 Hey there, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 41 Well, you put the one our 40 41 there you go. All right Yeah, we've been doing this a while, but we got a ton of stuff to talk about tonight. We got some great questions from you guys and lots of stuff about what is it about twisted wave twisted wave and Mac OS and And stuff. Yeah, and we're gonna talk about preamps Because George and I saw a fascinating video about that the other day and we want to talk about that so If you've got some tech questions throw them in there Hopefully we can get to them, but it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now 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 Whidham 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 in 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.com home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone Voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes.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, hello there, I'm Dan Leonard. I'm George Widow and this is voiceover body shop or VO B.S. Tech talk tech talk All right. Well contrary to rumor, you know Nothing's burning here, but it is burning up in the mountains and it's smoky around here in Southern, California But last week it was like a four or five day preview of nuclear winter Man, I was out of town by some quirk happened to be out of town when that was happening and it all the pictures I was seeing was yeah, it was like Mordor. It was yeah It was like being back in Buffalo in December was like cloudy, but it wasn't overcast It was smoke. Yeah, it was kind of weird But at least might met the cucumbers grew better because the sun wasn't beating down on them Silver lining silver lining to that, you know, that yeah, exactly Well, if you're joining us here on tech talk, it's because you want to know more about How to make sure your home voiceover studio sounds the way Sounds what it's supposed to sound like I was gonna get there eventually But if you want to know how to do it, right? There's really only two guys that really understand this Everybody else is an expert in one studio their own George and I have been doing this a long time and We know what it takes to get your audio, right? And as you'll find out as you listen to the show, it's not this great piece of equipment or that piece It's not having a great piece of equipment means diddly squat if you don't know how to use it So one of the things we do is we like to teach people how to properly use their equipment George you've worked with some of the best people in the business How knowledgeable are they when when it comes to knowing how to use their equipment and what have you had to teach them? There I'm here a very small amount I mean the folks that come into this business That come from production the other side of the glass as they call it, you know Are obviously gonna be more technical or maybe they come from radio They least learn how to the right side of the mic to speak into that's right ticket Mike They're using and they learn how to you know radio production hugely helpful But people have come from the acting background music background whatever it doesn't I'm not necessarily gonna know this these secrets and even people that have been in studios a lot don't know Some of the quirks that we have to deal with with these little closet small Compact studio spaces especially in apartments. Yeah, so if you want, yeah exactly So if you want to learn how to do it, right? If you want experts to show you how to just make it so easy that all you have to do is know where to stand Make sure your mic's in the right place and hit record because all that other stuff's been taken care of by the guys that know how to do it You could work with us. It's very simple. All you have to do is contact us like for instance If you wanted to talk to George, where would you go? You would go to the cleverly named George the dot tech Domain name and type that in and then it will take you to a menu that says tech vio tech services with a tremendous amount of options It's a little overwhelming for you. You can always contact me But chances are you want to start with a sound check or just get a home studio consult where I can answer The slew of questions you probably have right now and get you off in the right direction And not overspending on things that you hear you might need But may not so that's a good way to start Dan. Yeah, yourself. You're you can be found over at homevoiceoverstudio.com here it is right there home voiceover studio.com and You know, I George and I do a lot of the same stuff We you know, it's it's fun to work with people one-on-one and and really get them educated as to what it really requires to do this and they're all It's always great when I finish with somebody and you see the tension this boulder lifted off of their shoulders Oh, it's not. Oh, that's what it is But you got to talk to somebody who knows what's going on And if you've already built a home studio and you want to know how if it's sounding right If it sounds the way it's what it's supposed to sound like you can submit a specimen to me and my specimen collection cup at the bottom of my home voiceover studio.com Wed page and for $25 I'll be happy to analyze your audio and give you some tips and Make sure that you get it sounding right unless you need a lot of help in which case we can talk about that What's in your tech update this week? My tech update I mean I was putting together some notes for the show and then it dawned on me boom Don't bury the lead because twisted wave has a new version. Wow. So I'll talk about twisted wave go for that because it's really the most important thing is There are it's it's that time of year. It's that season and Apple is pushing out all their new stuff Whether you're ready or they're ready or not because they they push the stuff out every year and it's not always ready And I'll start with iOS 14. I Haven't I'm not running it because I'm avoiding it, but there is a new iOS It's version 14 if you're on iPad or iPhone your phone's probably already nagging you to Update to it Dan. Have you hit the button yet? Is it happened on you on your phone? Ah? There was one the other day. I did yeah You know it's like if it's an iOS update. It's just like yeah, whatever fine, you know the computer I listen to you. It's like is it time yet? Well, I used to see I used to think that was okay, but I was 13 at numerous updates that were a big bomb So I I've been very careful, but I was probably less or so But the big one is big sir. That is the that is what's coming out after Catalina That's gonna be that's gonna be Mac OS 11. No more 10 point 15 or