 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk We got all sorts of cool stuff to start the the first 2021 tech talk of the year. What do we got to talk about tonight? We've got Lots of Mac stuff, right? Oh, I know a lot of Mac stuff Let me know as soon as there's something interesting to talk about on Windows and I'm happy too But it's a lot of Mac stuff talking about the Apollo it's supported on Mac But also about some other ways to record voiceover if you don't have a booth think about using your car much Wow interesting point and we're going to talk about the difference between recording music and Recording voice tracks, so stay tuned for that plus your questions that have been sent in on voiceover body shop tech Talk will be right back after this Hello, welcome to voiceover body shop. It's a place. We can get your body shopped with voices Look at Dan said so shiny Here's some big news from voiceover essentials comm They're now hosted on Shopify the leading cloud-based solution for online stores and retail point-of-sales systems It powers over 600,000 businesses and has more than 82 billion dollars in sales Voiceover essentials has been hard at work getting all their ducks in a row for the transition and converted over the holiday And they couldn't be happier They can accept virtually any type of payment from all major credit cards PayPal Shopify pay Apple pay square and even crypto currency Plus they can ship more efficiently and often save customers money on shipping costs because they instantly see what's the best bet for their customers that Day across all delivery providers including DHL for shipments internationally They'll be spending way less time coding and tweaking their freestanding VOE site So they can devote more time to customer service new products and more helpful resources for the VO home studio world Voiceover essentials comm is a great company to from Nescafé and Tesla to Sephora Bombas the New York Times in Wikipedia Shopify is the place to be voiceover essentials comm Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat Were you stick around you don't want to miss this? At target we want you to come as you are be comfortable Okay, maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer and aisle floor, please Nuevo México necesita un cambio la representante Michelle Luján Grisham ha luchado por nuestro estado en la Cámara de representantes Watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices sign in with your Netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge rewards Until you forget to turn it on That's it guys time is up. Hey, it's JMC. Thanks for watching the voiceover body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out JMC demos comm and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to Dan and George and this week's tech wisdom Boom. This is where I get to talk about source elements Source elements the creators of source connect and so so so many other products It's crazy. How many things they're doing because they're they're trying to innovate And solve a lot of problems that we're facing now working from home I mean not only are you the actors working from home the whole production is Oftentimes working from home and for them to be able to record remotely direct Share share video streams all at the same time do it securely and send that video to other studios around the world All at the same time They're really the only ones that have all of the tools to do this and the knowledge on how to set it all up But basically what you need to know is one thing as a voice actor and that is source connect Get it set up get it running Learn how to use it and have it on your belt because you want to be ready as we say the luck that luck Favors the prepared so you want to be prepared when those opportunities come So go ahead and get yourself a trial at source dash elements comm of Source connect they even have ways to do licensing by the month and even by the I think two day So you can ask them about that just send them an email at support at source elements comm And also if you just want to get up and running with minimal fuss And you want to see some help on how to do it go to George the tech George the dot tech slash SC where I've got a whole bunch of information on setting up source connect But anyway, you should have it so you're ready to go connect to studios around the world Don't make any more excuses. There's no reason not to be ready. Anyway, thanks for listening. Let's get on with tech talk From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain the professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a Professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and each week They allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest and VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voice over body shop Tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voice over essentials calm home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites calm where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt Vio heroes dot com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training J. Michael Collins demos when Quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio In Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hi there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voice over body shop or VO B. S. Tech talk tech talk tech talk I think I screwed up that cue but you know, it's you know, it's time for tech time It's time for tech. Yes a first tech talk of 2021 gonna be a great year for voice over. I just get that feeling But it's interesting to note That 2020 was a very busy year for you and I because everybody had to have a home voiceover studio We kept telling you she's got to have a home studio, but no It's like no, I'm talent. I go into somebody's stick Well, that stopped, you know, it didn't stop on a dime. It stopped at a brick wall. I'm in Hollywood Yeah, and your point But so The fact of the matter is if you need a home studio, you could talk to Musicians you can talk to all sorts of but you can talk to recording engineers. They aren't in your closet They are not in