knows how to teach and cares about your success in one of the harshest environments known to voice over your home Dan Leonard the home studio master Separate myth from fact and get a handle on your personal voice over studio Contact the home studio master at home voice over studio comm Well, it's time to thank and talk about one of our wonderful sponsors here that source elements the creators of source connect So it's a new year. You should probably have some new Levels of work in your sites and to be able to kind of level up you really need to have the right tools One of those things is definitely gonna be source connect. It's it's the software that allows you to read Connect to studios real time doing live sessions where they're recording you and you're just being a voice actor That's the coolest thing about using a source connect session is you as the talent once you're connected You just get to act You're not having to keep pro tools rolling and all this stuff you just talk the sound quality is fantastic It's very very reliable. They have great support all around the globe So no matter where you are you can get support. Give it a try You can go over to source dash elements calm. You can get a 15-day free trial You don't have to have the little eye lock dungley thing anymore to use source connect standard And that's the one you want to check out by the way is source connect standard Go give it a try get it logged on start practicing with it So that day it comes when you do have a job you can purchase the license outright You can do it on a month-to-month basis and you'll already know how to use it. You won't feel unprepared So give it a try and we thank source elements for their Ongoing support for over three years now here at source or well Should we change the name to source elements voice over body shop? Well, they haven't given us that much money No, but thank you for supporting us all these years and we'll be right back And we're back a voice over body shop. You want to ask us a question throw it email us at the guys at VOBS dot TV and people wrote in let's talk tech because that's what this show is all about First question we had tonight is from Michael Kearns and it says near Seattle, Washington All right says in a recent episode you talked about mics we talked about them every episode main point I got was the mic isn't the real important thing. The important thing is proper setup and use of the mic Absolutely, totally get it, but I still like the way I sound on different mics for different voices He has more than one voice Interesting. I had a chance to work with Cynthia Cynthia clank of high being engineer and recording other voices That's true. That's possible, but he doesn't say that he said I had a chance to work with Cynthia clank of Highland recording arts here near Seattle And she let me put her Townsend labs L 22 through the line Oh gosh, I do have one of those to test. Yes. Yeah, you're gonna get to one of these days Yeah, it comes with a plug-in to emulate a bunch of classic mics like the u8 u47 the u87 the AKG C 12 The Coles STC 40 30 these are all mic numbers by switching between mic emulations after the take I find it really easy to fine-tune the mic for the voice. I'm going after Have you take the have you taken the L 22 for a test drive yet? I have that's the sphere Yeah, it is the sphere. Yeah, and if so, what is your take on mic? Emulation well, I certainly have an opinion. Yes The here's the thing he says I like the way I Sound on this mic. Yeah, but here's the problem Mike You don't hire you we find this so many times and people like I love the way I sound on this But the fact of the matter is unless you're really a trained engineer and Mike you might be a trained engineer It's not the mic that's going to get you the job It's how you interpret the copy or how much you can sound like Christopher Walken Thank you The thing is is you sound like you the idea is to capture you as you exist not to futz around with your voice and make It sound different that said it's fun to play with and I'll throw it to you with that Oh, it's fun to play with it. So well the L 22 is like is an early days representation of kind of what I was leaning what I was talking about is what might be coming this year, right? So the L 22 you can manually adjust the microphones pick up pattern the proximity effect You can steer the microphone in different directions and it's kind of fun for me as an engineer I can be connected on somebody on source connect I can remote desktop and see their computer screen Have someone read their recording read their audio and I can Remotely dial in the microphones pickup pattern until it sounds the best it can and it's pretty freaking cool I mean it is it is a cool gadget Is it needed? Is it necessary in your own very own home studio? Not not really it's it's not because in your own home studio You've got complete control over those those aspects you can put the mic where it needs to go But it is a cool. It is a definitely a cool thing The ability to emulate other microphones Huge for producers who do record a lot of other a lot of voiceovers Like if you are a producer and you have others coming in and you don't want to have to have 25 microphones on hand To be able to change out mics a lot