 Ah, bonjour, j'en vais y en France! Yeah, we're heading to France for a little bit, but we don't want you to be without VoiceOver Body Shop, so we've got the full-length interview with Ben Pronsky and his new studio at the end of the Burbank Airport. How did he soundproof it? It's very interesting. Anyway, enjoy that interview and of course we need to thank our sponsors, VoiceOver Essentials, VoiceOver Heroes, Source Elements, Voice Hector Websites, VoiceOver Extra and JMC Demos. Have a great couple of weeks. We'll be back live on the 23rd. See you then. Hey everybody, it's George The Tech for VOBS. I am at a client studio that I've worked with for a couple of years now to get the perfect home studio situation built, and perhaps a less-than-perfect location. And maybe in a minute you'll see what I mean. So you see there's a bit of a problem with this location. Just a bit. A little airline like Southwest. Yeah, they're a lot louder. But it doesn't matter now, right Ben? Not at all. Not at all. It's a beautiful thing. That's nothing. The freight airliners are the worst. Like the FedEx and stuff. FedEx and UPS. 730 every day. Yeah, yeah. Right after jeopardy. I have Southwest schedule memorized. It's a two-car garage, right? A two-car garage. Just a standard two-car garage. Come on in. Let's take a look. It's really comfy in here. This is an AGU in the booth doing what he does. Can you hear me? How about I give you some Venom? Peter Parker! I will destroy you, Peter! These doors were custom made for the space overseas. Yeah, in Indonesia. In Indonesia. So only the finest teak. Right. Look at that. Look at that air gap. That's freaking crazy. That's a one and a half inch gap all the way around. And that was the big thing is, you know, what we learned was the level of low and frequency that we were dealing with, we had to truly decouple. Oh yeah. So this is a completely decoupled construction that's channel strips and all that. Technically the only coupling would be this piece of concrete right here. It's not a cut slab, which some studios do. Concrete doesn't really carry sound very well. It's really low, low, low, low stuff. So and then all of this is hardwired except for my Bluetooth mouse. So it's all connected directly to Ethernet on the outside of the booth. Yeah, hardwired is the way to go. And this size triad orbit was perfect for it because the booth is only five by six. So it's not a huge booth. No, it's a good size. It's a good size though. It'll fit two people. Plenty of room for a chair. I've been doing some podcast recording. People are using the space to do podcast in here and it's comfortable with two tall chairs and I've got the 4073 directional here and I've got the TLM103. Everything was custom made obviously to fit in this space. The table was cut, everything was drawn and measured and agonized over every square inch of this place was agonized over. The big thing is that instead of just going with standard like 24 by panels, your recommendation George was to just cover the walls with panels. This one, for example, is just one large panel with Rockwell insulation and then the other big thing obviously is that we have an ERV system in the closet outside that's pumping fresh air from outside into this space. So we have the central air and in addition, we have the ERV that's pumping fresh air in which is awesome. That's a big deal. Not everybody in Milwaukee, most studios don't do that and not especially like a quote unquote home studio. This is definitely like, this is beyond the home studio. This is definitely next level but you can sit in here and work comfortably for hours. I do. I do. I mean the majority of my work is group ADR where you're doing a movie for eight hours. So you're literally sitting in the booth for hours on end but the big difference was it wasn't just for personal use because of Voice Actors Network, I wanted to be able to host like a workout group or a class here. Four inches here. Is it four inches on the ceiling or three or three inches? This is six. Oh, we got six on the ceiling? I forgot. Six, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. Is it all Rockwell? All Rockwell. Yeah. Is that wall so three and a half? Is that the same as this? Yeah. All these are three and a half on the walls and the ceiling cloud is the six inch. Very nice. I'll tell you what, come in here and close both these doors. It's very quiet. I don't think I've been in a room this quiet. All we can hear is our tintedness. Yeah. It's extremely louder in here as a matter of fact. Yeah. Yeah. Are you going to play some, did you just, did you just watch me talking to the headphones like a microphone? Did everybody see that? I have it on tape. This is what I make sure. I don't know if you're hearing us, play some music so we can hear if there's any bleed. Okay. I think he's blasting some Star Wars right now. Yeah. It's, I know it's blasting, I can tell. I'm looking at the view meter on the Apollo and it is cranked, it is like blasting. That's great. That's great. Wow. That is good, man. Maybe get one of the doors because I will say without, without these sliders, it definitely would not be possible. But two sets of regular sliders. Yeah. Yeah. You know, feel this, Dan. Try to pull that. This, so yeah, just to be clear, yeah, yeah, yeah, that