 Get that the greatest freaking coffee around it's really good. Yeah, yeah, and I'm a snob about my coffee What oh, I mean, it's just you know dumb Francesco's, but it's made you know in my my juror compress. Oh They made for making espresso, but it makes a nice good cup of Americano. Yeah, I just Do you ever met Antonio for an Reese? You know, he's in Puerto Rico. He's a big voice over I've heard his name. Yo, he's been to some of the commissions whenever he comes into town He I'll put him in my guest room and all that and so we we developed a friend nice friendship and just out of the blue Yo, I got this package and it was a huge bottle a bag of coffee and it's a really good coffee from Puerto Rico Yeah, I can't wait to dive into it a nice strong brew Puerto Rican brew Mr. Bailey says it works again He's like, I don't know what's going on my computer has a devil and I said call the priest Sure Whatever the number was there you go So Sue you say there's a bit of a reverb From how would you describe the reverb like a actual reverb effect or just the room sounds echoey? The room cannot sound echoey. Yeah You and I have seen to it that nothing echoes and she's turning a reverb It might even because I unplugged the camera and then it oh is this microphone is the mic in stream yard muted on that one It is isn't it? Oh I can mute it You do that There you go Now is this the reverb should be gone now Sue mute your speaker, please Dan or That was I You're killing me All right now Sue everybody's mic is muted on this end except the main show, okay Beautiful one minute to go Filing in beautiful. We got people on LinkedIn Facebook and YouTube all three platforms That's cool. Do you find there's a pickup of momentum and activity on LinkedIn. Yes. Yeah, I've noticed I've noticed a big Jump That's it's good. I've been on there since The very beginning but All right, it's five o'clock. All right, do you know where your children are? Sue is gonna count us in and I'll count out loud too, but Four three two Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. How is everybody doing this week? We have a great guest tonight. He's like sitting right next to me Jeff Howell Hello, the Dean of voiceover coaches here in Hollywood works with everybody some really amazing people and we're gonna talk about Mostly about dubbing and some of the other things so if you got questions for him throw it in the chat room Jeff Holman who is actually sitting here in the studio with us today He's here Will be monitoring the chat room if you've got a question throw it in there And we will get those questions in just a little while. So are you ready mr. Whittom ready to go It's time for voiceover body shop right now Voiceover body shop is brought to you by Voiceover essentials comm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements the folks who bring you source connect Voheroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training Voice actor comm your voice over website ready in minutes Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success and by world voices the industry Association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Why there's no audio Do you have to leave maybe you have to leave that shot on the whole time? Oh, there we go We're good. Is there audio now? Let's pick it up like we came right out of the break Okay, I came right out of the intro. Oh, okay reintroduce the show. That's right. All right. Okay now I have to edit this. Okay. We always edit it. Don't you sometimes they do sometimes. I don't And when I don't that's when everything gets out of sync Anyway, here we go and Hey, how you doing out there? I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whittom and this is voiceover body shop or VO B as How's everybody going out there? What's going on and the voiceover world? We're happy to have you with us again If you've got a question for our guest or for George and I when we talk tech talk a little bit later on Send it in the chat room and Jeff Holman will take care of that and make sure that we get that question right here somewhat within view of my My aging eyes here. Anyway, our guest tonight is the fabulous Jeff Howell one of the best known coaches here in LA you teach everything I do From what I'm seeing of course now one two. Yeah, exactly now the the uh There was some confusion on your resume when I was like, okay, let's get everything right here on our promos for the show But uh, where are you now and what are you doing? So I am working for myself. I'm my own company Howell Productions Inc and I went out on my own eight years ago And since then I basically will pretty much produce direct anything that comes my way And through this journey over these last eight years I've ended up immersing myself in the dubbing world quite a bit But yet I still dabble and commercial and promo and narration A little bit of animation as well And I basically whenever anyone's asked me about What types of projects I enjoy doing I just say I enjoy doing all of it and and also as you just mentioned I coach as well and occasionally we'll do a demo if I have time. So anyway, but I just I love what I do I love every part of this business and especially as of late the dubbing business, which is has its challenges Which I can go into but it is uh, it's an exciting New newer part of our business. Yeah now during the pandemic, of course dubbing became Real big time because nothing could be produced here in LA or in other places And but there was a lot of material in Europe and turkey and some of these other places It had to be dubbed and I noticed that It's a lot tighter than it used to be. Yes, it's no longer someone talking And their mouth keeps moving, you know something along those lines What were some of the technological changes? well, I think that You know what we noticed it during the pandemic was that you know the technology when it worked it was fantastic But as we found everyone has a different sounding booth and with dubbing Just like adr you have to sound like you're in the mixers have to mix it so that it sounds like everyone's in the same room And that's a real challenge and I really my I tip my hats off to the mixers because they really had a big job During that time to make all the rooms sound essentially the same And you know, and that's where george certainly you can step in on this too because of the acoustics of everyone's You know, you could say have a closet get a good microphone call it a day But you know we had I can't even tell you it was almost comedic when we'd see the camera Of the closets and what they were doing to make it sound soundproof or to keep the dynamics and the acoustics So that it sounded good And it was it was a crazy crazy time But we we got around that and we also found too that you know with with dubbing The sink is an issue and for us to be able to judge whether or not your performance is sinking up properly We need to be able to look at it at that time And even though you would record and we would have the engineer line it up And then I would have to judge really quickly if I like the performance if we captured it and also if the sink worked But oftentimes sometimes the sink was about 10 seconds off in terms of when we were recording and that made it a little daunting To judge the performance as we were going along. So what we found was it took more time And as we all I don't know if you know we're not but dubbing a lot of it is based on time in terms of how you're paid So it cost a lot more money talent wise during that time period to capture The voices and also as we all know Uh little clicks and things happen when you're when you're dubbing When you're using something off wi-fi or hopefully not wi-fi But when we were doing remotes and so we'd have to cover everything twice at least even if I like the take and it sounded great We do a safety because sometimes we don't hear those little imperfections until after you've disconnected And so it just took a lot more time And uh that those were I think I answered your question the technological changes I mean, we're still able to do it. Of course It's just it it costs more money because it costs more time. It takes more time Well, there was this the development of of karaoke style right with with dubbing I mean it used to be you know, I watched the film here. Beep Yeah, the three pop and yeah, and you'd watch it Yeah, and then they came up with karaoke where it just comes across right in sync with the actor Right, which probably takes a lot of effort on the other end preparing them. Oh, yeah Uh, and that that's that made it a lot easier And yeah, and I've done a couple of projects in various places all over the place You know, it's always fun getting up at 6 30 in the morning to do something at 8 30 at night in mumbai Right, exactly. Uh, you know, so it's like okay. I'm awake. I can do this You know and then somebody okay. No, you're going to do it list one It was it was a lot of fun. It was it's always fun doing it And it's always great working with people in other places But it's not that easy. I mean People don't realize That it's acting you've got to watch what's going on and Imitate that particular action and emotion of the character actually makes you think something Did you notice any kind of a shift in the performances? Overall just was there anything that changed in the way people performed because they were forced to work from home or It was it was it harder to get the performances to not so it was the technical time, but the actual now Let's do that again. Let's get a little bit more Was that an issue the good question and I think for the most part if How what I found was if the actor had experienced dubbing already They were fine. Yeah. Yeah, but as we have found in the dubbing world We end up using new people all the time because we have specific needs for a specific show or film And so oftentimes we'll end up casting new people which I and I love that I love working with new people and maybe maybe we cast them because it was a great voice match Or they had a specific skill of being bilingual in a certain language that we were dubbing And we needed two languages as opposed to just English And so oftentimes we would find ourselves working with someone who may not have that much dubbing experience So the the process of acting in That dubbing realm was more of a challenge for them Especially being remote as opposed to being in the studio with us So to answer your question. Yes, we did find that to be somewhat significant that that difference if they didn't have the experience But even I don't mean to push the subject If they were in the studio and still had that inexperience Do you think that was just sort of magnified because they weren't in a studio? Absolutely because for the most part when you get someone new, you know, I my job as a director Various jobs actually various hats But one of them is to be sort of the ambassador and the host of the session and to make them feel as comfortable as possible And and to walk them through the dubbing process And just like you said Dan the the scrolling across the screen I oftentimes try to say if you've ever done karaoke then you definitely should be able to You know grab this okay But it is odd if you've never had experience doing it You're in a dark room as a small studio booth and you're looking at a big screen and all of a sudden you see these things fly by And symbols that mean certain breaths and and whether open mouth closed mouth or there may be an asterisk Which means it's a mouth flap or a clap or something like that So it's just trying to get them used to that particular language so that when they're When they are watching it they're in that process in that booth in giving us that performance that becomes more natural Because they're thinking less about the technique of it and now they're really able to just embrace the acting so yeah And and let's talk about the acting. I mean, how do you I mean you're coaching people on doing this You're directing them, but you're also teaching this but how what exactly do you have to teach people in order to To get this done right? I think that the what I've noticed is that you know in terms of the acting first of all a lot of it is rhythm If you have an ear for them I found that musicians are really good at dubbing because they have a sense of rhythm And because they're they're as they're viewing back and listening as we're all sitting there viewing the material Looking at the scroll going across studying the scene thinking about the tone the emotion Uh, they're also listening to the rhythm and that's so important because that's how we're lining up The words so that the cadence is accurate enough so that it isn't as jarring when you're watching the labials the lip flaps And so anyway, but in terms of answering your question about the acting It's all about the the thinking about the emotional Sort of intent of the scene How we express or how that actor expressed the emotion and and vocally and trying to match that as closely as possible And also thinking about the other things the the physical movement going on Whether it's a breath when they're uh, you know, if they're getting excited and they're starting to increase their Their breath because they're adrenaline the original actor their adrenaline was flowing and so they were getting excited So we want that to match that as closely as possible So when you're an actor in dubbing you're thinking about a lot of different things and not just how you sound But