is pretty is pretty darn awesome, right? So that that I can see as a voice actor yourself People do tend to have like two microphones commonly one might be their Promo sounding mic which might be a sanitizer 416 or something like that And then they'll have a narrating mic or something a little bit less hyped sounding And so to be able to change both mics to be able to change mics without physically physically Reconnecting mics and just changing a setting That's pretty compelling. Yeah, I will do a review I I have one sitting that's been loaned to me by Thomas Machen, right? I got it first and I let you have it and it's I am so sorry It has been on a mic arm on my desk now for say how long it's embarrassing But it's gonna I'm gonna give it a full review before Nam show that is my deadline before Nam show Which is two weeks I will have a review because once Nam happens I'm gonna be inundated with new stuff to talk about lots lots of stuff Lots of toys to play with there. Yeah, I thought it was okay. It sounded like a mic You know, I mean if you like to play with Mike's like Then fine go play but going to play has nothing to do with being a professional voice actor as far as I'm concerned But that's just me horses for courses. That's right Dave Wandel asks if you were setting up an analog mic preamp for example an Avalon 737 What would you feed that into as the next link in the chain the line input of the audio interface such as the Apollo mark 2 Is there an interface that you particularly like for this role? I'd like to minimize the amount of analog circuitry the signal passes through once it leaves the preamp That's a good point. Yes. Here's and of course my immediate answer is Don't use the app on preamp. If you've got if you've got an Apollo mark, too Yeah, what on earth do you need an Avalon preamp for? Yeah, I think he has the Avalon. He's made the investment He obviously likes the way he sounds on it now. It's I call these pieces of technology Samson's hair You know once you have that thing. It's just like that's part of my sound. I can't get rid of it But what is the he's asking about what ad converter? It's what he's really asking what what's the analog to digital? I mean I have clients that plug it into a scarlet, right? Does that make sense to do that? Not really. I mean the scarlet is a hundred dollar interface You're plugging into another mic input. It's not ideal, right? If you're using a $2,000 tube preamp, maybe you should level up to an ad converter. That's more up to up to par I mean the Apollo again being a little overkill, but it has a really good ad converter That's a good one RME. Maybe the baby face That one's very well respected and loved piece of gear for having really good quality Analog digital conversion, but whatever it is. It should have a proper line input If you're using less expensive USB interfaces like the scarlet, it doesn't have a line microphone switch inside it actually it does It actually doesn't the line. It says line inch to me. I know it does. That's trickery It's not okay like on the Apollo when you switch to line. You'll actually will hear a click on the inside of the unit It's a it's a relay and it actually is switching the microphone signal out of the circuit It's physically a different connection and even the XLR inputs on the Apollo There's a quarter inch in the middle like on the scarlet the quarter inch is still the same circuit on the Apollo The quarter inch is a line signal and it's a completely different signal So if you're a purist about it, you want to go through a line input. Does it matter? Are you gonna hear the difference? No, you're you're you're probably not gonna hear the difference You really like a properly set up interface with the with the Avalon is gonna sound fine So a couple ideas for you to try. Alrighty Patrick Ligrede of Phoenix, Arizona asks. He says with the holidays just behind us I had brought out some it I it brought about some travels and the opportunity to take my voiceover setup on the road Why would you want to do that at home? I use Harlan Hogan's porta booth pro and have managed to get my recordings to a fairly good Though not quite studio quality level, but good enough to get me a decent bit of work in that case It's good enough and the porta booth pro isn't is excellent if you use it, right? However on the road, I'm struggling with what to do I'd like to bring the booth along and while it is portable I'm not sure I want to lug it around with me That leaves me to create an on-the-fly recording space usually with some combination of pillows blankets comforters, etc in a closet if available sounds awfully familiar if that is infeasible I Left including a note in my auditions that I'm on the road and not able to deliver the exact same quality That I would from home. That's reasonable enough. Okay. Hoping they'll take my word for it Yeah, okay Do you have any suggestions as to a feasible practical way to tackle auditions and voiceover work on the road? I don't want to miss out on opportunities yet. I'm not sure I want to lug around a bunch the boot a bunch of booth Do I just suck it up and bring the booth? Is there a smaller equally as effective option for equipment on the side? I'm using a 416 a shotgun and a universal Apollo which connects