your home. They don't understand the unique totally unique and by the way unique to you Environment in which you record because as George and I will tell you The most important part of your home voiceover studio is the environment in which you record and we keep seeing you got to try This equipment you got to try that equipment you got to try this This is making me if your acoustics are bad You could have a $10,000 microphone and you will hear just about everything With an a 10 mile radius That's not what voiceover is about voiceover is a very very specific thing. It's not hard It's not technical and the only way you're gonna learn how to do it It's from the guys who'd actually know how to do it and that's mr. Woodham and myself and You can you can talk to all sorts of people you can go on the Facebook forums If you ask lots of questions, you will get lots of different answers If you ask questions of George and I you will get the right answer Because we know that stuff right Yeah, I mean, you know There is there are answers that are there's always more than one right answer, right? Right, but the right answer We're gonna give you Is distilled down from years and years of working with thousands of voice actors Down to really the essentials of what you guys need to know and in the way to do it and the most cost-effective way to do it That's where you know the value comes into Investing some time with Dan or I so if you want to work with me You can head over to george the tech. That's my website. Hopefully it will be a new one Or a very soon after you see this We have we have a new site that's being built as we speak and finishing getting finished But you'll be able to book services there and send files to get analyzed and Processing stacks and all that kind of stuff at george the tech and dan's website Also, where you can book him and get services from him is at home voice over studio dot com Easy enough to find and easy enough to spell just all one word Yeah, and if you go there, you'll see the the type of services I offer One thing that I think everybody should at least do Is use my specimen collection cup at the very bottom of my home page because you click on that It's a drop box. Send me a sample of your raw audio people keep sending. I'm using all this processing Send me your raw audio. Let's see if it sounds good to start with Then you start to futz with it. It's amazing how many people are like always trying to I got to manipulate it What you know, that's people we don't talk to people through eq and compression and all these things So send me a raw sample 25 dollars. I will give you a very thorough analysis Of how your audio sounds and maybe some recommendations to get it sounding the way it should most of the time it sounds pretty good But sometimes just like you know, there's a little bit of this is a little bit of that Here's how we can correct that and so That's why we're here at voiceover body shop to tell you that that's what george and I do It has been for the last 10 years. That was the whole point Exactly Anyway, so what's in your tech update? this week Well real quickly i'm an update on Anybody who's been thinking about buying a new new new mac. I went to big sir on all my computers So you went to big sir. Okay. You took the plunge and everything's fine. I'm hoping Yeah, it's a couple little weird things but nothing major Anything you might care to mention about the weird things anything I think it has more to do with with um I actually it's more with google I think Oh, you know and and various other things or actually the one thing that I found is that Air drop is gone from my main computer from from my laptop, but not on my main Oh, really? How do you add air drop into the into the menu there? That's the only thing I've noticed so far Oh like on the favorites on the left hand side air drops just isn't there anymore, right? I can't remember. There's probably a drag-and-drop kind of thing you have to do to get it to show up in there Or maybe it's in under finder preferences. I I'm not really sure. Yeah, if that's the biggest quirk you're dealing with That's ain't that ain't so bad I never have trouble when I move from oh, that's it's really good. You're very lucky um The the apollo is not only supporting well apollo is the apollo is officially supporting big sir So If you've been waiting to install big sir, and I'm still not saying run out and install big sir yet But if you just gotta It's supposedly going to be supported. No issues with apollo now There's still a process for I'm installing it that's quite a quite a lot of steps So if you're installing it new On a big sir computer be ready. There's a lot of steps and you got to follow all of them for it to work But it also unofficially supports the new m1 mac So I was actually able to do and I would do a quick test with my old apollo twin here Yes, yes the original old school silver one from back and this is probably six seven years old That does work on the m1 and I say officially because There's a little hack you have to get to you have to run to make it work That's like feels like you're hacking your computer And if something goes wrong universal audio will not help you So it is not officially supported, but it does physically work So if you're a real earlier adopter and you want to get a new mac and you use apollo stuff You can dabble in making that happen Now Something about the new m1 silicon based max have been wanting to mention again, and I may have I may have already hammered this home but It's such a no-brainer It's such a big deal in the world of computing and why I think it's such a no-brainer for a vo studio now more than ever Is that it has never been more like sort of like an appliance? And if you're a computer builder a gamer or someone that likes customization This is the polar opposite of what you're looking for in a computer If you're a producer voice actor engineer who wants an appliance That just works that built it completely custom built To run an operating system mac os And do it flawlessly and do it efficiently Quietly with a long battery life Nothing touches the new mac m1 silicon chip based computers