what's going on in the scene? Emotionally physically as well as vocally so there's a lot to it You know and and a lot to think about because you're having to wear a couple of hats You're trying to do the specific skill of watching the scroll and being precise with hitting the words where they're supposed to hit When it hits the queue line But in addition to that you've got to wear that creative hat where you're being emotional and you're in the scene and you're thinking about What's my arc? What what am I trying to achieve in this scene? How am I reacting and so it's wearing all these different hats and thinking about just Making sure that you're hitting the marks and so it's definitely a definite Challenge. Yeah, which I love. Yeah, I found it very challenging in the times that I've done it and You know, it's like again capturing the emotion of somebody and then you know I mean you listen to the scene and they're talking whatever language they're talking in and sometimes they're emotional You know the way they express it might be different than how we do it And that's you know, how do you make it sound like? English or how do you make it sound like it's that and they may go on for a little bit and they're like Okay, you missed that mouth flap there and All right, let's go back. All right do that. And then of course they go in and they're like, okay Now we this and you you can see them doing it or at least Tell that they're doing it and then they're like, okay, come back and that that of course is what takes up the time Did they did you get um, like a rehearsal offline or like a Here's what's gonna happen. Here's the process before the actual stepping into the studio or no you just Yeah, it's it's cold. It's cold. Well, it's cold. But yeah, we let them for the technical side Here's what it's gonna look like. This is what you're gonna. Oh, yeah. No, no, they they help you set it up here So, you know, because some different companies different different platforms, right exactly Oh, definitely because you're right and sometimes the producers will call the day before And make sure you sound it sounds okay Make sure you've got a handle on all the technology so that when we're actually on the clock You're off to the races, you know, so Once again, our guest is jeff holman. He knows all this stuff about dubbing, which is big time business right now He's over there though. He's That was guaranteed to happen. I knew it was gonna happen. I did the same thing with It wasn't you. It was gonna be me Okay, and lastly see I just do that now that you did it. I don't have to do it. Exactly. Our guest is jeff howell jeff holman's here, but jeff howell is here. I'm here. Good luck And and if you've got a question for him about dubbing and other things in the voiceover business of which he knows absolutely everything Just put it in the chat room and we'll get to that question in just a little bit well Now now that it can be done remotely and you know people can't come into the studio But it can be done remotely and during the pandemic. Certainly it was being done remotely Did you find a lot of people who were perhaps out of work actors? They were like, oh, I can do dubbing. Was there a lot of that and people you a huge influx of people saying, okay I can do this for now Well, yeah, certainly. I think that as the word has gotten out about dubbing. I think there's been certainly a sort of interest universally From various communities across the united states and internationally to get involved with dubbing, you know, right? It's another revenue stream for the actors and and certainly it's interesting work It's not necessarily the highest paying part of our business certainly But I know that for the most part a 99 of the actors that I've had in or I've connected with Remotely have said they've really enjoyed the process and that it's helped them grow as a voice actor Certainly because they are more in touch with their emotions and and all that in terms of how they sound emotionally In a certain scene that sort of thing And they just love the work. I mean who doesn't like the work and especially if it's union You at least get some contributions to your pension and health and and that sort of thing And there's a I think there's more right now My sense of it is there's more union than non union out there in terms of dubbing now That wasn't the way it started, you know eight years ago when I first started doing this Netflix had not negotiated the contract with sag yet So it was more non union than union But that has now Changed quite a bit and so I think a lot of actors love it. I mean they they enjoy doing it And there's is a lot of interest About it, especially because now you can't not watch Netflix and not see something that's dubbed Oh, yeah, some are better than others and you know, and I will say this and we can talk about this more if you want About the quality of dubbing out there that you know, listen you can have a perfectly a relatively perfectly seamless dubbing experience On a project, but if it's a bad movie, it's a bad movie if it's a bad tv show It's a bad tv show, you know, whether the dubbing is good or not Because I several people have said oh, I've tried to watch dubbing that I just and I asked them which one like well, of course it was a terrible show Exactly So, uh, it's it's definitely Sometimes people do find it a challenge to watch to dub material whether it's good or not And and my suggestion always is that when you first start watching a program a show or a film Try not to focus on the lip flap right away Try to go a little off-center when you're first watching The program and then if you get interested in it and you start buying the voices for that character Then later on your brain sort of says, okay, I know it's dubbed, but I'm still really enjoying it So you'll allow yourself to get into it and then you'll forgive the lip flap Uh, but if you just go into it right away with a sort of judgment against it, you're not going to enjoy it You're just going to want to turn because you just don't want to your brain says, oh, it's not lining up Well, of course it's not going to line up. It's a different language Absolutely Yeah, and it would be great if we could demonstrate how all this works But if somebody gets hired for it, I mean you audition for it or you're on a roster where they try You see it you learn how to do it essentially, but it helps if you're a good actor. It does. Uh, that's really important Uh The technology's Not too complicated, but again, it's really hard to learn How to really sync up with it and because you like you said we're dealing with a couple of different things There's the platform they're recording on You're usually on zoom with them So it's all got to work just right But hopefully people can learn how to do that. How does one get into it? That's the million dollar question. Well, that's why I'm asking Let me uh Come up with a few bills here Yes, exactly So so it helps if you live close to a dubbing facility because it is Um Sort of an easier process Uh being able to be have access to dubbing if you live in the city where dubbing is going on Right, it's not impossible to book dubbing if you live in other parts of the country Um, but you know my feeling is that if you are truly interested in it I would go online and start getting the names of the major dubbing houses in new york and la And I think they're a few in dallas and and they're in other markets as well But mainly la and new york And contact them you can email that go on their portals and see if they have a submission portal if they do submit If not, then you can call them up and i'm sure the receptionist that picks up the phone Will have the answer to that question because they probably get that call all the time Then if you have an agent, uh, let your agent know you're interested in in dubbing as well Now I will say there are some agents that don't really care to chase that work because The contract that netflix negotiated with sag did not include the 10 commission And so if you uh, do pay commission to the agent it comes out of the talent And because you're paid relatively low the agent sometimes feeling comfortable going after that low amount of money from the actor So it really is just such a delicate conversation to have with your agent But you could at least let your agent know that if auditions come their way that you're interested in being submitted Some actors are busy or in other ways and they just don't want to To chase it, but you can let your agent or manager know You can also let your friends know that are also doing dubbing and they can recommend you I get a lot of submissions through through that. I I've certainly seen that so it's a lot of referral business in this Oh, you could be should be doing this or talk to this person or something along those lines exactly Is this one of the companies? Yeah, that's definitely one of them. Yeah Now I will tell you here are a couple of little little secrets. First of all, um A lot of people say what do I submit and you know The commercial demo is probably the better demo because if you have a recently produced commercial demo You probably have a demo that has a lot of conversational reads That tells us exactly where your voice naturally sort of Lies at this point in time I would not submit an animation or game demo because it's just too too much to spread out Because in dubbing in the dubbing world, I'm pretty much hiring you For your voice. I'm not getting sort of crazy voices However, I will say I did a couple of animated series this last year For dubbing and so I was hiring some wacky voices certainly, but for the most part for live action You're going to be judged and hired based on your natural voice So if you feel That your commercial demo is sort of let's say it's a little older and has a lot of character voice work on there Or if you just feel that you don't have enough Conversational then what you can do is just choose a couple of a couple lines Of various attitudes from you know a script It could be from a play a movie whatever and just read them and record yourself doing them as long as you have a Good enough sounding mic and hopefully you do and just string those together and submit those because that gives us a nice baseline Sort of sound on you. It doesn't have to be fancy. No music. No sound effects. No nothing It's just we want to hear your voice probably the more you you try to be slick with production Will work against you. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. Don't try to be too clever. Yeah, just act Exactly. Just do it yourself. Just record yourself doing it and and but just again make sure it's a good sounding voice print and then number two the one thing that I will say that is attract From my standpoint is if you are bilingual or trilingual That does help in the dubbing world because there are times when we have to get various Languages from the same person and so that would help to show that sort of ability You know fancy accents. We don't really need those as much It's more about just if you speak fluent languages Other languages fluently so so those are the those are my two secrets Do your own demo and also just let us know that you speak multiple languages fluently And then I would just say submit to the dubbing houses across the country And that's that that will get you a better chance. I believe of getting in the door with dubbing Then trying to wait for some random audition to come through unless you have an agent They get a lot of dubbing work and there are a couple of agencies out here that are very open to dubbing And so they do send out auditions that they receive from the dubbing houses And that's how a lot of their talent get on these rosters And the good news too is that when you get on these rosters and if you're really good the directors all talk to each other We do our own casting and so and there have been a number of times where I've done casting in the lobby Where I'll be talking to another director and I'm like, oh my gosh, I need such and such They're like, oh, you've got to try so and so and so I'll go and listen at the demo and I'll hire them I don't even read them. I'll just hire them. So Um, so yeah, so that's to answer your question from five minutes ago A good referral source is is a very important Absolutely when the right person is also casting and directing all the it's like no, I got the guy Absolutely, you don't go. I don't know. Okay. Let's get to work. Yeah, absolutely. Once again, we're talking with Jeff Howl Howl Just making sure It's like it's like the thing with cliff zelman and my aunt zelda. There was zelda feldman and cliff zelman I've always confused. That's great. It happens when you get over 65 suddenly Things just don't work quite as well as they do starts a lot earlier than that And guess what I hear you it doesn't get any better We're with jeff howl if you have a question for him it is your imperative to talk with jeff Howlman who is in our chat room and get those questions in now because he knows a lot about a lot of different things Uh that go on in professional you can put those in linkedin youtube or facebook or monitoring all those channels We're everywhere anyway, um I have noticed because I watch an awful lot of tv Because my life is pretty boring Lot of great stuff. You were talking about some shows that really suck But I've seen a lot of good stuff coming out of europe some great stuff out of israel and turkey They've been studying here. Haven't they how to