to the MacBook Pro. I don't bring my dbx 286 e Dispense holy why why do you need a 286 especially if you have the Apollo you do not need to really fighting I can achieved a compatible a comparable result using plugins and processing. Thanks for any insights You can provide I'm looking forward to the show and get more tips from both and yes If you type three paragraphs, we will bore everybody and read the whole thing. Yeah, John Bailey grab the microphone And the audience can what do you do John? What do you do when you try? I have been preaching the the praises of the MV 88 from sure for a little thing Microphone has been so freaking cool man because you plug it into your iPad Pro I can even record for my car with minimal background noise of a little very little reverb And I've been doing a lot of conventions where I don't have like I can't carry around a bunch of equipment Yeah, but sometimes I'm gonna need to go pop in a green room or you know find a quiet place and go record something I can even do it for my iPhone. It's this big. It's not heavy like the average is still a little bit better But it's up almost too. Well when you're out and about yeah, this one actually really works comes with own little tiny Windscreen it works really that's task in right? It's not a hundred percent. It's a sure sure 100% the greatest mic it does have a little issues with the twisted waves. Well, it's this big It's that big it plugs right into your lightning port dig it and it's the what a hundred and thirty-nine Yeah, thanks, man. Yeah, cool. Yeah, yeah, of course my opinion on the road. Well, you go first and then I'll express my opinion We know your pin. No, I sat next to you for seven and a half years. I know everything you're going to say Almost feels like 70 The the Portable Pro all these portable things that I mean they're they're cool people that like to have something predictable You know, they want to have something they take with them that they set up each time and they get a pretty predictable result out of it That's what's cool about them But yeah, I mean a lot of folks that don't want to travel with these things They're gonna just make pillow forts and they're gonna get creative. They're gonna build a shrine You got it. That's what you got to do that if it's not feasible for you to do that You're gonna be just doing audition quality probably from the back of your rental car, you know, I mean, that's the best thing You're probably gonna get away with you know when you're out on the road and you know, you're probably doing auditions for jobs that You know, you you if unless you're a pro you've been doing this for 10 15 years The chances of you pulling off a fantastic audition in a strange environment with less than ideal equipment is So much less than if you're in the comfort of your own studio, right? Right, so I mean do it because you like the challenge of it do it because you think it's interesting to try it But if you're hanging your hat on this as a way to keep your career moving forward, it's it's probably not worth the effort No, it probably isn't I mean there's some folks that are wearing golden handcuffs They have to be available. They have to get those promos and those affiliate commercials things It's a tiny little minority of people. It's a small group that need need that kind of availability Yeah, I mean to demonstrate that you can do that doesn't mean a whole lot if you can't deliver it Yeah, I mean if you're gonna be doing that stuff, you're getting hired and you're being requested and asked to do that kind of stuff In which case. Yeah, you probably need to have that stuff for you You know when you go on the road, but we've I've been voiceover Atlanta Vio Atlanta a couple years ago We ran this contest show us a picture of your booth show us your booths and You know in your hotel room and people would show us these pictures of these voiceover shrines that they would build and kept thinking What happens when the you know the cleaning staff comes in and see what is this religion that has taken over this hotel? And they've got all these Bring a little some kind of a little you know a little statuette that when you leave for the day you put in there So they think you actually do But yeah, I mean you build pillow for it you use your car I mean that's that that's a great one of course I don't believe in you know if I'm going on the road. I tell my clients I'm on the road and there's a reason I'm on the road and it's not to be doing voice work But I know what they say you want to get voice work make plain resume make a trip It's just the fact the fact that you reach out to tell somebody you're not available is them going. Oh, yeah, Dan Leonard Now they're gonna start sending you work You're better off. Maybe not saying a thing. Just leave it. That's true Well, I mean some some some of the companies I'm contracted with they say give us a week's notice They want to know I'm gonna be But you know, I think that if you're on the road Trying to accommodate that you know a client or just to do an audition You know, if you're doing it on your iPhone I mean if you just you learn how to use your iPhone or as John was saying use that little, you know The sure mic just use it right the copies right there use it in your car