It is remarkable. They're super efficient battery efficient. Don't get hot To sit on my lap and casually edit a 1080p video I was working on And not have my laptop burn my legs Is pretty amazing stuff. And yes, you can do that With an m1 mac. So it's it's an incredibly powerful machine that runs silent finally A proper mac that isn't a compromise in terms of performance and power resources that that is actually Capable of doing anything you would possibly need for voiceover Don't let the specs in any way fool you, you know, you look at the numbers and go eight gigs of memory Oh, I don't can't do anything with less than 16 Trust me. This is a whole different architecture a whole different deal and it is far far more efficient and uh Until there's a windows equivalent of what this computer is and does and how it integrates with the os I'm gonna continue to beat the Apple drum because it really really does what it does so so well because of that custom built chip inside Custom made for apple by apple and made to run that operating system and nothing else. There's just something to it That integration that is just can't be touched. So good. Good. Consider it. I consider it and don't say the price is a big deal anymore 699 bucks for a mac mini m1 really with 700 bucks It's only with with eight gigs of ram eight gigs of ram and i i know it sounds low But it it isn't in the context of a silicon mac it is A whole different ballgame because it's a completely new system architecture so um consider it if you if you're Running systems that can run on mac so you're using a w-audition Or pro tools or you want to even try logic or a twisted wave? This is This is the time to do it. So Anyway, I'll finish my apple rant and buy or apple whatever by talking about the airpod max because people always ask about it It is still even at five hundred and fifty dollars for these amazingly engineered beautiful beautifully designed and by all reports good sounding headphones Don't consider them for anything more than just fun casual music listening They sure are They are they are amazingly built really apparently very comfortable And have some incredibly cool engineering tricks up their sleeves, but when it comes to doing production If you need to monitor yourself real time for singing voiceover, you know working with production um doing lip sync Animation anything where you have to hear yourself or hear something else In real time it ain't gonna do it because it's bluetooth There is latency with a bluetooth wireless headphone signal You just can't do anything that has to be perfectly in sync when you're using bluetooth headphones and Well, that's what these are now for a while. I've been thinking like how could we do well first of all What would be the benefit to having wireless headphones? in a voiceover booth And I know a lot of people find it really irritating that their microphone cable Is moving around whacking into things Sometimes getting tangled in itself. It's just it's another irritant And I've thought about for a while the idea that a wireless headphone could someday be a part of a voiceover studio and um Bizarrely nobody I guess because it's a problem looking for a solution or is it the way around a solution looking for a problem It hasn't really happened yet, but um, if that's something that sounds interesting to you. I have my own ideas I won't bore you right now But reach out to me. Um, send us a message at the guys at v obs.tv if that interests you And um, I have my ideas on how that could be done properly but um, anyway, yeah that idea of being wireless in the booth And feeling untethered is uh, something that you can't do with bluetooth Ain't gonna work Lastly, yes v o in the car dan. Have you tried to or attempted or had any reason To record any voiceover work in a car. Oh, absolutely What's the scenario that you ran into most recently? Uh, well remember it was 110 degrees And couldn't of course run the car in the air conditioning You know and you're sweating profusely that the trick I mean I have found that if you're gonna do it in the car Generally you can get away with an audition Or something along those lines and I and I use my iphone and I have the script here And I don't talk directly into the mic And you can get away with it. I mean if you're using twisted wave on your phone or something and uh So that's the ultimate minimalist. I gotta get something recorded right now. I don't have any gear with me Exactly, but maybe I can pull this off and I have and and it's worked And so I don't I don't concern myself with it too much I'd say if you're on the road and you do have to produce something and say you've got an epigy Mic with you or you've got your road rig with you of some sort cars a good place Uh People don't realize that you know these car manufacturers spend more than 100s of thousands They spend millions of dollars in research Trying to design their cars to be acoustically So you can have a conversation Quietly and the fact that you're in a car But also hear the siren that's coming up behind you Uh, but other than that the exterior noise is greatly reduced But the acoustics inside are generally very very good Uh as good as as many booths But just don't do it next to a fire station Yeah, well, I mean Marvis aren't gonna be on the road So I mean unless you're doing road trips, which I guess some of us are actually I just did But if you're at home, why would you want to record in the car if you're at home? Well, I mean I actually have a client who told me that they're doing it from home Because the only way uh doing it from the garage from home, I should say Because it's the only way they can find a place quiet enough to get away from the family And get clean audio And and I have another case that just came up recently one of our fans of the show actually Nathan Carlson He's got two daughters one of them is going off into college. Believe it or not physically going off to college Right now and she does voiceover work and the idea of trying to pull off a voiceover audition let alone a job from a dorm room with a roommate Oh with a roommate. Yeah, like I was pretty next to impossible or