door there, you need some slaves to like, that is a serious, serious door for, yeah, start them early, but we weren't intending to have that door there. That was code. Oh yeah. Yeah. They had to, he had to have the store. Like if I designed it and we did design it. We didn't want to have two doors, the last thing you want to do is have two sets of doors to contain it. Two sets of doors. More penetrations. Yeah. So this. All right, I've got my resistance actually. Oh man. This is, this is, muscle confusion is a whole nother, it's muscles are very confused now. But yeah, I was like, oh my God, you really, we have to have that door too? Yeah. But this is two, so. Yeah. Should you have that? Right. We've got the big rubber seals, which by the way, this is for a car door. Oh yeah. It's trunk rubber. Right. We call it trunk rubber, yeah. Trunk rubber. Yeah. But, so honestly out of everything, this is the, because these are just two doors, it's just, yeah, look at that. This is, this is the first soundproof windows door I've actually seen in the wild. Oh yeah? In the wild? Well, you know, I, I recommend stuff all the time. And it's not your own environment. But I rarely get to see them in, in actual use. Yeah. And this is the Living Quarters ERV, which I've had running the whole time and didn't even notice. Because I turned it on and wanted to see if I could hear it. Can't hear it. So, we were talking a little bit earlier, how long ago did the project start in earnest where you were like, okay, I got a team, we're ready to go, I paid a deposit, how long ago was that? We broke ground in October of 20. We filed for the permits in November 19, and it took almost a year to get the permits from the city of Burbank. No, it's better than the city of Los Angeles. Yeah. Right, right. But then, obviously, when the pandemic hit, it slowed everything down as far as the processing time. And then we started to run into stuff with the contractor where supplies weren't available or, you know, a lot of that stuff started to rear its ugly head. But yeah, October of 20 was when we actually started the construction and got things underway. So, and we were bare bones. So, yeah. So it wasn't breaking ground, it was sledgehammering and... Sledgehammering, there was trenching because we had all the utilities because it's not just the studio where it's an ADU, an alternate dwelling unit, and through the city, if you're going to have gas, water, electric, they had to do the trenching, we had to get, you know, the approval process along that way, so the studio, the booth was kind of a separate entity. So... So ADU was a new thing that didn't start much longer before, I mean, it was pretty new before you chose to go the ADU route, which is all about a certain type of permitting, I guess, to allow you to have more residential square feet on your lot than normally permitted so that we can get more housing in Los Angeles, right? Yeah, that was it. It was because of the housing crisis, they started to sort of expedite the process of permitting so that, you know, there's more mother-in-laws living in the back house, I guess, instead of in the house with you, which is... Or in Florida. In Florida. Right? Yeah. And you have people stay in this space, comfortably, a family stay here? We do, yeah. My family comes and stays, her family comes and stays, and it's been great. I mean, it's basically a studio apartment, so, you know, full shower and bathroom and a kitchen. If you guys want a panini, I can make you a panini real quick. Yeah. So you're at the end of the runway of the Van Iser, no, the Burbank Airport, Bob Hope Airport. Yeah. I mean, and the FAA has recently changed a lot of the rules, so they're like really accelerating to try to get to 10,000 feet, right about here. Right here. Yeah. Before they make the turn across the valley, and I imagine it was, the vibration was pretty outrageous. Well, we knew... How did you deal with that? Well, the big thing is sort of, instead of just approaching it from the sort of the standard soundproofing thing, what we did, and George recommended an acoustician, and we sort of went through the process. So I actually got, I ended up getting the, what was it, the U-Mic One, I think it is, the Omni Directional... I knew your measurement, Mike. Yeah. Yeah. And so I was taking, I was out here for a week, taking readings of the different types of airplanes and, you know, so we had an understanding of what we were contending with as far as, you know, the low end frequency, the high end frequency. So when, you know, a weed-whacker next door, I'd get a reading of that, you know, from this space to get an idea of, you know, what we had to do. And then it was just about crunching that data to look at, okay, what we need is not just a standard sort of basic setup, or an LA vocal booth, or, you know, studio breaks or anything like that, we realized that we needed a room inside of a room. And so we went with the double-studded wall system, which was the only way to contend with that level of low end frequency. Because it's no joke. I mean, when those big freight airliners come over, I mean, you actually can feel the rumble. Oh yeah. Yeah. There's one now. There's one now. So, yeah, I mean, you can still hear it in the main space, but with both of these booth doors