They're more concerned about how well you read the copy than they are about the audio quality because they know you're Especially if you're doing it to do it another studio. Yeah chances are You know, they're They're like does this guy get the script? Do they see what we're trying to talk about? All right, bring them in doesn't matter that you're in a closet in some hotel in Pittsburgh Yeah, audition quality is audition quality. I mean Don't try to achieve don't try to duplicate what you're doing at home when you're on the road You know, just it's incredibly difficult to do. It's not impossible really difficult Absolutely, I mean I can build effects chains and processing stacks and Apollo presets that will You know, what I've had people do is they've sent me audio They do they do at their home studio right and then I have them go on location And then I had them send me their audio from that location if the acoustics aren't a dreadful mess Right, I can get pretty close, you know, we can do a pretty good job with it But if the acoustics are totally different, there's not yet a plug-in that will make your Walk-in closet studio at home sound like the corner of the the room in your hotel room, right? It's just not gonna just not a plug-in yet that can do that, right? Maybe that's another prediction for this year. We'll have that plug-in. Well, maybe it's a prayer for this prayer Please bring us one of those. Yeah. Yeah last thing. I just had J. Horace black tagging on to the eGPU thing earlier He said um any certain external GPU that you Recommend or they all about the same so an external GPU is sort of a generalized term That's the box the card that goes in the box. That's the whole rig that that's the whole rig together and There are companies now that are making a standalone unit that have the card the box all in one That's a different world from from from what I'm doing. I can't make a specific recommendation It's just it's just not something I've ever personally needed So you're probably better off going on like new egg calm or something like that where they talk about a lot of that kind of gear Yeah, you know in fact, you know what a good front of ours has been on the show several times One Carlos bag now. Yeah, he works for new egg now doing a talk show on the new You know at new egg about gear, right? Yeah, so go ask one Carlos bag now Yeah, he'll know that dude will know trust me. He'll find one Carlos absolutely Well, if you again if you've got a question about your home voiceover studio write to us the guys at Vobs dot TV. There it is right there underneath mr. Whittom and And you can ask the questions like we've been asked tonight and we will expound As much as we can about we did just as we did and making sure that you completely understand How it is that you you go about having a home voiceover studio and Dan Yeah, it's the time when we show our lower third it is can I go first now? Yeah, okay If you want to work with me all you got to do is go to home voiceover studio comm and there it is and I Work with you if you're if you're not really knowledgeable If you really don't know how to start off with your home voiceover studio get in touch with me And I will teach you how to do it from you know, like where are you gonna put it? How you're gonna set it up you don't have to have windows and guitars hanging on the wall That's not a home voiceover studio It's your closet the more clothes the better things like that and I'll show you how to do it how to record properly And if you already have an existing home studio and you're like not sure of the sound go to my website The bottom of the home page is the Specimen cup special and collection cup and for audio only yes And I will analyze that for 25 bucks and if you got a big problem We'll work it out. We'll try and find out how to fix your audio Mm-hmm if you want to build a voiceover palace and you want to work with the guy who works with the big guys You talk to mr. Widow and the way you find him is you head over to George the tech comm or if you like shorter URLs George the tech I Do what Dan does as well, but I also do studio design Consultation I help people all around the the world as long as you can speak my language which today is still just English Good that's some catching up to do Then I can help you out anywhere we can we can we can work remotely source connect remote desktop Whatever you need it's all available over there I also do twist-a-wave stacks processing presets that kind of thing that self-service you send me the audio I send back the processing and off you go. So go check it out over there. Alright, so stay tuned here I voice over body shop. We'll be right back Skittles taste the rainbow she has fought for those who don't have a voice the national zoo Sometimes you just need to stroke a llama Instagram Download it and start embarrassing your teenagers today resolve spot-and-stain Because the dogs gonna drag his butt on the carpet. He just is four hundred million dollars That's what the mayor wants you to pay for a new basketball stadium chickens were made to be fried. Sorry, buddy KFC engage the droid army with this Lego Star Wars Republic fighter tank What you've never seen a girl kill a troll Game stop. Hey, I'm the cat meme guy. Come on. You