slice, you know possibly mortifying and embarrassing to a 1918 year old girl so I talked to Nathan we put together a kit using a shotgun mic. I think I mentioned a road Shotgun mic and uh in that case I think we're actually the one that he ended up getting based on room recommendation was one of these little mic port pros the two and um She's got a kit she can use in the backseat of her car and actually we go on speaking of road Go on youtube type in road voiceover in car They actually have a really good video about this topic. They It's not just a promotional fluffy video. They really show techniques how to set it up where to be in the car and get good audio and Makes a lot of sense. They have you in the backseat between the two with the mic between the two head rests As far away from the windows as possible. So that's what I Recommended to Nathan. So this is another way to pull off a session when you have the family home And you just can't get a space quite enough you don't you haven't made the investment or you just don't have the space or budget for An iso booth yet and you've got that big critical session coming um, lastly, I had a client who actually ran a mic cable and a headphone extension from his studio Through the house into the garage and out to the car So he's hardwired into the house literally No, nothing to worry about with internet dropping out because he's wired into his studio And that's how he pulls off source connect sessions from his car So where there's a will there's a way and you can get good audio that way Yeah, the nicer the car the nicer the audio that is absolutely true As Dan was saying, you know the the car the companies that spend a lot of money on the design of the interior The acoustics and the soundproofing are going to be the luxury car companies for sure. Yeah, so the better quality More modern higher-end cars are going to make them Probably help a lot. So yeah, yeah, so by a lexus Probably not a 73 volkswagen beetle. No Hey, well, I don't know we have to try it out in the 73 volkswagen beetle That is true. Is there are plenty around here in california? Yes, if you've done this, please let us know Anyway, yeah, so that's it for all my tech talk updates. That's that's that's plenty, but you know Do I play a song now? Do I play like? All right I guess I was supposed to play at the beginning at the beginning but no better late than that next week We'll do that. Okay. Okay. So here's what I want. Here's what I wanted to talk about tonight Because this is something I run into all the time and I know you probably do as well And that is the fact that there is a difference between recording music and recording voice over tracks And when people are getting started They ask their musician friends. How do you record their stuff? And they're like, well, you need this and you need that you need that and you need this You use compression and we use all these things because we want to create and mold this sound Right, which has diddly squat to do with doing voice over tracks Yeah And so what happens is a lot of people end up going down technological rabbit holes because they ask somebody who is more familiar with recording music Than recording voice over tracks. It's not really the same thing and I'll give you a good demonstration of why please do the first reason is people who are vocalists And we have lots of friends who also sing and are very good singers A lot of voice actors also They absolutely do because they have great voices But there's a and watch watch my levels on this because this is the whole point if i'm singing If i'm singing i am singing loud And you know, I was thinking of doing a nondro boccelli number, but I can't remember the You know how exactly how it went But when you're singing You're using the same microphone all of this equipment was all designed for making music Except perhaps this particular microphone the harlan hogan v01a um The fact of the matter is is when you're singing you're putting out a lot of sp l sound pressure levels and you don't have to ride the gain So high on your interface Because it's going to pick you up just fine But because voice over is a conversation And I and we tell our clients this all the time You're not talking unless you're doing a promo for a football game at a football game You're not talking to a thousand people You're talking like i'm talking to you right now. We're just having a conversation about a voice over in this particular situation But we're not really yelling. We're not projecting. We're using our indoor voice in our conversation And therefore you have to turn the gain much higher up In order to get the proper modulation and people tend to That's the other thing is people don't understand how to set levels, but I think that's a discussion for another time um music is is a All the stuff was designed for making music especially a lot of the software because when you look at pro tools and logic And you know, maybe a little bit adobe audition all that was really more designed for making really Sinking voice tracks with video um or or reaper or some of these other multi-track systems voiceover really was not in consideration What happens is a lot of engineers say well, I use pro tools so people think well that must sound better What in reality? No, it's what they use to take your nice dry voice tracks And make you sound Right on top of music and sound effects and all that other stuff That's not your job. Your job is to create a single track mono properly modulated track With proper acoustics and no modulation No over modulation and and that's it And I think people tend to really overthink it because of all of the variables that the software and all of this equipment Tends to throw into The whole mix of things and people get confused Yeah, and that's a big part of it And then there's just a few other things that I concern myself with when people ask me About I'd like to record now some singing from my booth Um and those that have tried doing this know what I'm talking about Is it sounds Like a voice booth tune for voiceover Sounds pretty good for voiceover if it's tune, right or great But for singing it's