that's not gonna be 10 point 16 It's gonna be 11 Is it a dramatic difference from Catalina under the hood? Probably not so much, but I'll say this every single year Don't update right away. Don't or don't upgrade right away. Have a backup And here's actually here's a checklist for you don't install if you aren't prepared and backed up Don't install if you don't have a spare Mac to experiment with or a plan with how to use You know install another version of OS don't install if you can't handle problems That's a good one Don't install if you need specific apps that may not possibly run on big sir. That would be pro users Don't install if you are working from home Really don't install I guess is what that means and don't install if you can't handle sound issues Okay, I think that's warning enough right there Yeah, this checklist isn't saying that all of these things are gonna explode on you when you install it but it's just Being responsible did just because something is free and it's being offered to you First one's free man. Doesn't mean you should take it So give yourself some time and let let us tell you when it feels safe I'll tell you what the safest version of OS is Catalina now because now it is fully baked It has gone through all of its updates and debuggings and it is as stable as you can get and that's really the one to be on in fact If you're thinking of buying a new Mac now's the time to probably get a new Mac because it's going to have on it Catalina It'll of course will be ready to run big sir when you decide you need to get it But you want to be you want to be not getting a new Mac after big sir comes out because then you'll be stuck With a brand new OS that who knows if it's gonna run all your hardware and software So just be careful about that. Do they did they say when the release date is for that? It's usually like Octoberish mid early to mid October. I haven't seen an exact release date yet But it's coming pretty soon. So, um, yeah, just be careful Just be smart about it and avoid it if you can even if you mistakenly click yes and install it or download it I mean to say you don't have to finish installing it. You can quit installing it. So Anyway, that's my spiel and that you guys you hear it every year But the cool thing I think is Twisted Wave 24 Now they've they've if you're following along they were version 1.23 point Something for a long time and now it's 24 because he's dropping the one point So it's a cleaner name. So it's Twisted Wave 24 New features there's quite a lot and I'll read him down real quick. I haven't I just installed it I haven't had time to go through a bunch of tests and see if it has any bugs But I do know Thomas the developer we know him that he would not release something that he has not thoroughly tested So it should be solid, but that said Maybe wait a little bit just a week maybe wait a week and so I'm saying There's an he added in believe it or not a noise reduction. I saw plug-in effect It's really basic like one slider basic And my initial test was it meh Not great, but it's he's trying so good on you Thomas is there Next would be the automatically detect glitches caused by missed buffers when recording This is really handy because if you're doing a long session like a long narration Audiobook chapter or whatever if there's issues with your hardware during that recording You're not gonna know because one you're either monitoring right off the headphones on the hardware which won't reveal that or two You're not wearing headphones You're you're gonna you're gonna have no way of knowing but this thing will mark little markers on the file saying yo Right here. There was a glitch Not saying you should stare at Twisted Wave when you're recording But you can at least maybe glance at the screen once every minute or so and just see if it's marked some errors Could be really helpful to save you a wasting a lot of time It shows an error now instead of falling back to the built-in microphone when you select when the wrong audio interface is not available How many times have you hit record and it's recording from the built-in microphone? You know that the other ones plugged in you you checked it earlier But you've restarted it and you forgot that you unplugged it and plugged it back, you know, whatever the case is This should save you from a lot of embarrassment Especially the beginning of a source connect session or something where the wrong mic is plugged in or the wrong mic is set This will reward you. Hey, you're not using the mic that you had set in preferences. You're using something else Why do I sound so distant? I Have to say thank you for doing this and I believe I was the one that got in his ear to put this in So, thanks, Thomas. Yeah, that's a good that's a great feature Added he also added an analyze action to the batch processor. So let me unpack what that means Now if you're doing mastering of a whole bunch of chapters You can have analyze the analyze function be in a batch So you can load in all your stuff so you can master and at the end It'll it'll process say 20 chapters and then it puts out a file that will show you that you're your Annalyte your analysis of all the chapters is within the spec So that means you're gonna know by looking at this little spreadsheet all my chapters are in spec done You don't have to go and you don't have to analyze each chapter one by one and check and make sure and change it if you need to Very cool awesome, and I That'll take credit for that one, too I did it said I would love to be able to do that This is I think reason why 24 has been in the works for quite a long time. He was He was taking in a whole lot of suggestions for features and and trying to get them in there and then debugging and testing So we waited quite a while for this version, but one cloudy glad he did it Yeah, you know opt to automatically get beta versions of twisted wave and it will automatically update with beta versions I don't recommend this Really, you know unless you're a tester or you've got another copy of twisted wave and you like bleeding edge stuff Don't don't run betas Not for your production studio When a punch in recording is initiated while the selection is active So if you have a dark section of audio the contents of the selection will be replaced And then the recorder will stop when it reaches the end of the selection So that makes that kind of gives you another version of punch and roll where you can Choose a specific selection of audio to punch over and you don't have to worry about it recording over the next thing Some people really needed that to make it easier So if you don't select anything, it'll just punch and roll on forever