know, you love cat memes Instagram, what's your thing? Hi, it's J. Michael Collins And these are just a few examples of the first-class demos my team and I are producing if you'd like to have something similar Visit JMC voice over calm and click on the demo production tab to find out more we're here in the new studio and We always like to have the best equipment and you like to have the best equipment as a voice actor We always say to get to get best work get the best equipment But the thing is is where do you get this stuff? One of the best places to get it is voice over eCentral's Dot-com Harlan Hogan's website where he has the best stuff and lots of specials running all the time go over to their Website voiceover essentials calm and check and see what he's got but most importantly his signature series stuff Although I hear he is they are selling like hotcakes those mixer faces that we've been talking about George They're no good people love them. They're they're great units. He says he wrote to me today He said I just used one on a road trip. It worked great I've used them on road trips Great little a great little interface and it can mean your mainline interface and you just throw it in your suitcase And there it is. It is it's good enough to be the one thing I don't really recommend having a one thing because he won't have a backup, right But it can it's capable sound quality is there the headphone amp is there It's got all the you know, the right features and multiple mics user for podcasts and stuff like that But the other thing he wanted me to talk about was the Harlan Hogan signature series Headphones Version 2 version 2 which you really lot I do really like these these I you know the old ones had it had an acquired taste of sound I would have to say I mean they they were tuned to be uniquely for voiceover and by doing so They make they made them sound very different from other headphones So they took a little while to get used to these sound familiar I don't know how else to say it but they sound a little more it sounds like George They sound a little more familiar sound more like music headphones a little bit more high fidelity But they still have the the qualities of the other ones that I really liked these are actually a little more comfortable They're made out of better quality materials Detachable cord is really really sweet to have that means if you rip the cord out if you trip on it The cord can be plugged back in, you know, it's it's nice to have Replacibility these are gonna last a really long time. So check them out if you tried the old ones and you weren't totally thrilled I'd say give these a shot. You might you might be very pleasantly surprised You know, I'm using them there They're great headphones the best place to get them the only place you can get them is voiceover essentials calm and the way You get there is you go to the bottom of our home page If you're all watching on our home page go down to the bottom of the homepage Click on that picture of Harlan Hogan at least the back of Harlan Hogan talking into his port-a-booth pro And it will take you right there and by all his stuff. It'll make him happy It'll make us happy and but most importantly it will make you happy Thanks for being our sponsor for eight years Harlan, and we hope you'll be with us for eight more God, I hope we're here for eight more years. We'll be right back possible Now that was a great show. This new format is gonna be interesting. Mm-hmm. We'll see how it goes We're gonna have the kinks tonight. Yeah live on the air the way it goes on January 21st 2019 rolls by just like that We will bring Larry Davis in here fantastic funny guy Just like John Bailey just a great mimic and amazing improviser and a great improviser and a fun guy We're looking forward to that. Yeah, who are our donors of the week donors of the week We've got a lot of those familiar names because they subscribe like Jerry C H Reynolds We've got Why are these all in the donors area Sorry about that. Okay, Andrew Kaufman Karen Cunningham. Hey, Karen Bryant We've got coming down the list here Don Griffith. Thank you Don. He's a subscriber Martha Kahn Shana Pennington Baird, which we now know the Sarah name Good old Uncle Roy from Ant-Land Productions Joseph's Valentin any thank you Joseph Dana Burtzel Stephanie Sutherland and Around it out Patty Gibbons Brian Page we're pretty much reading everybody's everybody's that's donated in the last month because well we haven't been on it almost a month Amanda Fellows and George William my dad Senior who every time I see him says I can't figure out how to cancel my donations darn Well Anyway, thanks everybody. We really appreciate your supporting us along the way. It's been great. Absolutely. Hey, you know We we've got the the VOBS living room here But if you'd like to show us your booth show us your booths. Yeah, we want your booth back here Absolutely and send it to us in Landscape not portrait Show us what your studio is like. What if you what you put into it and we'll be in front of it Which would be really cool send them to the guys at VOBS dot TV and we'll be happy to get it on here If you need help with your home studio, you can talk to George at George the tech comm That's where you can find me and Dan is available