so incredibly clinically dead That is very weird sounding for the performer Now, yes, you can fix it in post you can add reverb and you can create an acoustical environment later That's what you know people that know how to use their software and no audio engineering can do But for the live performance the actual time you're performing to be singing in that extremely dead Vacuum anechoic space that you've created it can be really difficult for the performer So that's definitely another major consideration is it can be just really hard to get a nice singing performance out of that Um environment so sometimes you have to create it from scratch Now most gear doesn't do that very elegantly It requires much more production skill, but If you find yourself wanting to do this more often The yamaha ag03 is one of the few Products that have that capability built in for not a lot of money I've got 150 bucks for an ag03 There's an effects unit in there with reverb and the beauty of it is you can hear yourself through that reverb sort of karaoke style But still record yourself dry without the reverb Which is pretty important. You don't necessarily Want that reverb that's part of your performance to be in the recording Something like an ag03 can do this Super super easily At the higher end of the things of price range. There's certainly the Apollo That can do it as well But for a quarter of the price and way less complicated quarter of the price. Yeah, yeah the yamaha ag03 Will do that kind of stuff in in spades. So if you feel like you're gonna be doing a lot of that I recommend it get check one of those out. They're really such a versatile little piece of gear. Yeah Yeah, we actually run part of our audio through it if people only knew all of the different interfaces that are running this show It's pretty amazing. We everything we talk about we use on some level on this show really Yeah, so why why are there so many different microphones? And that's I think that's the other issue here about All of these microphones were designed for different purposes, you know, like you know, like say an re20 was originally designed as a bass drum mic And you know and and and the the sennheiser 416 is designed as a video mic We're just adapting all this stuff to our purposes It's true. It's true the and by the way, I just Started the facebook feed for anybody who cares the facebook feed is now live Yay, yay Thanks, sue Yeah, I mean a lot of gear we repurpose and and a lot of gear is just good a lot of different things Nowadays when you see a new condenser mic coming out, they'll say this mic works great on guitars drums Vocals it's like, yeah, I know because voice over what a good a good microphone Can record a lot of things You'll almost never see them say voice over unless they're marketing to voice over which there's very few Who do that other than harlan hogan's vo1a, which is right above your head So by the way, just a little plug for that mic Yeah shoot out recently a client of mine had one of these as well as a Much loved and I've talked about it a lot the vanguard v4, which I thought is a really nice mic very nice mic And um, I think it was a gosh Oh, it's not just any client. I believe this was actually a shootout done by the our very own And loved jack degolia. Oh He did a little shootout and the vo1a one out It beat out the much newer more fancy vanguard v4 and uh And one of the things that it was better than the all the other mics in the test was itself noise It was actually the quietest it's a very quiet mic It had the least amount of room room noise out of that all out of those three mics And the other one was a sent to you project c1. Yeah, so Yeah, I mean Microphone is designed for voice over not always just branding that mic Sounds excellent on a voice and it is very quiet, which is an incredibly incredibly important aspect The voice over mic exactly and that's our discussion for the week on that. We got a bunch of questions Yes, some left over from 2020 Uh, and if you've got a question for us throw it in the uh, well chat room and facebook And on youtube if you happen to be there as well Uh, and we'll be right back to talk about those questions and answer them. Hopefully with the right answers after this Hello, welcome to voice over body shop Is a place where you can get your body Shopped with voices. Come on Look at the inside so shiny 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 dot 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 dot 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 dot 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 dot com Where your veo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? When it comes to voice over the mental game of auditioning is just awful for some people yet for others It's one of the best parts of their day Now how do you get your mind in the right place? Here's a link to a free three lesson mini course given by this guy Yeah, you recognize him, but you don't know his name It's tv film stage and voice over actor Michael Kostrov an expert at teaching the mental game of auditioning He's created a free mini course with the help of veo heroes called audition myths tough truths and logic And it gives you dozens of tested strategies for approaching and nailing the audition process It works for voice over on camera theater commercial or any other audition you might get and again It's absolutely free. Here's the link veo heroes dot com forward slash v obs Yep, veo heroes dot com forward slash v obs Go there and you'll get instant access to audition myths tough truths and logic. That's veo heroes dot com forward slash v obs This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez, and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of our body show And we're back We're working on getting music to come in and out as we do this sort of thing play play the theme again And we are back On voice over body shop. Yeah, gotta fade it out just a little bit That's the wrong theme next time. I'll play the right theme. Okay, good our actual theme our actual Okay, good. All right, so we got a couple of questions here from our vast audience from