But if you select something it will punch and stop kind of kind of handy I added the open recent document item in the file menu. So it'll show the last file you That you're working on just a little thing but a tweak Let's see. There's a few others that are like kind of you know, that's a big deal here The toolbar can be customized with a big version of the cursor position Number the number that shows where you are in the file and big much bigger numbers Some people really appreciate Yeah, it's in there somewhere. It's easier to see where you are in the in the file Let's see something about the lambda and quality parameters were swapped and didn't work as expected and they change pitch and speed effect Funny I last time I used it eons ago. I thought it was weird. That explains why When saving a file while recording the document wouldn't be marked. This is an interesting one The document wouldn't be marked as dirty and you would not be offered to save it again after the recorder was stopped So what does that mean by marked as dirty when I read that? I was like, huh? some kind of insider coding language for You ever you know, you record something and when and you haven't saved it in some programs You'll see a little asterisk next to the name or maybe it's an italics. Yeah, somehow it's marked to say, hey You did something to the file. It's not saved. That's what he's talking about by the file is dirty I had to do a little research on that. I figured that out Changes I mentioned the way the file name the the verging of the software chain has changed. Okay now It's 24 moving the cursor to the beginning or the end of the file When you move the cursor to the beginning or end of the file the selection is discarded So like if you selected something somewhere weighed back in the file somewhere random It'll stay you jump to the end. Yeah, you don't have to worry about it hitting record and jumping back to that thing again And recording over which is you know, these are little these little tweaks can save you time over time and really make things easier So anyway a couple little minor bug fixes, but really that's it. That's quite a laundry list and I'm curious to find out from you guys in the comments below which of those features you found to be Incredibly useful for you and which ones you're using. So I find it fascinating that this is a program That I don't think he was originally intending it for for voice actors, but it has become a real standard for voice actors on mac um You know, he was probably taking a lot of open source code To create a program and I guess it was bo weaver that noticed it and started using it and now it's become Yeah, you know and he's listening to voice actors and he understands his market Somehow he got me somehow bo got in his ear early on and uh and thomas listened So he was giving them he was giving him feature ideas early that were voiceover centric And uh, you know, it's used by a lot of other people people that are editing samples and Doing a lot of different things, but he's listening to the voiceover community clearly by that list of updates I mean a lot of that stuff is highly helpful for voiceovers. So really clearly listening to you which is Well, that was amazing Months or years will go by actually where we don't communicate for whatever reason don't need to Um, but recently just came out of the came out of woodwork And he was like, you know answering questions and saying, yeah, I should add that in You know, I happen to know he's a family guy. So yeah, you got very busy with his family for a while and now he's Backing so he's here the thing is he's always been there fixing bugs, you know, and that's been his priority. So I love that all right, um other little things, um This is a hack Dan. Have we ever have you ever done this or did I ever do you ever see this before? That's that attaching your headphone adapter Zip tying it to the cord for the headphones that you use it with So it's always there and doing it in such a way that There's enough tail here that you can do this And then plug it into the gear No, but now I will It's so helpful these damn things get lost all the time I know a lot of you use the same headphones on the same gear day and day out You don't need to unplug and plug and have this but for me I am moving between systems and I love the same pair of headphones. So boom Easy easy hack notice that it's zip tied on the reverse direction from the cord. So when you Bend it over It plugs in so anyway, but you dig that All right did that again and then um lastly isotope rx is out rx8 And from what I've done researching reading watching videos. It's just a few new Bells and whistles on top of rx7. So yeah, I didn't see anything that was vio Major vio stuff for we at voice actors. So if you're already on rx7 I don't think you really should have any reason to upgrade to rx8 Maybe if you're on all an old old rx, maybe then You upgrade but I don't see I didn't see anything I mean, you guys know if you think I'm full of it Put a comment below but I I got a lot of I got a lot of emails people asking questions You know about how do I use rx7 and and what we're seeing is a tremendous amount of rx7 abuse Hear it all the time. Yeah, it's like our audio and yeah, it's not gonna save you You know, it's not really designed for voiceover and if you've got it as we were saying earlier If you don't know how to use it or why you would use it or how it does what it does and what it does You really shouldn't use it. It's for fixing old vinyl records primarily And or it's or rescuing An introduction audio from a video or a film and you know, the producer has to do something To make the audio usable. That's really what it's for god forbid you put it in a template or a preset Or a stack and you use it every single time by by rote because you're That's not the way that's not the way to use those tools those algorithmic tools that change the audio fundamentally Really be careful about when you use them and use them only when they're needed Yeah, and the engineers know when you're using it. Oh, they sure do They know the artifacts the sounds that The swishy watery muffled Weird sounds of those reduction noise reduction tools. Yeah, which sort of takes us to this other thing You want to talk about the ever-evolving and tightening requirements for home vo studios is dictated by game production companies uh because That's what they're hearing and that's I think one of the reasons that we're seeing Some of these requirements coming out. Yeah, the requirements will come out from they're very I mean arguably Extremely respected and talented Studio engineers and producers, you know, because these games Are