make good stuff because I can see the you know How it is that they're that's formatted the way it is in hollywood, but they're doing it in their own studios I know there's a big studio in morocco where a lot of stuff is getting done and uh And some really good actors of course now i'm starting to notice the same voice for different characters Like wasn't that the guy that played this and that other show? Yeah So there's probably you start picking those. Yeah, exactly. Well, of course. I have a good ear. I listen to voices all day. Yeah um Where do you think the best stuff is coming from? Well from my projects now. Yeah. Oh, well, okay. Well, I you know, I That's such a boy. That's a question. I haven't faced, but I would say that you know The the secret is netflix has studios all across the world You know all right, you know, and so they and they have a standard So that's why you're noticing that the overall quality from all these Companies all these all these companies in all the other countries It's starting to look better and better and better because netflix has created the standard and technical standard as well You can look that right up on their website. Yeah, exactly. You can all about what they want to hear from you exactly so so I think that um To be honest with you, I don't even know if if If there's a certain Country or or area of the world where Better product is coming out of I think there's just such great material coming out of the united states to be honest with you Uh, but what happens is is that uh, the process my understanding is that for example netflix will have uh, they'll invest in shooting a film let's say in israel And then they'll already plan to We're going to dub it in french. We're going to dub in spanish So they already have those rough tracks all that being sent to all the different markets at the same time Like I may be dubbing something from israel at this time and paris is working on at the same time Um, you know, you could have uh, belgium working on it or germany munich or wherever you could have the different offices all around the world working on the same project at the same time so, um And that that's probably the case because you know if you notice that when you go on And you look at all the different languages. They all come up at the same time You want to watch it in spanish? You want to watch it in german? You want to watch it in you know, whatever So so they're all we're all working at it I would imagine on the same product at the same time right and it's about 10 minutes of credits afterwards The swedish guys and here's the japanese dubbers and you want to know What these studios are watch the credits exactly because they're all credited at the end at the post roll So you know exactly who they are. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah once again, we're talking with jeff howell You can ask questions. I'm running out of questions because I know all this stuff. No, I don't But you've also you've also taught uh promo. I've taken your promo classes and that's that's very similar type of work Uh Not a lot of people getting into promo as I like to say it's a small Conjure of folks who are consistently getting the big network stuff. What is it that they're doing that is? Different than say everybody else who's trying. What's the secret? Yeah, what kind of promo well, that's that's definitely a secret. Well, I think the number one Secret of getting into promo was being aligned with an agent or manager that is very active in that area Not all talent agencies have active promo departments. They they all do promo, but some of them have Uh promo departments that have a bit more weight they and more people Maintaining those departments. They have their contacts at these networks and and I think that just like because I used to be an agent A long time ago, and I know that we all these have these highly coveted relationships And you know so come to me don't go to another agent come to me and I'll give you the talent and that sort of thing Which is understandable. Of course, it's a relationship business So more so than commercial I think commercial is more spread out But promo is still more relationship based and so I think that the the true secret is access and access is through a known manager or agent that has Uh those sort of contacts and then when you go beyond that Certainly the sound of promo has changed and when I'm speaking about promo when I'm teaching promo Whether it's at the various conventions around the country or in in classes here in LA You know I always say that you know, we're all at the mercy of pop culture and what's going on In terms of the taste of the video business whether it is commercial or promo and and so What was considered more of a standard at one time, which was that more bombastic sort of coming up on cbs That sort of read right is not as standard any longer And so you find a less aggressive read, but it is still engaged for example It may not be coming up, but it might be coming up on cbs It's not as loud and vocalized and stabbed and or staccato or bombastic as we always say But it's but it's still invested And one of the networks said we just want our promo people to sound like they like the show And I know that sounds like a sort of a basic But a lot of these actors because some of the more active ones that are going from job to job to job They start dialing it in no disrespect to them because that is a sort of that's what happens when you do it all the time Then it becomes so automatic that sometimes you have to stop and remind yourself. Oh, I have to like this show And so it's then it's sort of going back to the acting a little bit And thinking about researching the show you're reading for whether it's an audition or an actual session But so the reads right now are a little bit less aggressive Now there are exceptions to every rule And you know, I I will sometimes spend an afternoon Going through various networks or or cable nets and listening to the programming and the promos and sometimes you will find Still that style that's a bit more aggressive But you know, it certainly has changed and diversity certainly has had an effect On promo and and then also with the just the variation the multitudes of different networks and even on a network They may have different sounds different day parts You know, you might have an actor doing this day part You might have an actor doing just this one show, you know Or you'll have an actor that has a whole evening or they may be just daytime And not evening or you know, so so there are sounds very such variations out there. So the good news is It's not that limiting You know, you've got it's not just the deep voiced men that are booking now You've got a lot of women getting into it now more than ever before And again, like I mentioned diversity certainly is is there as well So it's it's uh, it's an interesting time But promo is definitely a bit harder to get access to and I think mainly it's just the access of How do I get those opportunities those scripts? You know, I this is again a part of networking. I think a big part of Of of uh, vio Should be networking. I think promo is one that could really be Uh attained through networking and that is by you know, going to the different conventions and trying to hunt down the People that are there speaking about promo and chatting with them and picking their brains. You never know Uh, what might come from that conversation and also people Right now or in something like that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right We're talking with jeff howell again, if you got a question throw it in the chat room We're going to take a break right now and we'll be right back with your questions and more talk about all this stuff right after this So do not go away This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying den and george on the voice over buddy shop Oh, hi, you know, if you live in a house and your voiceover studio is in that house You don't want to disturb everybody else who's living in there So what you need are good headphones that are made specifically for voiceover And that's why we have harlin hogan's signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0. What's so great about these? Well one they have a very flat response So you only hear exactly what it is you sound like second Incredibly comfortable letter letter pads on the outside filled with memory foam of really comfortable headband that really It really works with your head the most important thing you can wear them for long periods of time That's really important. Where do you get them? Only at voiceover essentials dot com. That's voiceover essentials dot com Just go there. Look at the headphones and get them now. Tell them we sent you. Thanks harlin Well, it's time to thank our sponsors source elements the creators of source connect And nexus the new version of nexus has been released Which is a ever evolving platform that allows you to do a lot more things with the source elements family of products Mainly being able to have Meetings bring clients in from lots of different locations and integrate them right into a production Much more easily than assembling inputs and outputs from different Conferencing apps and all the other mess that goes along with it. So that's what nexus is But honestly voice actors those of you who are watching the show, which is probably most of you You're going to want to know what source connect is and the best way to do that is to head over to source dash elements dot com And go check out the content they have they have a lot more content on learning source connect and getting it set up I also have a video that's getting real long in the tooth It's been out almost about three and a half years But if you go on source if you go on youtube and search for source connect for voiceover I also have a good long video on there that would give you an orientation About how to get started with source connect But get yourself set up with an account get it downloaded learn how the thing works and understand the workflow So when those agents come along and say this job requires source connect, you're going to be ready. Anyway, thanks for listening Thank you so much for sponsoring us source elements and let's get on to the questions right after this Well, hey there, it's david h laurance with vo heroes and wouldn't it be cool If there was a very simple tool drag and drop tool that would guarantee That the audio you need to upload to acx or any other audiobook platform is perfectly set up in terms Of the tech standards the root mean square normalization the peak normalization the noise floor Guess what there is and I want you to have it absolutely free It's called audio cupcake and you can find it at audio cupcake dot com I helped create this software It was built to my specs and my standards for when I do audiobooks And I know it's going to work for you now. It's only available for macintosh Because you windows users you have the ability to use other tools that work for you But in this case you edit your final raw wave file for a chapter You drop it onto audio cupcake and outcomes the 192k mono mp3 file. You can upload immediately That's audio cupcake dot com audio cupcake dot com. I hope you love it This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv Body shop our guest is jeff howell. We're talking about dubbing. We're talking about promo And we're we can talk a little bit about commercials if you want Getting a lot of people were like I want to learn how to do commercials and Most people got to realize that most voiceover is not showbiz That it is there's a lot of mundane things that have to be recorded some kind of commercials You know probably this amount of what's out there, of course, that's the stuff that pays the most Exactly, uh, so when you get a job like that, it's really more gravy But you've got to really get all these other types of work, you know the e-learning and the The medical narration and you've been teaching anybody that type of work It's interesting you say that I someone did come to me recently About medical narration and I referred them to someone else because I really felt that You know, even though I've certainly been exposed to that I there are other experts out there that I prefer sending people to especially when I'm really really busy But I'd say, you know, for example when people come to me for animation Even though I've directed animation I've certainly cast it But you know, I love sending people to the pros that know all those tricks that take it to another level And I mean I certainly will coach auditions and animation auditions because it's about the acting and that I can certainly do But you know, it's it's I think there are so many people out there that You know they and I'm not criticizing other coaches at all because we all have our strengths and weaknesses I certainly have mine But you know the thing is I think that there are so many people. There's such specialists in certain fields I'm very happy to send people to those specialists because you know when someone comes to me and they want to you know Get into a certain part of the business I want to try to give them the best advice and send them to the best person for that You know that particular area of vo But yeah, I've been certainly exposed to political narration and that's big of course And medical and and legal narration and in show narration of course and You know All that, you know, right I've worked in the audiobook