over at home voice over studio Com get over there What we can help you we know what's going on We're now on at 5 p.m. Pacific time 8 Eastern and Whatever time it is in Newfoundland Doing it an hour early. So you guys on the East Coast and Had a little bit more time with your families, right that sort of thing and But if you'd like to be in the studio here at five o'clock on a an alternate Monday We're gonna be on every other Monday now Let us know if you're gonna be in town or if you're here in LA and write to us again at the guys at VOBS dot TV and put in the subject line Audience mm-hmm and that will allow us to know that you're gonna be here as you saw We have a bit quite a bit more room now for folks to be in here. It's absolutely comfortable So come on in absolutely well We'd like to thank our sponsors, of course like Harlan Hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements VO to go Go a voice actor websites calm and J. Michael Collins demos all still sponsoring the show in 2019 Absolutely everybody they they know we're the good stuff Absolutely as do you guys Of course, we'd like to thank the Danny Marcy Leonard Foundation for the betterment of live webcasting our producer Katherine Curtin for getting us Tara strong and all these great guests We've got lined up Jack Daniel on chat room duty and on YouTube and our amazing technical director who did an amazing job tonight We're not worthy So Merlino and of course Lee penny for being lead penny Well guys, you know, it's all about how good you sound and that's mostly because You sound the way you are and that's the most important thing, but if it sounds right, it is good That's right, and it sounds right, and you're right. I'm right. That's right Anyway, that's gonna do it for us tonight on voiceover body shop. We'll see you on the 21st with Larry Davis and I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whitton, and this is voiceover body shop or VO Bs Take care guys. Good night everybody. Thanks Well This morning, you know, I get up every morning, and I check a bunch of things first. I grab my phone Kiss my wife. Good morning, but then then grab my phone. Okay, reverse the order. Yeah, yeah Gotta do the important girlfriend's wives. Yes, right exactly kiss you first. Then we grab the phone That's right. It's like I made it to another morning. All right And I start checking my emails. See what am I supposed to do today? And You know, you know, there's Corvo's blog which I have to read every morning because it's like amazing the stuff That he writes every night and I check this thing. Do I have any appointments today? But this morning There was this really lengthy discussion about Someone and she knows who she is Was moving or was having trouble with her studio and was getting some new equipment and she asked The question you knew exactly what I was gonna say What Mike should I get that's gonna be better than what I have and I think she had a rodent T1a. Okay thinking Okay What's wrong with that? It's a bright Mike, but it sounds fine. Yeah, exactly You know, well, what I usually say is you know, what's the best Mike the one you usually have unless you're using some really cheap Oh USB mic or something under a hundred bucks You know, there's there's this this null zone anything under a hundred bucks. They suck. I'll tell you what I'm gonna interject Okay, one sub hundred dollar Mike. Yeah, that always Surprises me. Okay, which one's that the MXL 990. Yeah, that's that's a good one is an outlier It's a mutant an anomaly But overall fat to yes, but overall definitely avoid most sub hundred Yeah, I know a lot of people use in the 990, you know, it's surprisingly decent And if it works for you, that's fine And I think that's the point that will probably eventually get to at the end of this discussion. There's a point. There is a point There's always a point to these discussions. I thought it was just a rant. Yeah No, well, the rant was what went on in this Facebook thread of Everybody chiming in and saying, you know, I use this and it makes me sound great. No, you should use this No, you should use that you should know this is the one you got to use And oh and then there's sibilants and then a couple of our friends tuned in and we're saying things like No, you know read this article on how to choose a microphone. No, it's how you use the microphone No, it's this no, it's that chart. Look at the frequency response curve charts. Yeah, all right Now you may argue with me on this. I mean we've not had this argument We talk about it and I think you're either nice to me about it. I'll just I'll just supply facts. Okay. That works better I have found yeah, and you and I have done literally a thousand studios or more Most people who chime in on these forums are experts in one studio Yeah, their own and one voice and one voice their voice So to say this one makes you sibilant. This one makes you this this one does this that one does that is Utterly irrelevant Yeah, because every every voice is different every room is different and the way a micro Microphone responds to you and that environment is different What I found we've been able to break it down to basically three things the the quality of your audio for a home studio is number one the acoustical