closed, it actually, it's, it does a pretty good job. So we know that you did a tremendous effort to the ISO booth to get it really quiet. So that's fully double-studded wall, everything's separated. This, the outer space, the living quarters of the control room, what extent was done out here to also mitigate some of the noise? We did obviously double drywall. Inside the ceiling, we made sure there was a separated space between the roof and the ceiling. We used spray foam insulation on the underside of the roof to make sure that that was mitigating some of that sound, which is that expandable foam. And then, you know, yeah, as far as like that basic structure, everything is double drywalled. But then the big thing was making sure that this was a completely separate space, so it had nothing to do with this control room area. Exactly. Yeah. And this is a completely decoupled construction both. Right. Right. So there's not easy. No, well, actually it is once you have this sort of basic, you know, understanding of what it requires. And what it requires is a solid air gap between the two stud systems. So as long as you have that air gap all the way around and nothing is going to penetrate through those, like a single screw can that comes through and couples to the exterior framing, call it shorting out. Yeah. Shorting out is bad. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No short out. And even the, even the outlets, all of that, we puttied, we used the fire putty around that so that if there's any penetrations that it still is going to absorb some of that low end frequency. So essentially hyper overkill. Yeah. So it's, well, I mean, before you're recording in your house right next door and you were recording in what kind of a space prior to this. It was just one of the bedrooms and I had a single walled, homemade four by four isobooth. Yeah, just made out of MDF or something. Yeah, it was just, it was actually kind of similar. It's just an idea. It was just a single walled with studs, rockwall insulation on the inside and then carpeted walls. So when you went through the time, the effort, which I know Ben had to put a massive amount of effort in to get this place built to the spec that we designed with the contractor that he was, that he had found. It was quite, I know that was quite a process. It was an arduous task. When you went through all of that, you wanted to make sure it was significantly better than what you had started with in the house. Yes. So, well, yeah, I mean, the grip, you know, when I was inside the house and I'm, you know, on the line with Warner Brothers or Disney or one any, any client, it was always, hold on, I've got a plane coming. And even that, that hold adds up time, especially if you're in a one hour session or a two hour session and you have the hours. As I said, I have memorized the schedule of Southwest Airlines. So I know that it's like between 1110 a.m. and 1125, I just can't record. So with this, with both these booth doors closed, I haven't had to hold for sound at all. It's great. That's awesome. Yeah, what kind of mics are you using in there? I've got the TLM 103 and I've got the AT-4073 directional. Yeah. Do you use a high-pass filter on the TLM 103? No, I'm not using any. Really? No. Holy cow. Well, it doesn't have one in the mic, but you're not pushing the button on the Apollo. You're just recording that once we talk. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that microphone is a torture, torture test for any space. Yeah, like it picks up plate tectonic shift. Yeah. We're more capable about it, but yes, it's a great mic, but really, really sensitive. This is treated better than most spaces, I would say, for sure. And six inches on the ceiling is a huge deal that acoustical cloud up there. Yeah. What did you notice putting up the TLM 103, turning it on, recording? Very first thing. What was your impression of the way it sounded? It was just finding that those little dead spots or whatever that were inside the booth and knowing exactly where to position it before I actually mounted it on the wall. Right. Because that was the big thing. It was like either to the left or the right of this soundproof window. So that I knew that there's any dead space. So I set up just a basic mic stand with the TLM 103. I did a couple of basic recordings and I could see it was like, OK, it needs to be positioned over here. That way I'm not getting any of that sort of resonance, the boomy resonance. Yeah. When you have an extremely dead space, anything reflective, you're going to notice it, right? Oh, for sure. You have to be very careful where you put the mic. Yeah. And I will say the day that we finished the treatment, the acoustic treatment on the inside, I had a job the very next morning. Well, and I didn't really have any time to experiment. You know, and that was to it. That was actually helpful because it was like, let's get this done. Because I was job at 9 a.m. You could agonize over it for a while. If not, oh, easily, easily. I will say, I mean, the big thing is is I think, you know, in retrospect, looking at it objectively is a really important thing if you're building a home studio space, because you get so caught up in all the details of all of it, you sort of get so focused in on those things as opposed to