book area a bit too as well But I always send people to scott because why would I want to do it when you have scott brick there? You can't you can't do any better than that Oh, he is he is the absolute king of this sort of thing. Absolutely once again If you've got a question for jeff howell throw it in the chat room right now and we'll get to that question Like the first question we have Mr. Whittom your turn Yes, we've got one from fiber jazz who watches us from youtube Two of them actually first. Um, do you coach for descriptive narration for the visually impaired? Is that something that that goes into your Audio description audio description. Yeah. Yeah No, I do not but I do have I do know a couple of people that do that sort of thing and Then that's definitely a a specific area of the business You know, I did hear that that might be one of the areas that AI may end up Stepping into more sooner than later Because it doesn't require as much acting nuance as other parts of Vio, but don't quote me on that because that is not confirmed That's just something a rumor that I heard out there But of course everyone's concerned about AI in every area of our business, of course But not to say that you shouldn't try to get into it because who knows, you know Maybe around for quite a while. Yeah. He has a second question I'm not maybe you'll interpret this better than me. I didn't quite fully understand but He says for dubbing Do you need to know the original language or are there other ways to synchronize with the speaker? Does that make sense to you? It does it does You do not need to understand the original language However, if you do boy, does it help? There have been a number of times where we've had Especially in the in the world of the Spanish and the Latin Projects the Spanish speaking projects and I've had you know, oftentimes I'll try to cast people with some sort of background in the Spanish language and so there have been a couple of times where We received sort of an odd translation and they'll actually chime in and say, oh, you know what they meant And so we'll sometimes readapt on the fly based on the feedback that the actor or actress gave us Because of their unique understanding. So you do not need To know the language the original source language, but it certainly helps And in terms of syncing it up, that's what the job of the adapter The actor doesn't have to worry about that as much of course It helps if you have a good sense of rhythm and you spot something and go, oh, you know what? I see an oh labial a no no lip formation there And I think I could put this word there and we're certainly open to your your input But you know the adapters and they're so highly valued I mean, I I just I think adapt a an adaptation a strong adaptation is essential for a well produced sort of Easier sort of production process when you're doing dubbing and the adapter is the one that takes the translation And they put it through voice cue or whatever dub X or whatever system And they're the ones that spend hours and hours and days and days lining up everything So by the time it gets to the studio, it's already gone through That makes sense because we like to we will watch the We will watch a dub Netflix show and we'll watch the with the subtitles And we'll notice when they don't line up when like why are they that's exactly what it is They've adapted it to make it fit better with the what the actor's doing. Absolutely. Okay makes a little sense Try not to watch With the subtitles because it will your brain will they'll be at another reason why you'll hate dubbing Well, my my girlfriend ESL So she still does like to read the subtitles to just further grasp what's being said, but that makes a lot of sense now I get it. Okay. Yeah, that's that's the answer to that question Alrighty, uh next one is from grace newton. She asks What are some of the red flags the talent should look for when approached for dubbing work? Oh, that's I and I know exactly what she's talking about that sometimes they're There are a lot of scams out there. It's like, oh, we need you to do this and you we're gonna rent you this You know, you have to rent the studio and things along those lines Well, I think that you know, clearly if you're working with a reputable Dubbing house, then there really are no red flags You can choose to take the job or not and a good dubbing house will will tell you what you're getting into because, you know, oftentimes you you may have a Sensitivity for a certain type of material or against a certain type of material And so they especially if there's nudity involved or language, you know, raw language involved They will certainly Tell you that a reputable shop when they're casting they'll and they're calling the talent. They let them know that The pay is what it is In terms of union and non-union it can be a little iffy But most of the production house is here in la or union. And so that's not even an issue really Is gva or any of those organizations have a Rate card so yeah, so like if you get something that comes to you because here's the rate you can verify that they're Yeah, you know, that's a good question. And I'm with gva and I have no idea I haven't looked at the rate card to see if they have a dubbing. I'm sure they probably do by this point. I imagine um And those are they're great folks, by the way, and and I'm sure they have it but if not, I mean, I think that it's I think again, I'm really trying to come up with an answer to that question I can't think of any real red flags. I mean just follow your gut instinct if you're if it's some sort of You know production facility in the middle of the country or even on in la or new york that you've never heard of and you Could certainly use like google be your friend and yeah, if you can't find anything about right and nobody you know knows Anything about exactly. Yeah, yeah, ask around ask around and if it sounds too good to be true Probably is and and and and obviously it goes without saying if any facility asks you to pay them Then obviously that's that would be a huge red flag. Yeah You know, they're supposed to be paying you But that being said, you know, you're trying to get paid from these facilities That might be the issue as well if you're using one that isn't reputable So definitely try to check them out and that's that's all I can really think of to answer that question Yeah, and now jeff holman gets to ask his own question. Would you like me to do it to camera or the camera is looking right at you? Would you like me to do it to camera? Yes, you will do a little bit of acting here So jeff you mentioned a couple of times that the pay is not that great for dubbing. What kind of pay are we talking about? Well, the union has negotiated with netflix and they have now they raised it to a three hour minimum And and then after that you get paid per half. I think it's per half hour after that and I think I should have probably looked this up because I don't I don't write the contracts So I think it's around the 300 range for the three hour and then you get then you get a Buyout a 50% buyout for the residuals and on top of that And then you get a percentage on top of that to cover any overages if you go over the three hour period So I think it averages. I don't know. You probably have an actor that would probably call in and say otherwise But I think you end up for one session. Maybe averaging around what four or 500 bucks. Maybe I don't know But that's for a three hour minimum. That sounds like a fair pay It's all right. Thanks solid. It's all do maybe a little lower now But anyway, but it's around there around there. It's between three It's about between three and five, you know, I really should have looked that up and I Quick google that. Thanks for asking me a question. I didn't have the answer to Once again, if you've got a question for Jeff, you still have lots of time to throw that in there so we can ask him that You know, we were talking a few minutes ago about, uh, you know translation and stuff like that I've been doing a bunch of stuff for a turkish agency And it's like this doesn't make any sense in english Where are you getting clearly they're using bad google translate to get this stuff and again you were saying that Suggest this is what you have to do and you know add a contraction in there because people don't talk How are you handling that with them? Yeah, it's well when that happens I I go I'm changing this Because they trust me. They know that I'm gonna do it right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah uh question from max goldberg says, uh Are some promo houses willing to take on talent for scratch reads Yes, uh, I know that when I worked at a promo company for about 17 years Uh, certainly I utilize scratch and I'll tell you it started a number of careers because They got really good at it and my deal with the talent that scratch for me is I would give them an mp3 Of the finished spot so they could use that for a reel I'm gonna make you define what that means by by the way scratching, okay Because really we always we love throwing out jargon. Yeah, sorry about that scratch It's just basically a rough version of the spot because you know a lot of times when we write these these spots We don't know if they're gonna work or not So we'll have a scratch voice meaning a attempt voice go in there and actually read it and usually it's directed and and uh once we're happy with the read we'll send that uh to the network for approval and you know, uh I'd say at least 25 percent of the time 30 percent of the time the network would say we like that voice And so we would just you know, if we didn't have to change it I would just call that actor and say who's your agent or I know their agent and I'd say we're sending you You know, we're filling out a contract for you and and call it a day They were thrilled it was and I loved it when that happened too because those were people that were usually students of mine Uh, or or they were people that were referred to me People whom I met networking out there and I try to keep a list of people who are interested in scratching So to answer your question. Yes, I think that uh most production facilities Are certainly would be up for it because you're basically volunteering to be a scratch voice Now getting access to that is a little harder because you don't have as many outsourced production companies anymore that are producing promos A lot of them are directly in-house because the technology is a lot cheaper now for for the networks to be able to do it In-house certainly is cheaper for them not to outsource it and so it's getting into those networks And that's a little bit of a harder sort of get But there are some uh production companies again, that's a good google search for you To see if you can find some of the production houses in la or new york That would be able to you know would be interested and same for trailer companies as well The trailer business, it's not quite as Busy as it used to be Because we're not hearing a lot of voices on trailers, but there's still trailer houses that will need test voices because they'll they'll write Big packages and send them to the networks and then the networks can sit there and sit on those packages for months and months trying to decide Which way to go and ultimately they may hire their go-to Trailer person and we know that group of 10 or 12 that are out there doing it But you never know when you might hit hit hit it and they're going to say we want a new voice and that that person sounds great So you never know. Yeah, and and again getting access to the studio Is the end for a lot of people how many times have we heard the story? Well, I was doing a scratch tracker I was doing something for this and somebody walks in and says by the way, are you available to do this? Absolutely and a lot of careers. I think almost every career I've ever you know I've heard of the people we've had on the show. Oh, yeah It was by mistake, you know, or it was they were looking for somebody and somebody couldn't show up No, you try it like don la fontaine. That's how he started. It's Fascinating Uh, that's the last one in the queue It is so jeff tell us a little bit about you know, how you're teaching where you're teaching and where can people access you? So I I don't usually have my own group class here in Los Angeles because you know, my main priority my main job Uh Is to produce and direct so I'm usually busy with that however I'm very happy to be a guest speaker and appear in various classes in la and new york So I'm I'm approached about those classes periodically and I do those make those appearances Um, also I go to the several conventions. Sometimes I'll take a year off from this one or a year off from that one uh Just to re-energize and and charge up my batteries and and all that But I do do private coaching mostly by zoom as most everyone although I do have an office at la studios And so now that things are a lot more open and I do have a a booth there in my office So, uh, I'm certainly able to do in person If the person is in la and wants to come in and I certainly enjoy that process too for people who want to reach me I do have my own website. It's uh, jeff howell vo.com And or you can email me at jeff at jeff howell vo.com And and I will say this and I say this continually that please don't get frustrated if I don't get back with you right away Feel free to email me on a regular basis people have booked when they've done that to be honest with you