Environment in which you record it's got to be Prevent sound from coming in and it's got to prevent sound from bouncing around around around and And that's that in itself as a science. I mean you wrote a paper on it and presented it at NAB I mean that's something you know about and I read that paper so now I know they approved it So I'm now approved. Yeah, that's right So the point being that Acoustics in our mind is number one. You have to have the right acoustical environment in which to record number two is Mike technique If you have a great mic and how if you have a fantastic mic, I think it's far more important that you Understand how to use that microphone. For example, here's here's my 416 Which is you know, this is my aside from this being our studio day-to-day working. This is my data made day-to-day Microphone, how do you use a 416? Well? There's a number of different ways you can use it But you've got to know what those ways are and when to use it that particular way, right? You know, for example, if I'm just recording myself You stand off a 416 a lot farther than other mice because it's a video mic It captures you in a much more realistic way, which is why all the big studios in LA are now using 416 You know, we've been in the studios. Oh, yeah, we use the 416 if you're doing promo stuff, which probably Less than one half of one percent of you were doing right you you address it directly on with it with a pop screen So, you know, that's important with mic technique But you know, here we have the Harlan Hogan VO1 a which by the way and And you know, they are a sponsor, but this microphone is at a great price point like 300 bucks and It's designed for voiceover Unlike every other piece of equipment on the face of the earth that we are adapting for use in voiceover it's all designed for recording music and if you use it right if you're at the right distance from it if you don't talk directly into the diaphragm If you don't pop the heck out of it because you're talking straight into it exactly if you if you have it Set right at eye level you can go Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers all day long And it's not good. You're not gonna get any plosives If you don't talk into the back of it by mistake or the side of it or off axis or the end of it How many times we get that? Send me a picture. What does it sound like? You know, you're talking into the top of the mic You know or or talking into the wrong side. I'm like turn it around. Yeah, look at the logo. Oh Not to make you guys sound silly or Less, you know, it's it's ignorance more than anything else a lot of people get into this and they're like, I'm I don't understand the technology Turn it around Understand the physics of the microphone and how to use it properly start with a mic You're gonna afford right if was there a third thing you were getting to oh, yes, cut you off. Sorry proper microphone input levels. Yeah Modulation controlling the modulation and the input onto your computer is vital that way if you if it's too loud You're gonna get distortion if it's too quiet, which we see probably more often than not It's you get a little tiny, you know wave forms And then every well, I could just normalize it. Well, not only does it make your you know Your voice louder it makes all any noise that's in there much louder and it's not a good thing if you record clean using proper mic technique and the proper acoustical environment and Set your levels right it should be fine. And so all these guys very few women You know and the women that listen to these guys, you know Mm-hmm a lot of these geeky guys say well, I got all this stuff and I got all this stuff And I've got a dbx 286 and there is no piece of I think I said this a couple weeks ago So I'm I'm probably repeating now. You're officially ranting. Yes. Thank you There is no piece of equipment and no microphone out there that exists on the face of God's great earth That will change the way you interpret copy. It's up here not here Mr. Whittom for the time being cool down now Okay, the fan, okay No, it's it is true I I did see an interesting because there was a very similar sort of post on Maxine Dunn's Facebook last week because she she just posted the question. I use this mic What do you use you know and it was a lot of interesting stuff on there? I mean a lot of it stuff I expected and Totally expected to see One thing was a piece of information posted by a guy named Greg Hauser. He's a pretty techie guy He really loves Mike. He's a real geek. Yeah, he really loves this stuff, but he found a chart And if you're patient while the guests are on I'll find a link to it and post it that showed a grid of bright to dark and So it was bright mics at the top dark ones at the bottom and then it had What was it transparent or accurate? Maybe is the word on one side colored or not so accurate on the other Right, so this is sort of like the four Axis grid that you can look at mics on and it was it had from man probably 75 mics on that chart It's a lot to look at But what it tells you is that mics do have certain colorations some are more Colored meaning they're not accurate. Some are extremely Transparent totally accurate, but what's funny is you think a mic that's completely transparent absolutely dead