produced on a very very high level of production value. I mean and the budgets are huge on games. So But I think what happens is These are getting sort of disseminated and passed around by agents and others They're saying well, if it's if xyz studio says this is what we need Let's just make sure everybody does has been, you know, it does all this And it can be really overwhelming like there's a lot of details that go in like different the way you sounded different distances and Making sure that you can sound as good as it sound perfect at extremely low levels and extremely loud levels and all these things that are really important to doing video game type work, but aren't necessarily valid for a lot of other things so Take it for with a grain of salt if you do get one of those sheets sent to you And you're working with dan or I send it to us. Yeah, we can go over with you and make sure Yeah, you know what they're right. This thing is really important and they're gonna call you on it If you don't do it or You know, you're good. Like yeah, I know it says that but you're fine and we'll disseminate what's really important for you because It's overwhelming And sometimes you see these details come out from these studios these requirements or these demands sometimes, right? At last when I saw at least they were talking about acoustics a little bit A lot of times we've been seeing you know them throwing out this like you got to have this mickey You got to have this but not a word about what you really should be in a place that's acoustically sterile and neutral Because if you have a great microphone in a in a very powerful preamp You know and you're in your bathroom It's gonna show up Because all this good equipment is going to reveal The issues you have in the space you have that's which is why I generally preach that most of these issues that we're trying to deal with Are all mainly physical That your physical space is the most important thing when you're recording because you can have You know any good condensed studio condenser mic If you're if your environment is right, that's what's really most important and it's kind of perturbed me That these guys on the other side of the glass who live in these wonderful voiceover palaces You know if you're at home It's not the equipment that they're sending out or the the requirements they're sending out that's going to make the audio Good, it's the environment in which you record. Yeah. Yeah So, yeah, there are more you are seeing more of that like, you know needs to be free of echo or whatever One of my clients accidentally discovered that the spring on his microphone arm was actually being heard He's been working in that studio with that mic and that mic arm and everything for years and years But that one producer picked up on it when he had when he had him do a shouted line You know something really loud it reverberated the springs in his arm ring like a guitar Yeah, it actually it actually rang like a Like a spring reverb in a guitar from the 60s and you know what I was like Yep, you know what once in a blue moon. I have actually heard that and I just had him put some Tape around the springs and that that was that you know even zip tie them, but that was it yeah, so now we want to discuss something because You and I always get questions about this and people saying I got I got a manly or I got a I got this preamp or that preamp. You have a on 737. Yeah, yeah, or you know Yes, or the focus right the the brick or whatever it really warms me up. Yeah, it's it's I want my voice to sound warm because as we know we all talk to other human beings in conversation With something it's giving us harmonic distortion Uh, so So we you you sent you sent me this video the other day from somebody from sound on sound And these guys are the experts on it They're mega audio and music geeks right sound on sounds a british publication and uh Yeah, they're very respected one of the one of the few remaining all magazines in pro audio. I think that's true So answer the question Yeah, I mean it was very good. I mean it but it's reinforced. It was kind of nice to see it, you know You know, dan and I give all this advice and sometimes it's nice to get little reinforcement from the music business saying You know what actually what we're saying is Is correct and it pretty much reinforce what we've been saying things like, you know, do you need a preamp? Well, here's the thing is a preamp is this thing That any time you plug a mic in to another device has to have like everything has a preamp circuit So what they're referring to in this case is a standalone piece of equipment an external preamp. Yeah Yeah, a box a rack mounted thing or thing that fits in a little lunch box little, you know, these are the preamps we're talking about So you you need a preamp because you have to have one in your interface that the mic connects to But you don't need an external preamp and Um, what you do need is no distortion in your audio, right and a properly set mic gain on your scarlet 2i 2 Your Apollo your audience whatever it is a properly set mic gain will capture audio without distortion That's the main job of that preamp and that's really what you care about The thing that's funny is The more you spend on the preamp The oftentimes the further you move away from that Now that's not always true. There's a few preamps that are they're they're claimed to fame as accuracy millennia Grace there's some companies that are you know designed to be and how much into those cost You know a thousand plus dollars right for one channel Grace has a good one eight eight hundred dollar range, but You still have to connect that to the computer which means you need more gear You need an analog the digital converter You know how to have you have to know how to gain stage and match the levels between them. So there's no again no noise no distortion Anything you add Essentially will add more distortion um, almost always, um, and that's that's The the wrong thing to do and when you hear about preamps doing things like warming me up You know a tube having this harmonic distortion Or you know a transformer having this cool sound that's whatever They don't do any of those things unless you run them at the edge of their performance So that would be like the input gain turned up hot enough where that distortion actually starts happening But not so much that it sounds crappy And there's a small range where that actually happens And as an actor like for you to be worried about where the gain is set for that specific performance So that it gets that specific thing Is it's crazy like how can you act? And be in the character and also monitoring