Because I just when I'm in a studio a dark studio for hours and hours and hours I just don't even have A minute to even check my emails and so by the end of the day when I go to check my emails It's usually putting out fires production fires first So sometimes the emails start shifting down into the box And I actually had an actress who was a lovely person and and has become a dear friend at one point She said I think you need an assistant And and I said, you know what you're right, but um anyway, but I I love private coaching. I do it as much as often as I can I love that process. I love Coaching people in whatever, you know area of voiceover that I feel Strongest that I can share that information with you But also my goal is to teach you or to meet with you as little as possible because I give you a lot of homework And because I really feel like it's a joint process. I I don't try to Because my my work process is not to train actors every day. I'm coaching. I'm directing sessions every day So my goal is to again check in with you Of course, if an actor is really feeling like they need to see me more often I'm certainly there for them But my goal is to try to get you independent of me so that you can train yourself So it trains your own ear and and then for me to fine tune you so that because again the real world Unless you really can afford to have a director directing all your auditions for you You're having to direct yourself. And so my my feeling is that if I can give you skills To take and to work on with on your own To be able to direct yourself and hear yourself And I think that's the most important thing and that's my sort of contribution to your career And you know, I feel like when you can do that I've done a good job Well, you are a very busy guy and we really appreciate you coming on today Let us Get all this wisdom in here. Yes, of course. It's always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. All right Jeff Howell, I remember at that time We'll be right back right after these messages. So don't go away You're still watching vlbs Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra.com Whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports It's all here at voiceover extra.com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Hey, it's time to talk about one of our other great sponsors voice actor dot com voice actor dot com What is voice actor dot com? Look as a voice actor you have to have a website. It's important It is the most aside from just being talented and and you know making sure that your demos are really good You got to have a website to show people That you are there that you have a footprint an internet footprint And it's not easy to do especially if you've ever tried to design a website very difficult You hire somebody to do it you're talking four to five maybe six months of going back and forth and trying to get it right Over at voice actor dot com voice actor dot com. They've got templated websites Super duper easy you sign in you create an account for free you can start And there are templates that you can look at. Oh, I like this one Oh, I could put my picture there and they are totally customizable with color With where you put your pictures all these sorts of things and you can get your website up and running In half an hour not five to six months if you're trying to get your your site up and running That's the way to do it and then they have a special offer for 20 a month. You will get your own URL And it is just fantastic. Then you've got your website and that's the most important thing Go over to voice actor dot com. That's voice actor dot com and get your voice actor website up and running right now We are the world voices organization Also known as woevo. We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent Voice over is a complex entrepreneurial business. Woevo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public To those already established in their voiceover practice and to those who want to pursue voice over as a career Membership benefits include a supportive and creative community a profile and demos on voiceover dot biz Our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player for your personal website Our mentoring program business resources and our video library our annual woevo con conference Of fun and educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn at network webinars and great speakers And weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voiceover make woevo part of it world voices organization. We speak for those who speak for a living Yeah, hi, this is carlo zellers rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop Hey, we're back. There's a big empty chair here. All right. We'll fix that We got to set it up for tech talk after this and we've got some great stuff to talk about there but our thanks again to jeff howell for coming in and Talking to us about all the stuff that he does which is an immense amount of stuff And he is certainly one of the most knowledgeable people here in the business here in la until he's an authority on the subject Yeah, uh next week on this very show. It will be tech talk number 114 Believe it or not and uh the last one of the year, right? It will be the last tech talk of the year because we're going to take a little time off retool You know december's a weird month for me. Well right now because my anniversary is the day or after Thanksgiving My wife's birthday is december 5th. You got hannakas sticking in there and christmas and all that stuff How does it fall this year? Weird always does and the 25th of kiss left. It's oh, it's the same time every year Why ask the question? I know you ask that question every year and then my birthday at the end of the year It's like we got too much crap going on in november and december And we're trying to make some material changes to the way we produce the show. So just just a little We're gonna take a take a little break. Yeah, we need a break. I mean heck we We've been doing this show for 12 years. You think we'd be running out of things to talk about but not Uh, we need to thank the people of course, uh, who uh who donate to the show like uh, greg cooper Grace newtons christopher epperson robert ledham steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant thomas pinto reg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs sarah borges philips appear brine page rob rider shawna pennington baird don griffith trey mosley diana birdsall aria makas and sandra manweller Thank you all for all your contributions and making the show Technically amazing, especially if you're watching live. You see how amazing it actually is Uh, you got any specials running? Well, we just have our usual george v dot tech slash v obs landing page So we always have a discount code for you there Um, but in terms of other content, we do have some webinars in the hopper right now We're gonna do a little beginner podcast webinar. It's just a good idea absolute crash course For like everybody stand in front of microphone talk Yeah, it's more about the gear, of course But we have that coming up at the end of the month if you want to know what the webinars coming are just go to george the dot tech slash Webinars all righty. We need to thank our sponsors, of course like harlin hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Source elements there are those guys vo heroes dot com voice actor dot com and world voices dot or world dash voices dot org the industry association the way of freelance voice talent and We're about to make some really cool changes there and People say what are you guys doing? We're doing what we always do only we're gonna make it better So join up over world dash voices dot org Uh, let's we need to thank jeff holman who's actually in the studio tonight get the shot of jeff in the flag Yeah, there he goes. Okay, so wave. Hello jeff. There you go and now back over here and uh We need to thank sumer lino who's in a lot of pain when she's still Directing from her place in burbank and getting it done remotely. It's amazing We make we made it happen during the pandemic and it still works Well, we're all here in the studio as well, but she had to stay home and thanks for doing that So feel better. Thanks, sir. Alrighty. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week Stay tuned for tech talk if you're watching live Stay where you are and ask your questions about your home voiceover studio because george and I just love talking about that stuff Even if we don't have something to talk about we find something to talk about And it has to do with home voiceover studios, which is a really important part of your uh, your business But I gotta tell you it's not an easy business And getting your audio right is not easy But you talk to us we'll get it right because if it sounds good, it is good I'm dan lettered and i'm george woodham and this is voiceover body shop or vio b See you next week kids You get the big boy chair This is rick washington chair Is that where that came from rick's place at one point? Yeah, actually for many years Unfortunately terrors strong found out my thought about the terrors strong memorial chair Oh, no somebody somebody knew her and said oh, I know her I'll tell her that Okay, we gotta we gotta crop this one just a little bit too Take yeah pan that around there a little bit Yeah, let's see how that looks pretty good Yeah, how do you like them apples dropped down a little bit more like I can I can go There we go. I think that's pretty that's pretty close. Okay All right See me One two three four adjust for moi Jeff's getting his voice ready for a sing That's right. Gotta get ready Okay, sue you you tell us when you're ready i'm watching your Your hands I can zoom in that shot a little bit more if you want it Can he do it from brio? I could Oh, he's gonna punch in a little bit soon That brio How's that? Yeah, it's a little better. Yeah, well much. Yeah Tech talk 114 take one Get me beginning. All right. Here we go that work. We just got five four three Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk tech talk Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk All right number 114 114 in a new font. How do you like that? Ooh that fun is cool How we've been doing this for 114 episodes of this It's a huge catalog of stuff And if you've missed some of it, it's still there. Anyway, we've got lots of stuff You've got some stuff to talk about tonight. Yeah, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the some software updates that have caused you Some trouble a new software that's causing some fixes Okay, and Actually making things better and yeah mostly software tonight. All right, and I'm gonna talk about Riding the game and proper microphone technique So you don't have to necessarily ride the game or how you do that So stay tuned. It's voiceover body shop tech talk right now Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com the home of harlan hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect the oh heroes dot com Become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor comm your voice over website ready in minutes Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success And by world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts dan and george Well, hello there. I'm dan Leonard and i'm george widham and this is voiceover body shop or v o b s tech talk Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk gotta get jeff in there tech talk There he is tech talk. Oh, man. The myths are Tech talk tech the man the myths the left talk tech. It's 11 11 Can't wait to get the residuals on this Alrighty he's getting multi-language dubbing rates now. Oh, yeah, that's right. Boom. Yes. Well, we're here to talk about home voiceover studios, you know It's definitely a niche, but there's so much to it that we just keep coming up with things to talk about Yeah, uh, and uh, but the most important thing you need to remember is that You have to have professionals get your studio set up You can look you can go on facebook you can go on linkedin You can go to all these places and ask questions and get 10 000 different answers All of which george and I will tell you are probably wrong unless the people who who listen to us Uh, because we've worked, you know, everybody's an expert in one studio their own right except You know us too and there's some really great names out there who are really great experts in their own studios that are very smart And they know what they're talking about, but they're still really know their own studio really really well They're not in your closet. Yeah, you know, they don't they don't understand a lot of engineers who say well Yeah, you got to get this and you have to have this that's what they use They've spent 25 years learning how to use all this stuff and then they expect you to learn it overnight Doesn't work that way. No, there's a simple way to do it. We've got the formula. We know We know what it's supposed to sound like what it's supposed to sound like whistle There's a way it's supposed to sound and Getting there isn't as hard as you think just a number of different different formulaic things that we know how to go through to customize it to your space and What you can't go wrong. Look you two experts like us You really can't go wrong So if you want to work with george, which lots of people do you go over to his very extensive website george the dot tech tech if you want to work with me That's where you're going to find me. You're