like, OK, hold on, let me take a step back. What do I actually need? And what do I what can I sort of? You asked me a lot of detail questions as we went along. I had to. And you were doing what you had to do. Yeah, I was like, oh, he's getting a little detail. But I mean, that's that's it is. It's it's an amalgamation of tons of details and then the big picture. Yeah. And then making sure you don't miss anything. That's really important process. Yeah. And then the other thing is if you've got a sealed up booth like this in the San Fernando Valley, it gets hot here. Yes. So I would imagine you've got somewhat of a sophisticated ventilation system. I mean, we knew that people were going to be staying here for, you know, multiple weeks at a time. But in addition to that, I was hoping to host a class, you know, our workout group. And when you have six, eight, ten people in here at a time and you don't have proper air circulation, it gets sticky. Yeah, it gets sticky, which is going to be happening soon. And now the pandemic is essentially about wrapping up. Right. Yeah. Fingers crossed on that one until B.A. 42 comes out. But the you know, the big thing was we have two front doors. We have two sets of sliding doors, right? And everything else is sealed up with that spray foam insulation from the underside. So this is like a sealed vault, essentially. So we knew that we had to pull in some fresh air from outside. Thermally, it's pretty efficient, right? Yeah, it's going to keep whatever the temperature is in here efficiently for sure maintained, I guess. Yeah. But you get to get to that temperature. So what do we do? Like a split system or something? It is. Well, it's a standard sort of HVAC. And that was hung on springs. So it's a forced it's a forced air. There's a blower. Is it? There's a fan. I just I forgot. I mean, that's how quiet it was. The I couldn't remember how we did it so quiet in here. I was like, what are we doing? Yeah. Well, it also being on springs, obviously, was it was a big thing and making sure they were the really efficient spring so you don't get any of that. Yeah, there's no home because, you know, and so once we vented it into or ducted it into the booth and on top of that, once it's vented in there, we also had this six inch cloud. So that actually helps with mitigate some of that sound that sort of low end. But then we've used the ERV system that's in this little closet here and we vented or ducted that into the exact same exhaust so that there's two connections. One is for the HVAC and the other one is the ERV for the fresh air. So it's all coming through the same vent. And then we have the return, which is going on the other side. So yeah, so that booth is getting really fresh. Yeah, yeah, really from the outside. Yeah, but those are the those are the the devils in the details with all that kind of stuff, you know. And that and that was just one factor that went into all of this to make sure that it was a comfortable space. Because again, if you're hosting multiple people, you know, or like if it's a different studio, we're actually hosting clients and you're not just teaching a class. You want them to be as comfortable as possible, you know. So having that fresh air and making sure that that, you know, it's climate controlled because, you know, here in Burbank, it gets in July, August, it gets 110 degrees. So yeah, it's it can be pretty brutal. Just starting to heat up now. I think today is going to be like 90 something. Yeah, yeah, but it feels great in here. Was there anything that had to be adjust like when it was all done and you're starting to use it for real? Was there anything that had to be adjusted or wasn't really usable yet or not quite right? Or did you get it pretty close on the first go? I actually got it got it pretty good the first go. Once the acoustic treatment went in and we knew, I mean, we were running in a snafus the entire time, you know, with a contractor not getting in the materials in time or these the big sliding doors from soundproofwindows.com were delayed because of COVID and, you know, all that chain, etc. Oh, man. Yeah, it was a night force not being at work. Well, then then they had the in the canal, remember the ship that? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, the Panama Canal. Yeah, the Panama Canal. Yeah, that got all jacked up. And so that that added a tremendous amount of time just to get something that was basically, you know, so. And they're like, sorry, we're on the canal right now. We're, you know, we're on the way. It's like, it's fine. This has already been two years. So yeah, not to pry total cost for the entire rebuilding total cost of, you know, from balls to bones to just the finished product was just under a hundred thousand. I think that's amazing. Yeah, to make a multi-purpose. Honestly, I know it's some spaces of cost that we've done that are nowhere near as bathroom. Yeah, kitchen. Yeah. That's including the fixtures in the kitchen. That's well, yeah. I guess maybe just over a hundred thousand like with the fridge or something. You know, that's still that's really impressive. Well, I would recommend to anybody that's building a home space that to make sure that you're checking with your contractor's contract that anything that's potentially added that's going