how much harmonic distortion in your preamp is adding to your voice at the same time And keeping track of all it's just it's It's just not it doesn't make sense. Yeah to do it. Yeah, so don't do it Most of the preamp most of the interfaces we work with I mean the focus rights and the steinbergs and the yamaha's Their preamps are excellent And they're I mean they have more than enough to drive any good studio condenser microphone We did that usb interface shootout Take it into youtube v obs usb interface shootout One of the best sounding ones was a state. No, I'd never I say 12 year old Apigee one, that's right Again, not my favorite product on the planet, but sound quality Sounded great amazing super clean soup. No distortion So, you know, we've been doing these they've been making these inexpensive portable compact interfaces that sound great for a really long time So we there's some interesting things coming. There's this there are already out. There's the ssl ssl 2 That's the name of it interface that actually has a button that says 4k And when you press that it adds some stuff to the circuit and makes it sound brighter And maybe it adds some small amounts of distortion. So it sounds like a circuit from one of their old mixers from the 80s That's a rarity. I mean there are some gear where they can push a button It'll change the sound of the Preamp a little bit. So there are some experimentation going on in that area area focus rights scarlet 202. I think they have an air button Which is same idea loop back sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah, there's an air's a button says air It's changing the circuit to add something that wasn't there. That's distortion essentially um So anyway, you can experiment with it. Trust me. That's not what the producers want. They want it clean Have fun also understand that all of this stuff Especially the prams none of it was designed for voiceover They don't even think about voiceover when they're they're sitting there in their corporate board room sewing Well, should you know, should we make oven mitts or? um Or air phases Voiceover and mic pram. No. No, and and it's all designed for making music And we're just borrowing this technology to do what we do in a home studio Because remember this stuff didn't even do in the home voiceover at home didn't exist 20 years ago right and Now it's the People are pushing a lot of this technology None of it will make you a better voice actor if you can't read your way out of a paper bag It ain't gonna help Yeah, if you heard david last week say he's like he was using the same usb mic for eight years And and doing just fine with that mic and then just this year Decided it was time to invest in top of the line equipment That is the right way to do it folks. Yeah, you don't buy great equipment to get work You work to get great equipment. Yeah, and then and then you know, you're like, okay I'm stepping up to another level and I have to be ready right to To play at this level and I want to have the tools that's expected of me Then you you make that investment. Absolutely. All right. Well, we have long enough, right? I think we've exhausted that for the time being until next week Uh, but we got lots of questions people mailed in questions because we've been off for a couple of weeks And we're gonna get to those and elucidate you on wonderful stuff Right after this V obs dot tv I don't know why it's crazy what they do here. I think I'm gonna go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich As a voice talent, you have to have a website But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do they break or don't look right on mobile devices They're not built for marketing and seo. They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voice actor websites.com like our name implies voice actor websites.com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control No need to hire someone every time you want to make a change and our upfront pricing means you know Exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as seven hundred dollars So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voicehactor websites.com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books Auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Hey everybody, it's the time of the show where we get to talk about one of our long running and great sponsors source elements The creators of source connect and a laundry list of actually other tools that are on their website if you Go to source elements dot com Create your account first of all you gotta have an account once you have that free account start poking around on the website Source connect is of course the thing they're known for that allows you to work with all the best studios and Producers in the world from your studio at home But they have a lot of other interesting tools including a meeting tool Which is you know, if you're sick of zoom for whatever reason just don't even like saying the word anymore They've got a tool in there for free that will do what essentially zoom does Um, there's they they have a lot of interesting solutions, but the thing you need to have at this point if you're Serious about voiceover and you know that you're going to be gunning for those bigger bigger budget jobs Very good chance. They're using source connect to produce that so they want to record you real time And hear you as you sound right off the mic And so you got to have that ready And get it going by going to source dash elements dot com getting a 15 day free trial You don't have to buy it right now Just get that trial going so you have all the the machinery in place and the systems dialed in and the Ethernet plugged in and those things so you're ready to go when the session does pop up But anyway, we appreciate that Support now from source elements after several years of their support of the show Thank you guys and we'll be right back to wrap up and take talk right Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else Well, we got a ton of questions that you guys mailed in and we really appreciate that and the first one is from Alan propolis Try to read it You can go for okay Love the shows and your priceless wisdom every week. I've learned so much. Thanks to hear that great to hear that I'm looking at getting a vocal booth. I live in the uk and there are several choices I have heard of including studio bricks whisper room cube cube as mono and dembox the last three have never heard of actually Um, unfortunately due to covet. It's not easy to go go and test them And there's also not many I can demo before purchase in your vast experience of booth tuning Were there any booth manufacturers