accurate Like a measurement microphone would be the right one, but none of us are using one of those So it's kind of funny. We're looking for a mic that captures you as you but captures you as you with a certain amount of Something a little bit of you keep there's something on there that makes it sound a little bit different And that's the thing that everybody's trying to figure out, right? And the point we're making is whatever the mic you buy as long as it's low noise It's clean and accurate you have your room tuned We can tweak that stuff in post that's what the producer is going to do anyway not your job Right They're gonna they're gonna take your audio the way you send it to them And they're gonna deal with little issues here and there with a little bit of sibilants Maybe a little bit of low-end thickness or heaviness Whatever it is they're gonna decide how to shape the sound the EQ Or or if you really want to have sound that you send out that sounds as finished as possible for Jobs that where they're not gonna do the post and you have to Supply ready for air audio Then having a stack or a rack or something built is the way to go Which is something I do by the way, then have you started getting into that stuff yet making racks and stacks and all that stuff Occasionally, yeah, you know a case-by-case basis I mean with some of the clients you work with who have specific needs and stuff like that you You know you can do that Sometimes if someone has an anomaly or some minor adjustment, I will You curve yeah, just something just to take something out Yeah, some air handling or something you can do very minor things the thing is is when you send your audio out Again, as George said you're sending it to an engineer who knows how to work with it. You hope yeah Yeah, I've worked with a bunch of videographers. You're like, yeah, we can do this with it. Yeah, what are you doing to my voice? Yeah, but yeah It's it's important to do as little as possible in any processing that you do is for minor little corrections Corrections in in the studio. I call it corrective EQ. Yeah, if you're doing auditions for a very specific genre I will occasionally do some interesting things with the EQ to make it sound more like a finished product But usually I don't So but just to be really general here. Okay, if you have a bright mic bright voice Very sibilant and very, you know upper register. You don't want a mic. That's very very bright Yeah, you want a mic that's more accurate or flat or even dark to counteract it But there's such subtle differences. I know these things are so You look at a chart like this and you're gonna think whoa look at the range Well, these are shades of mauve right these differences. So Anyways, don't go don't overthink it. And if you don't trust your choice pick two mics Don't do more than two and don't test it in the store with a pair of headphones Right get two mics bring them home and keep one But don't decision by what's a paralysis by decision or what's the thing if you have too many options You'll never decide you something like that. Yeah, exactly the bottom line is is that You don't hire you you got to let somebody who understands what it's supposed to sound like Hear it and make a judgment as to well that might work for you This might not that sort of thing someone whose ears you trust and that you also trust how they monitor That's really important. I know two guys who do that really you're one of them And how do they get ahold of you and have them listen to their audio? I'm available over at George the tech calm When I tell Google voice to translate that into George, and I say It comes out as George V tech if I say George it's George the tech it comes out as Georgia tech Whatever the case it's George the tech comm Where do they find you dad? They can find me at home voice over studio calm and You know, I may have to start charging for the for the the specimen collection cup Backed up a lot of people are Yes, so But you can go there right now and drop a piece of your audio in the specimen collection cup at home voiceover studio calm And I'll give it a listen and we'll decide what the guys would have designed Thousands of studios and know what it's supposed to sound like do that. Okay. I think that's enough rant We have our guests waiting. We're running a little long We did have a question from Gerard McGuire saying when tracking down subtle distortion Kind of subtle sizzle on certain words in my audio chain. What's the most likely culprit? Is it the mic? Is it the mic cable? It's at the USB cable interface? Is it the software? Is it the computer? Do I leave anything out Mike preamp? I say it's none of those To me it sounds like Mike technique and perhaps Mike matching It could be it could be I I have heard Weird sizzly stuff on when you're when you're using a really bad preamp or a really cheap You know sometimes it might can do it Us trying to troubleshoot that without closely listening to the audio probably not gonna get too far. So right Dan's Specimen cup my sound check That's the way to go with that Gerard We will really be able to get get to the bottom of this sent when when you send in the audio to either of us Or both of us send along your gear list too so we understand and we can help you better with