bob ledham Uh, this is loopback the same as or different than mix minus Not not exactly good question. Yeah mix minus is sort of like it's a built-in feature on a mixer Loopback is that's something completely different really it's Sound back from your computer Yeah, I mean They're related Like if you're going to do a loopback you want to make sure that there is a mix minus because So what that means is like What's coming back from the computer? You don't want it to go Uh, let's see returning from the computer right you don't want that to go back to the computer again Right because that truly is a loop And that's what's kind of weird the terminology of a loop back It implies that a loop sir implies a circle like a continue Continuous loop round and round and round and round right and that's not what we want either Um to further confuse things the ago3 mix or I was about to say the ago3 has has a switch called loopback And if you you can use it, but if you do have your stuff set up wrong It will do exactly that continue looping looping round and round and round So a mix minus is like Some mixers have it built in as like a feature you turn on like the roadcaster pro I have Literally has a mix minus mode But essentially what mix minus means is it's a a mix of everything you want Minus the thing you don't want That's what a mix minus is so it's a it's a mix of everything coming in But the thing let's say you're on a phone telephone You don't want to send the caller Himself So you make a mix that's everything they need to hear Minus himself. That's what a mix minus is so I think that these terms are all intermingled a lot and they can sort of relate to each other But they're did they technically are different things. Yeah Yeah, and they they're different devices and stuff. So yeah Yeah, and yeah, don't worry about a mix minus unless you have a mixer So right, I mean you can't make a mix minus without a mixer to do a mix minus Essentially, you need something to create that mix situation right or a mix master, which will be really nice brownies Jay Horace black has a bunch of questions here because Jay Horace black always has good questions Uh, just in case you didn't get my emailed question with image. I didn't see the image Hey, Dan and George first question Universal Apollo console app that allows one to operate the interface control such as gain monitor, etc On the far left. There is an analog one Uh, the lever on the bottom left is on eight. Oh the analog is lever is One on the lever. I'm not exactly sure what he's saying there On the far left. There is a analog one The lever on the bottom left is on eight Should the level control be on 12 or max to the top? Well, I guess it sort of depends Yeah, I'm not super clear on the way the question's worded, but If you're talking about the so on the physical unit Which I have right here Just happened a ring of leds here And as you turn the gain up the ring of leds start lighting up more and more and more indicating that you're increasing the gain So it just gives you a relative idea where the gain is set to and where that should be depends completely on What you're doing your performance How from the mic you are all that kind of stuff now in the console Those settings are mirrored in the console app itself But in the console app they're nice enough to give you an actual number to go by Which is the gain So not just a generic set of led lights, but you can see 43 for example dv gain So the two and the two are completely connected to each other. So when you turn this knob that number goes up and down I don't know if that answers the question But that's uh Hopefully that helps somebody. Yeah And then are there any basic settings we or I should have on my console Well, basic settings for if you're just getting started is just make sure your fan power is turned on So your fan and power light should be lit. You should almost always have the high pass or low cut button on usually helps Make sure preamp mode is turned on so when you turn the knob you're actually adjusting your gain But on the console side, you don't need much going on there You just want to make sure that you can hear playback And monitor yourself So as long as the level is turned up on your microphone in the console And you don't change any other settings mess around under the hood play with a bunch of other stuff Then you'll hear yourself and you'll hear uh playback in your headphones right and that's beyond that right And that's the thing with the Apollo is that console Isn't designed for voiceover unless you're really experienced and really know what it is that you're adding in there It's very much music. It's it's very engineering related. Yeah. Yeah, and and therefore, you know, the console is It's a temptation My dream would be if universal audio of anybody out there in universal audio lamb listened to me That wouldn't be pretty amazing When we're out at write a console that's dedicated to the to the needs of maybe podcasters and voice actors. Yep That would be super amazing, you know, just an interface that makes sense to the brain if someone is doing Voice acting right, you know and and just has the features and settings that only you need That would be pretty amazing. Yeah, it's called a focus right to i2 Well, yeah Or or a solo it's like, you know, don't eat them Again, it's temptation because all of the stuff is not designed for voiceover And then people will like well, this makes me sound great and I do that Forget all that you want all Joseph Riano doing promo. That's right And Joseph Riano just sounds great because he's Joseph Riano right any um Second question is there another option for de-clicking other than rx8 Since we're only using it to take out mouth clicks. Is it really something I need to Um, is this something that's used only In post or can it be set to do this while recording something? Yes and yes and don't Yeah, you definitely don't want to record through a mouth declicker because those things screw up your oh boy audio A lot So you don't want to ever destructively record your audio through a declicker Um, how the yeah other than rx8. Yeah, there's a con acon a con