that were the most impressed with in terms of acoustics for voiceover? Would you say the whisper room with the acoustic tuning package is ideal for the small booth or maybe the studio bricks v o addition He's like i'm not that concerned about the noise reduction as my environment is quite Quiet and any booth should be enough to eliminate additional noise I'm looking at something around four by six feet Tlm 103 into a sspl crimson interface. I'm sure it's all subjective to each type of voice blah blah blah Um or there's a lot there I mean, well, I'm glad he I read on because he said I'm not really interested in buying this to reduce noise Then why are you buying a booth? because they're so damn expensive And anytime you take a space and shrink it into a small box You create new acoustical problems that you have to now fix None of these booths and I say none of them that I've ever seen sound good out of the box at any price The whisper room with the acoustic tuning package. Nope It's pretty good, but nope the uh the studio bricks v o addition Damn close. It's getting better. I mean they seem to making little tweaks. It's pretty damn good now still not right on the money All of these things have quirks the other brands again, I don't know of them as well So I don't know what they come with but I haven't seen a single voiceover booth company make perfect A perfectly acoustically tuned booth for voiceover Because They were never designed for voiceover. They were designed to prove So somebody who plays a saxophone or a violin or something can isolate themselves from other people And then they can't hear them on the outside So you're dealing with acoustics in a small space That you know and the other fascinating thing is is the louder you talk Yes, the more the acoustics of that particular booth come into play and people tend to be over projecting a whole lot Because they see a microphone therefore they have to talk louder And unless you're doing animation or gaming or something like that where you really have to be louder Use your indoor voice and and And a and a big booth is not going to You know big expensive booth is is going to cause you more problems than it's going to solve if you live in a quiet neighborhood Even the aptly named vocal booth dot com booth Doesn't sound great without a proper acoustic tuning ironically enough So Believe me we've worked with them all and all of them need help so Whatever you end up doing don't over buy The acoustics can be tuned Pretty easily So don't buy don't focus everything on that focus if you're really going to buy one make sure it has A good door quiet ventilation by ventilation works Yeah That's also rare to find ventilation in one of these rooms. It's quiet enough to run While you're in there. So that's what you got to be probably paying more attention to Absolutely Uh Masha cork. Oh, wait a minute. Did I miss one? You miss it? Oh Matt? Matt Gilchick Oh, let's see I've been using the caster plate under my whisper room for a few years, but I'll be moving soon Well, isn't that convenient? Yeah caster plate for moving your booth So I'm reevaluating whether or not I should use it I like the caster plate for mobility, but I'm curious if it would benefit the acoustics to remove it When I relocate it's a five by five whisper room That was tuned by george. Oh good And I will be sitting on a concrete slab foundation with carpet and padding in between. Thank you Uh, I'll keep it short leave the caster plate on It's it's better that the booth be standing on its tippy toes on little points of contact So that low low frequency noise can't Transmit into the floor Then having the entire floor sitting flat on a slab I don't know. I don't know they make a difference on a concrete slab. Do you think it would damn? Maybe not Uh, well, like you said point of contact, uh, you know a concrete's concrete slabs are great because sound really doesn't come up through them Uh, very I mean it's unless a tank goes by earthquake sound. Yeah Yeah, oh, we had a dandy here the other day. Oh, yes, we did you felt it better than we did. I'm sure. Oh, yeah I felt it coming and it's like I heard it coming. I was quiet. I was sitting in my sofa and I heard that that distinct freight train rumble And you feel it coming and it's like is it gonna be bad and you're like The chandelier started to swing a little bit and it's like, okay, we'll be okay Oh, you got the swing and chandelier going. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah Yeah, so I I don't think it will practically make a difference to you. So if you if having the wheels on makes it Annoying for you to use or whatever You're probably okay, but man, it's a pain in the neck to put them on there once it's built. So I don't know. I'd leave it on. I would leave it on. Yeah, well, it makes it easier to move anyway So clean behind it. Yeah, uh, here's one from our buddy moose Moose moose This is I was watching the guy from acoustic fields talk about mineral wool insulation And how there's some health risks with using stuff like rock wool for helping build a sound booth You guys hear any danger health risk with this type of batting? Well, yeah, it's rock wool You know, uh It's it's like fiberglass if you're gonna work with it wear gloves I I have a flight suit that I use, you know, and so I because if I don't it gets on your arms it itches Yeah, it's annoying. You know, but it yeah, you're getting your lungs. That's probably the worst um It's theoretically not as toxic I guess as the the fiberglass because it doesn't apparently have the formaldehyde or something like that, but it is still something that's gonna float into the air and You don't want it. You don't want it exposed in any way. You don't want it Open in any way. You want to make sure of whatever you're making is sealed completely Right unwrapped and fabric because yeah, if part of particulates get out it can annoy you or really irritate you Um, one of my clients had a real problem with hers and we had to we I had to revamp Take all that stuff out and go with I think we went to a cotton batting instead and uh to get rid of that That irritation So just be Yeah, double check But it's it's definitely better than maybe the the 703 oc 703 stuff But it's still not not uh, not without its issues. Yeah. Yeah, I I When I work with rock well, like if I'm say making clouds or something along those lines Use a very heavy cloth covering on it And then I covered the back with uh, uh with weed anti weed material Which worked really well Oh, that's good, which is why it sounds so damn good in here. Yeah, I did that stuff's cheap You can put it all over the back and it doesn't oh, yeah, it's cheap