also going to find a whole team of folks who are a huge team You've got no specialists. So are we not only specialists, but we can only be one person at one time, right? so I've got backup of a lot of great folks and I have folks who also do on-demand support which To me is really one of the best services we offer because when you have a gig that you might lose because Oh my gosh, I didn't realize that my port's not mapped or oh my gosh. I didn't know this happened or Holy cow this device rebooted and it won't you know, whatever it is We do have 911 support now. So and there's a deep bench of folks Including dan who might in it answer that call and help get you back online So that's that's something i'm really proud of among all the things that we do at george the dot tech But if you just want to go right to the source talk directly to the mustache You want to go to home voice over studio dot com. Yes Yeah, and and I've got a number of things I can do for you number one If you got a problem with your audio, I got to hear it. I keep getting people saying I got a buzz I got a click. I've got this. There's the one last week. It was somebody's phone Why does it We were saying that we we wanted to do sort of a stump the chump. Did you was that something that came up? Well, didn't we say that it was a phone noise? It was a phone noise and so we were and that solved it Of course it was right But what are you gonna do? Okay, it was I'm like all you run you run through your scenarios in your mind Okay, could be this could be that I know what it is. It's the phone And it was the person's phone because this afternoon I was working with some stuff and had my phone up close to these monitors and I'm like Monitors are a real like yeah, I'm like it's the phone. There's a lot of rf that comes off of that And yeah, those they're very sensitive monitors and they'll hear that Um, okay, you figured that out you got the guy back to work and that's because you are the Home studio master, uh, exactly. Uh, and uh, but I also have my service of The specimen collection cup, which is what I was getting to and that is A great service you click on the specimen collection cup at my my uh, my website It takes you to a drop box explain to me and it's really important to tell me what microphone you're using What software are you using what computer you're using? How are you set up? Because they'll you know Someone will send me and I want it raw because people will send me processed. How does this sound? Well, it sounds like crap because you don't know how to process this stuff You know, it's like having processing doesn't mean you have to use it It's as simple as that and if you don't know how to use it don't As I always say, you know how to use something don't use it You know, it's pretty simple or if you don't know what it did turn it off Right. If you turn something on or add something and you don't know what it did Turn it off because probably it did something that somebody else is gonna hear and oh, yeah Yeah, yeah, I hear people running noise gates. I'm not running a noise gate. Yeah, I can see you're running a noise gate You can you can tell you can see you can hear it. Anyway, go over to the home voiceover studio dot com And uh, I'll be happy to work with you talk to anybody that's worked with me. They'll tell you I'm even friendlier than that Uh, because I'll help you as a voice actor I can also give you lots of advice and how to succeed in this business By trying a lot There's a lot to it. Anyway, you've got your tech update this week and there's been lots of software issues in the past week So Give us the lowdown. What do you want the bad news or the good news first? Always go with the bad news. Okay bad news first. All right. Well The first bad news that really threw people for a loop in the last couple weeks was Audacity dropped a new version 3.4 like a bomb. Yeah like a bomb You know 3.3 3.3 Maybe was the previous version. Does that sound right to you sound like that and it was working fine It was it was really nothing wrong with it. And that's because that was the point three That was the point x version of point three, right? So it had several repairs. Well point four dropped and uh, well, there was some pretty serious issues and I think the main one was surround was around uh, recording in 24 bit if you tried to record in 24 bit you had What happened what happened nothing? It would know it would go Oh, the what wasn't the level just peg. It would just peg the whole way like that just garbage, right? So there was a workaround, but it was really it, you know, you had to mess around with the system So they did um, it seems like they're more rapidly responding to bugs now And rolling out fixes faster. So they within a week or two they had 3.4 point one and then, uh That seemed to fix it for some issues and other issues still persisted So there's a 3.4 point two coming any day now says paul lisa melly for I'm gonna say his name, right? What if I'm gonna say his name? See the right name george. I'm gonna see if I can get his right name while we're here chatting Yeah, well paul like a melly. It's a lisa melly or lick a melly l i c a m e l i Sorry paul. Yeah, he's ruining your name Get my name right But anyway, he as he's a contributor on the audacity voiceover users group on facebook That's where I was reading which is one of the one of the places to get your help with audacity stuff And he is one of the very very long time Contributors and developers of audacity so he knows so anyway 3.4 point two is coming Sometime soon, but the bottom line is if you're on 3.3 point three Or another earlier version and it's working great. Do not upgrade it. Yeah I upgraded today because I'm like, oh, maybe they fixed it because there's a fix in there. I put it in there hit record Nothing. Oh, it just didn't even roll didn't even roll. Okay. Yeah, so it's still they're still working out the kinks on that one um now On the uh on the adobe side adobe audition released 24 point oh And the way adobe's been releasing things lately at least an adobe audition Is they just they're on this annual release schedule. They do it every year same time of year Whether there's something new or not That's like and this is any difference. There's really been no difference at all Of any real material change in the last three or four years So if you're on 21 or 22, you ain't missing nothing if it's working today, don't upgrade it But anyway, 24.0 did come out no new features, but the bug lists the bug fixes include Sometimes silence was added at the beginning and end during an mp3 export that would stink That's fixed apparently in 24 point zero Fixed the destination is full or no longer available error, which would also really suck Well, you're trying to save mp3. I've had that one. It's that's a reboot and redirect and that apparently is that hopefully is fixed in 24.0 and improved scrolling With the track pad in a waveform and multi track and in the waveform and in the multi track view So better scrolling we get used to how software scrolls when we scroll back and forth. It's twisted wave is really smooth When it's not smooth, it's annoying. So apparently that's fixed. So those aren't those aren't really minor things Those are some pretty important fixes But those are in 24 now Waves plugins, which I have Quite a bit of now Training with them I've had Mike Pearson Adams from waves teaching some webinars for us at George the tech And I just got to recently chat with him on the pro audio suite my geekier podcast hyper geeky hyper geeky podcast and We found out that Clarity, which you've probably heard of by now. It's been out a year and a half a very powerful noise reduction tool Has a cousin now or a brother called D reverb. So there's another D revering D reverberating D reverberating tool Out there That is using the the machine learning method of removing reverb Which basically means that they have a huge huge huge database of Audio that's been analyzed in different situations where they go. This is voice And this is not voice but now focusing on the reverb part not the noise part So that is out and I finally had a reason to try it out. I was helping a voice Not a voice actors per se but a television personality I'm going to play his audio and then see if anybody recognizes his audio because You've probably heard it the guy's done a lot of television So we'll see if you know the sound so so what I'm going to do is I'm going to play an initial dry sample Of the audio that was sent to me. This is after treating the room by the way So he's moved into a new home with a pretty large office space. It's got a high ceiling It's pretty long and so we did acoustically treat it. We put a whole bunch. I didn't we I just came up with a design And then we had his installer put everything in right And it was like a it's a it's a delicate balance between making it still look like someone's nice home office And making it look like a recording studio. We still wanted it to look like an office So we didn't go too crazy. There's still a bit of empty space, right? So it's a little bit well slightly reverberant. Let's see if you guys can hear this Maybe that's why cbs sunday morning profiled artist ed ruchet in 1982 and again in 2011 And a third time today Okay, so I played that sample back and you can hear a bit of the room Around him and he's also using at the moment of this recording a large diaphragm condenser mic or like a vo mic So it's a mic that hears a lot of things around you and he's in a big space so I wanted to make a little processing chain for him and I wanted it to Have as little color or modification of the voice as possible But dry up that reverb So I tried first the isotope rx10 version Then I tried the waves clarity vx version the two are subtle enough that I don't think you guys are going to make out the differences They're subtle, but the the clarity D reverb was pretty impressive enough to impress him enough to use it now And uh, that's what this sounded like And a third time today Glenn Lowry is the director of new york's museum of modern art, which is presenting the biggest ruchet show ever It's not Dead dry. It's not like you're in a little tiny booth sound right, but it did soak up a lot more of that room ambience But you can you can adjust it and do it as Non-destructively and just yeah, there's a knob you can turn it you can add more you can take away So in that sample i'm using I think maybe I think like a 70 out of a 70 out of 100 Pretty high setting and I was really happy with how it didn't It didn't degrade the audio quality, you know a lot of people doing voiceover for tv and radio That are they don't always use a high quality side address condenser mic They often will use a dynamic right and it won't expose as many flaws in the room He's in a big empty room With not a lot in it. It's a little bit spartan and using a I think he's using a warm audio Something w a 47 it's a it's a high quality condenser and it here's a lot more so Um, there you go. There's a comparison. Hopefully you guys could make that out on youtube And I was really happy That in the end we didn't have to just keep throwing more panels up, you know I could have said well, let's put 10 more panels up And yeah, we could keep soaking it down more and more and more and more But in this case the room still feels good. It still looks nice His wife doesn't you know throw up in her mouth when she walks in, you know important things And and now we can get a sound that that is that he's happy with and that's really important Well, let's talk about that for a second because I mean, we're always talking about how One of the things we do one of the most important things we do when You know working with somebody and building a studio for them is you know to me everything is physical You know, you try to create as dead a room as possible, you know and as little sound coming in But as we've explained that's literally impossible in a home, you know, you've got furnace refrigerator amazing how many times refrigerator is in there Yeah All sorts of movement that's going on in the house Some you know construction next door. We've done that one a few times We floorers and the neighbors stuff and the trash people kids playing basketball next door Yeah, sometimes you just have to have something that's gonna Take it out without affecting your voice and you're you think that we're getting to that point now where we can do that um transparently Far more transparently than we used to right, you know By using these tools we're not Creating weird artifacts Where you sound like a robot, right or you sound like you're underwater or whatever it's it's missing little frequencies here and there Yeah, yeah, so at the moment waves kind of has a little bit of a head start I think over isotope in terms of using These machine learning models I can you can guarantee That isotope is working on their take on this kind of machine learning stuff You can it's table stakes now folks I mean there are so many plugins and little applications some free some not that will remove reverb and noise It's it's becoming way more common, but just kind of cool to hear how well that actually worked and um I'll be doing an interview with this person later So at that point I'll reveal exactly who it is But uh, it was really cool to get to work with someone who does a lot of on-camera appearances and But still also runs a podcast both. So cool. It was really neat. Anyway, let's move on to your topic of discussion Yeah, you know I