digital They have a de-clicking algorithm. So they're not the only ones out there Audition has a de-clicking the audition does. Yeah audition has them and sometimes it works Pretty darn well. Yeah, I've played with it. So yeah, I see I I see now again. My philosophy is everything's physical And we don't talk to other human beings to a de-clicker And the only reason you hear mouth clicks is because your mic proximity might be a tad close You're really close And you're listening through headphones and you're and you're like, yeah, exactly and most people aren't and You know, usually when you send in a file if it's like Yeah, that's a bit of a problem Some people just seem to be a little clickier than others and I have and I have been instructing people that look It's more important to keep yourself hydrated And not over project and not overemphasize certain syllables Uh, you know, they they have a tendency to start off a sentence louder and you can see it on the waveform It's like no keep it nice and even If you're relaxed if your tongue is relaxed, um It shouldn't be a problem and generally it's a hydration problem more than anything else Yeah, I'm really clicky. Well, yeah hydration and stress. Yes stress definitely You know, so uh important If you don't have to use it don't And you know, if it's for auditions and stuff like that I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you're really really clicky But let us determine that I think most people are More sensitive to their own mouth clicks that they hear. Yeah than anything else Like once you hear those mouth clicks as an actor It's super distracting to you But to me as a listener Yeah, there are cases where the mouth noise is overpowering But most of the time it isn't most of the time somebody says to me They have a problem with mouth clicking. I usually listen to it and go not really that really bad Same with sibilants a lot of people say they sound really sibilant. I'm like not really It's just there's a little prominence of of a brightness in the mic We can accuse that eq that a little bit and you're fine, but It's not it most people once they hear it. They can't unhear it. It's your your own your your your own worst critic Absolutely, that's why you need meta ears with your if you're really not sure What something is supposed to sound like? Let somebody who does know Like georgia rai Listen to it. I mean because if if you're trying to create audio to please your own ears you got to remember You don't hire you And you also probably haven't spent as many years as we have listening through Our own environments our own systems that we know extremely well I had somebody recently tell me that the audio settings I came up with Sounded kind of muddy and muffled to them And I didn't immediately say well, you're wrong. I just said well, what are you monitoring through? Maybe it could be your monitoring system And they and I said if you've got headphones and speakers try both and tell me what you think Long story short. They listen through their headphones and they're like, oh Yeah, that sounds the way you described it. I was like, yeah Well, the problem is your monitoring environment wasn't isn't tuned very well Your speakers are a little bit boomy and bass heavy and that's very very common With studio monitors and a home environment and that's what's getting you in trouble. So Anyway, exactly moving on. David Kressler had a question about flak flak flak Don't give us any flak man. Yeah, stop getting his flak I was going to audition for a publishing company for audiobooks when they requested the downloaded files be in flak Format what is this and where do I get this at? um, this is not aug vorbis Right, right. So flak is uh, I don't remember what the acronym is, but it's a lossless audio codec something lossless audio codec um, and basically what it means is instead of an mp3 audio file that decrades the audio A little bit depending on the settings a lot depending, you know depending on how it's set up um a flak audio file it will be smaller than the wave file Maybe a half to a third the size but with absolutely no audible audio loss So mp3 is a lossy format and a flak is a non lossy Format. Yeah, that's what they call it Um, certainly not common the idea being that they're getting the best possible audio quality Without you having to send them a full-size wave file. So instead of sending them 400 megabyte files You can send them Maybe 200 megabyte files. That's going to make a big difference. Yeah, it's not a big difference I'm pretty sure most recording softwares these days have a flak a file format save mode um, I know I'm pretty sure twisted wave does he didn't say what doll he uses but Check in your doll and if you can't find it then go online look for something called switch Which I think probably has it's a it's utility that will save anything in any other format You can think of so look for switch Exactly All right, Jeff Holm Jeff. He says my voiceover booth walk-in closet. Well, what is it? Uh, it's Is three feet wide by six feet six and a half feet long by 10 feet high Not bad. That's a you know, I hope he has some shelves there Uh, I have a shelf built at waist level into a wall on one end with the microphone monitor keyboard And mouse sitting on top of the shelf by doing this I have effectively cut the height of my booth in half Okay, will I get more out of the booth if I lower the shelf to desk height So, um, I have a shelf built at waist level. Okay, that makes sense with the microphone It has nothing to do with what's going on above because your mic is there And it's right and actually a desk if it's a solid desk Is going to is going to be reverberant anyway, which is you're not going to get more out of the booth by lowering the shelf The only way you'd have problems with the shelf is if it was actually above the mic Right and that could cause reflections back down off the bottom of the shelf That wouldn't be good. Yeah but Yeah, I don't think you're effectively cutting the height of your booth in half at all because the shelf's only What a foot deep right, but the booth is six and a half feet long So, yeah, I don't