Cool, um patricia quarkham quarkham Hello from the metro boston massachusetts area Thanks so much for gathering all this marvelous voice talent in one spot this evening I'm really enjoying hearing everything and I hear a few questions Here's a few questions if I if there is time well, there's time and you're now there is you're in the right place at the right time Um, can you give a few refresher steps? To correctly set or control gain In audacity I work with a focus right mixer Maybe a scarlet i'm assuming In a blue spark mic I currently work with audacity, but i'm curious about other softwares like audition um and for Pay-to-play Uh, this is a multi-part question. All right, let's look at the first one right Dan is there any difference between setting gain on your mic between audacity audition Or anything else not really because You don't generally rely on the software for setting your levels. Uh, I always think, you know Just set it at 100 percent and then save your you know set the level from the interface That's the only place If sometimes people are like well my levels are low It's not because of the software unless they've taken the Uh the input and have turned it down like you can do an audacity Uh, but what you do is you the way you set the levels is as you talk into the mic and you look at the vu meter I think that's the problems people don't understand how to use the meter And there's a really good meter in in audacity and there is in audition and there is in twisted wave And you want to be peaking at a certain level Initially and that's set from your interface from the preamp on your interface so that you're Consistently modulating to at least minus nine And peaking somewhere between minus six and minus four according to the standards that that we've really established If you're not getting that there's nothing you can do in the software Uh to adjust that except maybe in post if you normalize it And if you're recording, you know at a high enough resolution to where You're not going to get a lot of extra noise when you when you raise the gain But primarily the only place you really set the gain Is from the preamp slash interface. That's the thing. It's always kind of Irk to me about audacity is that it has that gain slider control and I think that really can Can do 100 forget a problem. Yeah, like I think there was old old issues with windows where If you turned it up to 100 it was adding gain like a lot a lot a lot of gain Right and it was really screwing people up and then we found there was this weird like sweet spot of like 10 percent or something weird But I think that's gone. That's gone. That problem's long gone. So yeah, I think if you set it at 100 You should be fine and in any other software that doesn't have that control You're just going to set it from your Your mic preamp gain knob Yeah And the last question is for play to play what length mp3 file. Do you believe is most acceptable For most client situations since it all takes editing time 25 seconds 30 seconds That's a weird question because I don't isn't that going to be dictated by the script It's going to be dictated by the script The thing is is if you don't impress them in the first five seconds the last 25 ain't going to make a difference Yeah, so uh, you know, I guess she's maybe she's referring to and dan correct me if i'm wrong Do you if you're doing an audition from a script? You don't read the whole script, right? Well, it depends sometimes she's asking if I get stuff from a certain agent in austin who knows who he is Who says yeah, they want you to read the whole script And when he says that you do that otherwise It's like Yeah, I mean if they give you the whole script Yeah, you do 15 20 seconds of it Uh, unless there's different sections you have to analyze each one individually What is it? They're looking for are they looking to see how you change pace? Are they looking to see how you would? Uh, you know, are you going to read it in a certain way or are you going to give it several different takes? I the thing is is you want to be able to Get their attention right off the bat by doing it the way they want the thing is is Who knows what that is? Because they'll say one thing and then you know you always hear people saying well I auditioned and they said they wanted this and then I see I hear the commercial on the radio or see it on tv Uh, that's not what they asked for So it's it you know if you're a good voice actor it comes across I think is more important than anything else. All right. Well dan there are 11 questions in the queue Wow, should we Do a rapid fire round. It's time for lightning round. Ding ding ding ding ding ding. Should we try should we try a lightning round? All right, let's go for it If there's one that needs more attention, we'll we'll move it. We'll move it to another show me right, but we'll All right, so rapid fire rounds starting with shelly raffle gain on the id4 my Interface my issues at the gain settings are different each time I record Which is confusing and problematic for long recordings that span multiple sessions Also when recording the wave patterns on my DAW audacity look like little pebbles Yes, I adjusted the mic volume there too Uh, I want to make sure that my id4 is functioning properly I don't know what that's about like I know the gain setting is very touchy Yeah, so just a small amount could make a big difference. Maybe that's what's happening But I don't know that one's well, here's here's how I tell when I get that one There are there are a couple of things I immediately think of one What microphone do you have does it have a 10 db pad on it? Make sure the 10 db pad is off The other the other one is are you talking into the right side of the mic? Yes Makes makes a difference it really yeah, if your mic technique isn't consistent Then you're gonna that's gonna make a difference inconsistent about your input your gain Yeah, because if your mic placement isn't exactly the same each time your levels won't match So yeah, is the id4 functioning correctly? Maybe it is Maybe it is I don't know we might want to hire one of us. We'll help you help you through that Yeah, uh, nicholas clements. Uh, when do you know it's time to upgrade your gear? I guess we kind of touched we that was a good one that we kind of mentioned with in context of david Yeah, last week. Yeah from last week. He was using His I've had forever usb mic. He was using a sure pg 42 right used it year after year And he knew it was time to upgrade when he was getting requests to play it a bigger game Up his studio at home Be ready to do big time productions that require higher end gear oftentimes That's that's how he knew