get this a lot from people people who are as we were saying are in different various size rooms And you know if they're doing animation or they're doing gaming It's amazing how many different genres of material there are available out there But if you're if you're working from home and a lot of us are I'd say the majority of us are You have to learn how not to over modulate And what over modulation is is when you know you peg it in the red And it stays there and essentially what you're doing is you are over modulating and It distorts Now there's new there's new technology coming along that can prevent that It takes a little while to figure out how to work it with that particular microphones working in 32 Oh, like a 32 bit float thing. Yeah, right But not everybody has that and most people don't yeah Yeah, we've been recommending this great mic the the new road road nt1 fifth generation which Really just continues to blow our minds about what a great mic this is especially for the price which is A deal and a half. It's like 240. Oh, yeah, and they I forget to mention that he came out with the nt1 I don't know special edition. Yeah, which doesn't have the usb But they've painted them on a bunch of fun colors because they had a lot of them sitting around Painted boy. How are we gonna move these make a panel? So if you want a fun looking nt1, you can get that anyway, sorry great. No great microphone, but uh How do you not over modulate? And there's two ways and the character stuff especially Especially on character stuff. No, I know pat dynamics. Yeah pat freely used to have this great thing You talk about you know If you're you know, if you don't want to over modulate and if you're yelling You don't yell in somebody's ear unless you're really trying to torture them Like some people I know But you know his thing was you know, he would he would talk about how Or say you got a commercial where your dad's talking to the girls upstairs like You turn your head and you go hey, what are you girls doing up there? What does it sound like? It sounds like You're hitting the mic it sounds like you are talking up the stairs. There's the theater of the mind If you're a ninja in a video game and you're cutting off somebody's head You don't do it right into the mic Unless Yeah, and you turn away or you back way off and then and watch the levels Now the other way is writing the game which requires you to have Your interface right in front of you like say if you have a focus right To i2 or a solo or something like that you got that game dial And of course i'm always telling you always in the green always in the yellow Maybe an occasional flash of red And there it goes and start to go into the orange transient a quickie. Yeah a quickie in the red is okay That's fine because you can control that It's it you're not going to probably hear that no and you're not it's not going to be more transient or spiky Unless you're as opposed to really loud which starts to distort Uh So what you need to do is learn how to adjust your input volume and that requires writing the game Now sometimes if someone's doing a video game and they'll have lots of lines that are loud And there's lots of lines that are more conversational Do they break them up that way for you? They don't unfortunately Yeah, I think they would but it's a good idea to do that yourself do it yourself do the soft stuff first Then do the loud stuff because you do the loud stuff first you might wear your voice out Right before you get to the loud stuff will change the way your voice sounds on the soft stuff Because you've just tired your voice out exactly so use your voice normally And learn what your conversational setting is and on a 2i2 or any interface of that matter You take a sharpie and you go this is my conversational level and you mark it And then you know you're coming and it happens with audiobooks too and and gaming and animation Where you're going to be a little bit louder Test what you know learn what distances are right and learn How loud you really are doing specific characters test it out first and go this is the setting for being a ninja Yeah, you know and that's Mark that and so as you're writing the game it's like okay. I'm coming to this Turn it down And that's How you do that it sounds simple You got to learn to listen and you have to look and you have to understand What the waveform is supposed to look like you don't want the waveform going above zero Yeah, I really don't want it going above minus three. Yeah, and you and you definitely don't want to like You know, we use the word riding the game because back in the classical engineering days The engineer might actually control the level while you're recording right and that's Doing it dynamically over time. That's much more difficult But to make a like a preset almost in your brain or like you said with the pen, right? This is my softer read. This is my louder read. You don't want to have like seven or eight different Steps in between you're never going to keep track of it all right You're never going to get it right just have two settings that you know work for those two styles and It'll be in good shape. Also. I've had a few clients Use the pad switch to their advantage. Oh, that's a good idea as well Because if your mic has a easy to reach pad switch, not all of them do minus 20 or minus 10 dv I mean, gosh, I don't know if you're doing some really crazy loud stuff. You might need 20 Right, but a lot of mics have like a 10 and that seems to be enough for most people like in audiobooks, right? Now audiobooks you don't really yell Right video games you do right, right? Yeah video games is is realism Audiobooks is more It's a little more theater. You don't you don't fully all full on screen when you scream It's a it's a theater screen or whatever. You don't go all out So 10 db seems to work fine and and the problem with like the audio technique is the mic is the little switch is like It's like you you need like a pen and it's very hard to see But like the mojave, I don't know if this one has anything. Yeah, some mics do some of them have that Mic switch that switch very obvious where you can see it and you can flick it there That one doesn't have it But some mics have those actually none of the none of the mics we are using tonight have a pad switch folks Isn't that interesting? They can't the caddy 100 s does that's right. It does and the at 20 the at Not the 20 the at 20 35 does 20 35. It's kind of hard to see it The akgs all have a very clearly labeled switch And there's a couple of you know because I've been dealing with this a lot lately. Yeah, why can't I get a level? Okay, what are you? Oh, it's an nt1 Or an nt1a which does have that and it's a matter of nt1000 maybe it might be the one There's a bunch of different mics that have that. Yeah many many times. I'll go which mic model is that? I know I literally will say what mic is it and I google it find a picture of it Where's a picture of the back of the mic? Okay, there's the switch. Where do you have that set? Oh, I've got it set to minus something or other all right put it back to zero. Oh, it's amazing Yeah, often times it is misset. It is often misset. Right. Yeah. Yeah, so there's another way to do it. That's right. Anyway Uh, if you've got a question for us throw it in the chat room I'm sure you have like there are a billion questions popping out of your head right now And this is your last chance your last chance 2023 for 20 for the rest of the year If you want to answer get your question answered now is the time to do it Jeff Holman will write it down or type it in or send up smoke sniggles or something like that sniggles sniggles. Yeah Yes, but a little bit of mouth hasn't been working quite as well. That's all right. Uh, you can call me on all my On that flood I'm careful with you. You're you're not actually a voice. I'm delicate. That's right. Uh Throw it in the chat room right now. We'll get to that right after these really important messages So don't go away voice over body shop tech talk number 114 will continue right after those. So don't go away This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voice over body shop with dan lennard and george wittem v obs dot tv Oh, hi, you know if you live in a house and your voice over studio is in that house You don't want to disturb everybody else who's living in there So what you need are good headphones that are made specifically for voice over And that's why we have harlin hogan's signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 What's so great about these? Well one they have a very flat response So you only hear exactly what it is you sound like second Incredibly comfortable letter letter pads on the outside filled with memory foam a really comfortable headband that really It really works with your head the most important thing you can wear them for long periods of time That's really important. Where do you get them? Only at voice over essentials dot com. That's voice over essentials dot com Just go there look at the headphones And get them now tell them we sent you thanks harlin Hey, this is the time of the show where I talk about source connect Which is created by source elements and I've talked about them for several years So at this point you have heard an unbelievable amount of information But I will say if you don't know about source connect because you're watching our show for the first time You should go check it out at source dash elements dot com They create source connect Which is the pro's way of remote recording an actor from another location Sometimes multiple locations because a studio Sophisticated enough can actually have multiple actors on the same session All coming in on source connect. It's amazing. The sound quality is quite startingly good like if you're used to the way it sounds like when you're in a zoom meeting Or google meet or any other meetup chat or conferencing thing You're going to be kind of shocked at the fidelity and the quality that you get Over source connect. It is quite startling and that is why the pros use it So if you want to become more oriented with it and get used to how it functions I would recommend instead of just getting a demo just go over to source dash elements dot com and actually Sign up for your source connect service. You can get it as a subscription And get started that way you'll actually have their support You can only get the support for free if it's on a subscription So we recommend that you do that and that way you have their excellent support. It's award-winning support by the way So anyway, that's it. That's it. No more source elements for this year Thank you source elements for for you. Just use it Then we we really appreciate source elements for supporting us all these years Let's get on to the last spot and then into your questions right after this Well, hey there, it's david h. Lawrence with vo heroes and wouldn't it be cool If there was a very simple tool drag and drop tool that would guarantee That the audio you need to upload to acx or any other audiobook platform is perfectly set up in terms Of the tech standards the root mean square normalization the peak normalization the noise floor Guess what there is and I want you to have it absolutely free It's called audio cupcake and you can find it at audio cupcake dot com I helped create this software. It was built to my specs and my standards for when I do audiobooks And I know it's going to work for you now. It's only available for macintosh Because you windows users you have the ability to use other tools that work for you But in this case you edit your final raw wave file for a chapter You drop it onto audio cupcake and outcomes the 192k mono mp3 file you can upload immediately That's audio cupcake dot com audio cupcake dot com I hope you love it Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great And guess what we're back To answer your questions Because for the last time in 2023. That's right. I'm kind of emotional about it. I'm a little proclept I know we're gonna say you know one of the things we're gonna start doing in 2023 We're gonna start talking a little bit more about podcasting Because you know and as I always say just because everybody can't do a podcast doesn't mean everybody should But if you've got something to say or you have you you have a great way of telling it you have a passion Maybe you've got either an idea for a story or you just have an amazing family history Something that just is really unique Maybe a podcast is for you. That's right And you know and the great thing about podcasting could be any length. It can be Any any format. Yeah the interview format storytelling could be live. It could be edited That's right. And that's a great thing about editing is you can sound like crap and then You raise things in a sound suspect. Yeah, we recommend the edit right If you're new to doing a show You're gonna absolutely be editing it Because nobody wants to hear you ramble And all that stuff all through you know an hour long podcast But anyway, yeah, it's uh something we're gonna talk about a lot more And we love doing it We've done quite a few studios dan's produced a bunch of shows Sue our very own producer is a podcasting pro herself So we're gonna talk a lot more about that subject in 2024 slightly different Bant if you know if you're a good voice actor, you've got a good studio though podcasting should be easy Yeah, yeah, it can be and hopefully we'll be here to answer those questions too Right, so be prepared in 