think you're really effectively cutting in a half at all And really and the only way to find out Jeff is to let us listen Yeah experiment or send us a sound check. Yeah Uh, and one last question here. Well two questions from Carl Gillette. Uh, this is Very similar questions as I have converted a walk step-in closet into a studio It's three and a half deep five feet wide and I use the existing shelves to make a drop ceiling at six feet With about two feet of annular space above annular Does that mean like a cavity? I guess so, okay, and uh, Yeah, in general Would it be worth opening up that space to add about 30 cubic feet? Probably not at least from the way I look at things You always want to try and reduce the acoustic sides of a room If there's not a lot of treatment up there and it's going to create reflection space So, I mean if he's got a drop down it's sort of like having a cloud And preventing the sound from bouncing all the way up Yeah, annular is an adjective referring to complex craters that have uplifted central structures surrounded by an annular trough and a fractured room I'm sure there's a way to use that word correctly and then I'm not doing it. That's what I got out of the dictionary but um I would Usually a better higher ceiling is almost better almost always better in my experience Um, so it wouldn't be such a bad thing. I don't know what that exists Well, you said that the shelf is a making a drop ceiling Well, he's got shelves and then he used he used this the shelves on both sides to create To put something across both sides So it's a big there's a big cavity above that right. That's right Well as long as what is making that cavity is porous Like not big big piece of wood, but it's actually like an acoustical panel that right sound can pass through That would actually work really well probably right, you know, because it makes a sort of a huge cavity like a bass trap where sound can kind of go up there and bounce around and then get reabsorbed on the way back so and then he says I've added two layers of five eighths in sheet rock to help with soundproofing and before adding the acoustic foam I put a layer of foam under carpet of the walls Is that possibly creating too much frequency attenuation? Uh That's an interesting idea. I never heard of putting foam under a carpet Yeah, I'm generally florist don't generally don't cause a problem I think he means on the walls I put a layer of foam under a carpet on the walls Oh So he's got foam on the walls and then carpet on the wall on top of the foam That's really interesting. Well, you're always saying the carpet tends to not attenuate for high frequencies very well Or it doesn't take low frequencies. Yeah, it mostly does the high frequencies and then he adds foam which Also soaks up my frequencies. I I don't you know Carl theoretically. It's probably okay Guess what guess what we're gonna tell you We gotta hear it Hearing is believing if it sounds good, it is good. You hear us say it every episode We gotta hear it. But um, I think theoretically what you're describing could work pretty well I'm sometimes totally surprised how some people's Bizarrely setup studios sound great and sometimes the ones that sound like they're done right when I hear the audio sound pretty bad So it can be really difficult sometimes. Absolutely to nail down. All right. Lots of good questions. Lots of good discussion Yeah, all right, but I can smell dinner Uh, I'm sure the missus is like what are you doing out there? She's like, oh, I forgot it's monday night. Yes, it's my mahjong night You've got mahjong night. This is my mahjong night Anyway, next week on this very show The one and only will linementh will be here. Super cool. This is gonna be he's I hear he's a really nice guy A legend in voiceover if you if you watch front line on pbs and other pbs shows and of course The voice behind the most interesting man in the world commercials for dos and good campaign great campaign and Um, and he's done he's done some other cool acting stuff, which we want to talk to him about Yeah, and then on february 1st debbie. Dairy berry will be joining us again. All right, so that's a great stuff Who are our donors this week? Oh, there's a good list of names here healthy one christopher epperson sarah borges philips apir tray moseley shaley abuelino thomas pinto larry hudson natasha murchavka You got a prime page George woodham. That's my dad rob rider patty gibbons diana bertsall staphony southerland shana pennington baird antlamp productions martha conne and don griffith Yeah, well, yeah, I got a new year's card from john florian our good friend at voice over me too And and it says, you know from john and martha and i'm thinking Did I miss something is this is to america? No, his wife's name is nancy right and I write to i'm like, what? Oh, it's martha conne who does say who works with him at voiceover extra. That's right Sorry martha martha. Yes icon. She's awesome. She's a great Yeah, uh, we need to thank our sponsors, of course, uh, harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements boheroes.com voice actor websites.com and jmc demos Our thanks to jeff holman for doing yeoman job in the chat room tonight, which i'm sure was somewhat challenging at times And our amazing technical director who probably has been sweating buckets all night and that's So, you know getting it done despite you never know what's going on in the background here But it's right, but it works and she's one of the reasons it does And and lee pennie for simply being lee pennie. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week We'll be back next week if you got questions for us write to us at The guys put that up there. So the guys at v obs dot TV there it is and We'll answer those questions. We love hearing from you guys. That's why we're here And we're here to help you with your home voiceover studios. Anyway, look if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan lennard. I'm george widdon and this is voiceover body shop or v o b s tech talk talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk talk Have a good week. Good night everybody Oh, there's the theme