yeah, if you don't know for sure nicholas, maybe you're not ready Again, we can consult with you and listen to what you're already doing So we can tell you whether you're you're you're already hitting a hundred percent No need to upgrade Or whether it's time because of the deficiency in your quality But otherwise it's because you want to have more expensive gear and a better brand name and You know, you're trying to impress somebody All right, all right Another one from nicholas what makes an xlr mic better than a usb mic just about everything Uh, pretty much. Yeah, the problem with the usb mics is that the preamps in them because they're a preamp interface shoved into a microphone They sometimes are don't have the best preamps in them and that causes Hissing and a number of other problems with them when you have an xlr mic You're going to have an external preamp interface that you have much more control over a lot of times usb mics You can only control them from you know either software or from from your your operating system Yeah, I mean one one rare exception that actually is the aftware mention pg 42 that actually has a gain dial on But most of them don't have a gain control on them. So you can't really properly control them right something the epigy mic By the way, it's a very good usb mic It does and actually david david's in the david's hanging out tonight watching as he's holding up his mic and showing Look, look, look see my pg 42. It has a gain. Um, yeah Great microphone. Yeah, I think sues sues sort of there we go There's the back of the mic. It has a mixed level control a headphone level control And an actual mic gain dial on it Most of these usb mics don't have that except this one in the apogee do There you go. It looks like a spaceship. All right, I think we're gonna shoot with that lighting Yeah, I think I got time for one maybe two questions here. Uh, should we get one from? Let's see distortion All these questions come in. We don't have a chance here. Um J. Harris black says I've upgraded to ios 14 and it's smooth on my ipad pro and ipod 11 pro Good fabulous Um, clothe larry says can we get a close-up of a zip tie? All right, john john the zip tie Now he's got it There it is. There's the zip tie with the A plug on nothing to it. Okay. Everybody's got zip ties sitting around Okay, all right Oh, well j. Horace black does the distortion you mentioned Where one adds a preamp apply to a plug-in when using a universal don't use the plugins for crying out that's The plugins are not for voiceover and people keep telling you That you know get the Apollo twin because you can use these plugins are feeding you something that will drive you insane Uh, yeah, unless you're a producer making those creative judgment calls and producing something Don't don't go there. I mean really they cause they they cause so much confusion gain staging problems on and on It's just now. It's all in a virtual environment instead of actual gear, but Still can be very confusing as to even where to set the gain That ua 6 10 b preamp drives me nuts because now the gain knob on your Apollo All it does is switch the gain between five settings Minus 10 5 0 plus 5 plus 10. That's it the knob. That's all it does. It's just Really annoying don't don't don't do it It's amazing how much misinformation is out there. Yeah, uh, I mean, um Okay, jeff holman our own. Well, let's let's close it on jeff. Okay our own chat room moderator give him a solid All right does my sennazer 416 take uh, does it take a lot or should I say does a 10 sennazer 416 Take a lot of gain to power now having to set my scarlet solo to eight out of 10 Or higher for my sennazer shotgun mic to pick me up at a normal level when i'm about five inches from the diaphragm There may be something wrong with it Probably not. There is something wrong with it. I tend to think that you know, it depends on what he's recording on If we were just talking about audacity, he may have the audacity slider over And it's not getting enough or something. I know he's using twisted waves. Yeah, so He's on a mac and I know he's got another mic that's similar Yeah, just the other mic if it's working better than yeah, it might be the mic Could it could be the mic It's a real sennazer 416 jeff It could be if you bought it brand new for about 500 bucks and ain't the real thing not a real 416 Exactly. Uh, yeah, because that's how that was there was a while there was some there was some Counterfits going around. Absolutely. They sounded cruddy and they were weak. All right. So watch out. Yeah, watch out Yeah, so is that enough for you guys this week? Probably not but that's all the time we have this week. So Uh, but we'll be back In two weeks with more tech talk. So send in your questions to the guys at v o b s dot tv There it is right there. Good timing sue. All right, the guys at v o b s tv You have a question send it to us. We'll be happy to answer it here on voiceover body shop And uh, we'll be right back after these important messages. 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That's voice over x t r a dot com Yeah, hi, this is carlo zellers rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voice over body shop And we're back to say goodbye because We gotta go but we do have a lot of people that help us out getting this show done And most importantly Aside from our sponsors There's you guys and you donate to the show And because you want to keep it going and we really appreciate it And who are our donors this particular week? Mr. Woodham? I get to read them. All right. Yeah, uh, larry hudson. Hey larry Uh, natasha marchewka thomas pinto tray mosley philips appear christopher epperson michelle blinker antlion productions graham spicer michael kerns 949 designs shanna pennington baird or shawna shayna shayna shawna shayna shawna Whatever stephanie southerland teresa daniel patty gibbons and george widham senior. All right All right And well, we'd like to thank our sponsors because they're the ones that make it happen Harlan hogan's voice over essentials voice over extra source elements vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com And jmc demos. All right. Thanks to jeff holman who boy. There were a lot of questions tonight Yeah, jeff. We love it when you those come in uh sumer lino for getting it done tonight and in post and uh lee pinney for being lee pinney Well guys, you know, this ain't an easy business, but is george and i like to say You know if it sounds good It is good And that's pretty much it you guys have yourself a great week. We'll have another great guest At that time i'm dan lennard i'm george widham and this is voice over body shop or vio b ass Take care