to add the scope to the store is change orders that that's not going to have or make sure that there's a sort of mathematics behind that. That it's if it's an incremental addition to what the baseline price is to make sure that you have that clear and in writing. We had that negotiated in our contract with the contractor from the beginning and he knew that, look, this is the bottom line. This is how much we have. So if anything comes up as far as change orders are concerned, you know, you're going to have to contend with that on your end. So that was that was kind of his that was up to him. He had to come up with that. So I hate saying this phrase, but there's something we always say. And that is cheap, fast, good. Pick two. So I think you got something on a really good price that came out really good, but it took a long time. Well, it also, yeah, not just because of COVID, though. I also I think, you know, looking back now, it was definitely the wrong contractor because, you know, and that's one of the most important things is it is somebody who's young and hungry, sometimes is biting off more than they can chew. And it's great when they're young and hungry and they want something. But if they're they're taking on more and more jobs and they they have a limited crew, because literally there would be a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday that would go by where we're still trying to get just drywall up for the next inspection. And a weekdays would go by where nobody would show up to the job site. And that's not OK, you know. So you would think that they'd want to expedite the process of getting it finished so that they can get their money for the next phase and then move on. But every time we cut a check, the guys would show up for sure. Well, it's usually the thing. Yeah. But also because everything has to be so precise with this, somebody has to know what they're doing in order to build a booth like this and build a structure like this to service that both. Yeah. I mean, I was signing off on some of it. I was doing a lot of Zoom inspections. By the end of the day, Ben was the one that was here really keeping an eye out on what was going on here. Well, I couldn't go anywhere else. Oh, you were stuck here. He was also stuck here. He made the contract his life a living hell, I think. Well, when they start yelling at you for stop micromanaging my job, it's like, it's my job, buddy. I just remember whose job it is. Yeah, I mean, you know, there there is a necessity to be diplomatic in that. But, you know, the the hard thing was you don't have an unlimited budget or limited time. Exactly that. Right. And I know another project who is a friend of ours that was essentially almost kind of one of those projects. He put the time and the money as long as it took and almost as much as it costs to do it. And that's a luxury a lot of people don't have. And you did you. I think what you accomplished here, all things considered, you got an incredible product. Thank you. A thousand dollars. Like it's really, really impressive. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think the big thing was understanding from a personal level, we're, you know, about to have our second child and my office that was in the house that had my isobooth, all of that had to be cleared out so we could turn it into a nursery. So that additional five months meant that the baby was sleeping in our room for an additional however many months, which meant that we were not getting any sleep whatsoever. So then you start making rash decisions. You know, like I want to buy all the equipment. So how has your relationship improved since the studio went online and you've been able to work out here? Has things gotten better? Our personal relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Me and Jen. Yeah. Oh, it's so much better. Oh, well, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's no there was no space to like have any separation there. Yeah, yeah. Now it's literally, you know, we get the kids off to school. I come out here and start my work day and she has her work day that she's, you know, our kitchen is her office now. And she's fine with it. And it's, you know, it's actually the dynamic is great because it feels like, OK, it's nine o'clock. It's time to start my my jobs. There's boundaries there. Right. Well, as long as you have your own space, otherwise you get people with space. And yeah, for sure. We have my wife, an entire other structure. Yeah, yeah. Because she was like, you've got that great man cave out there. And right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she uses it, too. I mean, you know, when we host or, you know, if we have people over, you know, it's not just for the voiceover studio. The fact that it was a permitted ADU is also great because we can open up these doors and play some music and, you know, barbecue in the backyard and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, having that separation is definitely a key component. And it also this has become sort of my creative space, you know what I mean? So I can listen to music or I can watch video references for whatever audition or whatever job that I have. And it just allows you a little bit more of like a that creative sort of dojo. Now, in order to do this, you had to be doing the business in order to make this investment to make it work for you. I mean, you're doing the business. You're running the business and maintaining all that while building this all at the same time, which was challenging. And it is still, I mean, it's that's always the challenge, right? Is to maintain and make sure that you're not letting any of your clients down or, you know, the people that you work with or for, you know, the I think at the very beginning, I just kind of I let my agent know. I let, you know, some of my clients know, you know, we're just getting this underway. So if I'm delayed a little bit, I apologize. I will get to it as soon as I possibly can. But, you know, cultivating those kinds of relationships when they know that it's like, you know, I'm in the process of building something that, trust me, you know, a year and a half from now, it's going to be how long were you would you consider yourself a full time working voiceover pro before you took this plunge? I mean, I was full time before. But for quite some time, how about how long? Let's see. I've been making a living as a voice actor for about six or seven years now. So, yeah. Point being is it takes time. You've got to earn your way to this place in this business. This is not what's going to get you voiceover work. You've got to get voiceover work to get you want to be right. Well, I've been in the Los Angeles market now for 18 years, but I've only been making a living as a voice actor for seven of those years. So it took over a decade of taking classes and pounding the pavement, making sure you're networking and learning about like the technical components of some of these things that we have to work with. It's not just about your craft. Yeah, it's also about knowing, oh, this is how to port forward and source connect, you know. Well, before we wrap it up, give us a little rundown of your organization, your your your service that you provide and tell us more about that. Yeah, the Voice Actors Network. I took over Voice Actors Network five years ago. Question mark. I don't know. Time is irrelevant now. And four times in the before before times in the long before times. And that's essentially advanced level classes for voice actors who are sort of working pro level with casting directors, voice directors, agents, people who are sort of in a position to give you a better understanding about, you know, maybe this is why you're not booking, you know, maybe this is why, you know, you know, maybe take a take another class with this person to to really sort of dial in your read or and getting getting one on one feedback from the people that are decision makers in the industry, whether it's from Disney Animation Casting or Dreamworks or Blizzard or the big video game companies. And it's been great. There's now, let's see, since I took over, there's now I think 1800 active members in the Voice Actors Network, I say active, but they're members of the community. Yeah, but, you know, a few hundred who are actively taking the workshops in the clinics. What's it take to become a member of that community? What do you do? So there's a vetting process. We do we do make sure that people have at least I think it's two years of regular acting classes. They have to have at least one full year of voice over specific classes. They have to have professional demo reels so that we can listen to a sample of the work and help to navigate with them to to make sure that they're ready for that sort of stage of their career. Because if you've never taken an animation class before, I don't want to put you in front of the head of Disney Animation Casting. That's just not doing any service at all. So we always provide resources for people like go take, you know, Charlie Adler's class or go take this person's class. This is be a great way for you to sort of or like a lot of people who are character focused, who have done a lot of theater work, get a piece of commercial copy. And they're like, I don't know how to talk about APR percentage, you know. So it's helping them to navigate how to move forward in their career. And it's it's great. The coolest feeling is when somebody takes one of our clinics, you know, especially like an agency clinic and they go, that agent signed me, you know, or I booked my, you know, I booked my first video game after that that workshop, you know, that's cool. It's a cool feeling. Very good. Yeah. Impressive. Impressive facility. This is really nice. Thanks, Dan. Impressive mustache. Thank you. Yeah. Well done. Hey, what can I say about that? It's a lot of impressive facial hair here. There is. Yeah. I got some grays, though, after this last year and a half. That's why I just started to come in. Yeah, this is starting to turn white. So it's really what I wanted. Anyway, I'm so glad we got to see you today. It's been a long, long time coming. And we've been wanting to see you for a long time. I mean, this is like the fifth time we've tried this. We have rescheduled many times. But I'm so glad we got to say hi and see this place. Congratulations. Thanks, man. And I hope it, you know, just brings back 10 fold what you've put into it. And use it in good health. And yeah, big success with it. Yeah, Mazel tov. Yeah, Mazel tov. No, I appreciate it, guys. It's good to see y'all.