2024 when we start talking a little bit more about podcasting But we'll still cover the voiceover stuff. Absolutely because it's all about capturing a performance and a microphone Whether it's somebody else's script or your own You know, right podcast is like the self scripted a voiceover in a way Think about it. That's right. And and there is no script for this show No, there is no and you can usually tell All right, let's get to the some of the questions here. You go for the first one from fiber gen There he is in youtube Asking about the new road nt1 signature. That's the mic. I actually mentioned a minute ago Yeah, is it the same microphone as the road nt1 fourth gen but with color options And also a much lower price Okay, good question. And I believe the word on the street is is that it's the road nt1 Fifth gen mic without the usb functionality inside the mic. Okay I don't know if that makes sense because you would think they would still have a lot of nt1 fourth gens and that they would just Paint those I wish we had a nickel for every one of those weaves sold. Yeah, I know But I you know, so that is what I've heard and there's source right now I can't name because I can't remember who said it. So take that all with a grain of salt Um, but my understanding is it will sound exactly like the road nt1 fifth gen Just without those extra functions and in a bunch of fun pastel cool colors And that mic sounds great on its own. It's a damn good mic to start with and now at 150 dollars Wow Mind blown. Yeah road has road has the scale of production to do that kind of thing And it kind of when when the road nt1 fifth gen came out at 250 with usb and all that It made me realize these guys have some unbelievable Production scale that they operate at right. I was pretty blown away at that price point Because the mic that before the prior generation the fourth gen was a little bit more expensive and didn't have any Additional function. It was just a normal condenser. So pretty mind blowing. Cool. Another question Do demo players color the sound of your recordings? And if so, can you recommend players that are more neutral? Thanks. Well, that's that's an easy one. No, they don't do anything. They shouldn't no an html player Is just that it's playing your audio through there. Yeah, usually an mp3, right now at world dash voices dot org We have a demo player if you join the organization you get the demo player that you can put on your website As a digital signature in your email So it's like you want to hear my demos click on this all your demos right in the email and we know it sounds great because I mean demos sound great as well as they are recorded Yeah, and if you're using there's no change difference between them now There's other demo players some that are really expensive that have all these Tools and stuff that you don't really need But you know somebody uses them people are very good at their marketing and getting all the analytics and stuff. That's fine ours gives you a little bit of analytics with All the different you know, how many people are you know getting it what cuts are being used where it's coming from Stuff like that important stuff. Yeah. So, uh, you know join world dash voices dot org and get the demo player from there We worked really hard on it. It's if you do have a player on some website template You're using and it doesn't sound exactly like the original audio. Don't use it Something's wrong. It should only simply queue up and play that file from the server Exactly as it was stored. So there should be zero changing quality and exactly as it was recorded. Yeah Uh, Sharon mckig sounds like mckig Sharon mckig Uh, thank you for writing that. Yeah, I appreciate that a beginner question. And that's why we're here What does loopback capability mean? I I have an ssl2 and use adobe audition. Oh, great starter stuff Yeah, that's uh, I don't yet have a source connect If I do a live directed session over zoom, how do I loop back? Does that mean I can play back just what I recorded? Well, I'm glad you gave us those additional details because that's exactly what it means. Yeah zoom has its own Zoom actually has a way to do it. It's called um Screen share with audio share audio, right? So you can it's a weird thing because you have to share your screen But who cares as long as what you're on screen is literally just the audio, right? Right? And so when you share a screen with audio I'm not going to guarantee it works every time But but if it should Well, it should automatically create that loop so that when you play that audio is fed back down the line on zoom um, now That should be the way it works with the ssl2 Now ssl2 also came out with a new firmware Which has what they call loopback and this is where things get confusing software driven It's a software loopback, but loopback isn't a loopback isn't a loopback. So um, the what I've what we've surmised so far is that the ssl2's Loopback function is not designed for what we want it for what we want it more of is really more of a playback function We want to play a take and let the guest or the director whoever the client who's listening hear it The loopback function that is used in the ssl2 The audience evo 4 and a couple others is actually more of a music musicians or podcasters thing Well, what it does is it sends the audio that's coming back from zoom Into your computer, but on a different set of channels So now you can record yourself And you can record the person coming back to you If you're doing music that could be the audio coming back from a synthesizer plugin or something or soft software Soft instrument and you want to record that to another track. That's what that loopback is for so Knowing which one does what is can be confusing. I can tell you that the yamaha ag 0 3 Has the right kind of loopback. They've got a new one out too. The mark 2 is out. Yeah, which is a great piece of gear um, the I think it's the ur series the steinberg ur 12 22 has the correct kind of loopback The new um, focus right 2i 2 fourth gen I think it has the wrong kind of loopback. Well, it's got the fairer thing that is that the same thing No, it has some a new driver that lets you do a loopback, but I think it's the wrong kind As you can see it isn't that straightforward and it's a good question So i'm glad you asked it, but you zoom it's a lot easier It is that well if yeah, it's not for the most part if it's a zoom directed session That screen share with audio function will make that a lot easier on you. So it's a good question Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna skip ellen cochran's question for a little bit. Okay, you got that's gonna require a little bit longer of an answer Yeah, you're right, but jeff you're on you you've got to ask your question. Oh, let me get mike. Let me get that mike Okay, mike's hot. Mike's excellent. Yeah, so in regards to writing the gain on my pre sonus revelator io 24 The gain function you have to like hit a button and then do the dial and the dial is like, you know numbers It's not really like a Right set position. So is there a Like a preset that I can like go pow and just like hit a button and it'll go right to that gain You can the the revelator has that those two little numbers on the front. Yeah, and those are for recalling presets so I believe it's been long enough since I've used mine that I could be giving you the wrong information But it does have preset functionality that can be recalled From the face of the unit I just can't remember the actual How to do it right now, but I know it can so you could do exactly that you could make one preset for the Spoken word your your who calls it the 100 voice Is that cashman? Must be just your normal speaking voice And then you can have one where the gain is much lower for your high output stuff and just recall that by pressing a button But I don't remember right now how to set that up. It's been too long. But yes, you can do that. Absolutely Cool. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, keep it simple. I've even seen people do like another preset for just muting the mic Which isn't that simple to set up, but um, that's another one. I've seen people muting like unplug it Always work Okay Thanks for the question. Do we have any more or do we already have one more from ellen cochran? Okay, let's uh, which requires a little bit of thought. Yeah, it does require a little bit of thought and I'll let you go first And her question is Hi guys, what are your new year's resolutions before Thanksgiving even hits? Yeah, let me guess you've already decorated your tree People are starting to put up their lights around here Some of the radio stations are playing a rotation once an hour of christmas music used to be right after Thanksgiving They would start now. It's after halloween. I I did get a fresh batch of lights that cost go the other day 40 off. So um, anyway New year's resolutions. Well I guess mine are more Centered around I mean because I'm in I'm in business mode right now thinking They're more around my business, but um, I've got some things that I want to have happen for my business in 2024 Uh, I want to have Multilingual content and support So for my company for george the tech I would much I would really like to be able to Provide content training content, which we already have a huge library of content But I'd like to get that stuff localized. We just had jeff howl on talking about that I would love to localize and dub all of our content In as many languages as possible. Obviously. This is no small feat. Obviously. It's not cheap to do it Can you imagine someone trying to dub in your 300 episodes of this show? It'd take about a century. It really would Um, and obviously ai may be a part of the process, but will certainly not be the voice of the show of my Content, we will be using humans for sure Um, so that is a that's a big one for me I want to have international languages and I want to have an intellectual website So someone coming in from portugal or Uh, brazil gets a brazilian version. You know those websites that have little flags And you can click on your flag, right and that's translated to the proper That's a dream of mine to have a website. That's in those in multiple languages. So It's maybe a dream less of a resolution, but that's what I could come up with off the top of my head And from a personal standpoint My resolution is to Encourage my daughter if she's watching she's probably not but if she is Elijah get back into voiceover. Will you? My my I want to get her back into voice acting and coach and getting coached by martha and uh, hopefully we get her to vio atlanta and Um, she's back in the swing of things by vio atlanta So that'd be another little resolution that's to for me to encourage my daughter to to get back started up in voiceover again There you go. Those are a couple for you. Alrighty Well, I have I go off in so many different directions And sometimes in the same moment which makes it hard to get either one of them done Uh, I mean we've this show which takes a lot of a lot of time and effort And we take you know and and doing voiceover like I was doing voice over this morning for some turkish company And you know like okay, this doesn't translate very well Uh, and I'm president of worldvoices.org which is Almost like a full-time job because there's a lot going on there. Yeah, but as a resolution I I really I want to start learning how to live in the moment And Experience what's going on? I find sometimes I go through life or I'll drive somewhere and I don't even remember driving there Hmm. Yeah, you know or or like like I had with last week with jeff howell You're having a a mitch mcconnell moment If you live in the moment and Carefully and really concentrate on what's happening around you That helps now my new car doesn't allow me to do that because it does all of it for me Wait, does that mean it lets you Daydream Some what which is why I don't remember where I've been, you know You know, it's like it keeps you in your lane It it says there's a car but you know in your blind spot, you know It used to be just a you know a little yellow light now. It's like Holy crap me Gotta live in the moment and it's not easy to do I know there's some people that really work on living in the moment and experiencing life You know at my age you gotta go You only have so many more chapters to go And make the most out of each one of those now my mom who's 93 this week happy birthday mom Happy birthday. Yeah You know still sharp as attack. Wow sharper than me as I say It's a blessing. Yes. She says How is it that you know, she has a mind of a 36 year old in the body of a 93 year old? Yeah, how that happens It happens, you know Living in the moment means, you know Being there for the people you love being there for your clients and Concentrating on really making yourself there and not Drifting all over the place, which is Someone it's tough for someone like me who's a little bit on the you know ADHD side Yeah, you know, it's like squirrel Yeah Yeah, so that would be my my new year's resolution. It really is to try harder to live in the moment and You know and we're gonna we're gonna be living in the moment when we continue doing this show next year Like we said, we're gonna make some changes. It's not that we've run out of things to say with voiceover because there's always something new You know, there's a lot of people in this business Uh, but there are 10 times as many people doing podcasting. Yeah. Yeah, or at least trying to do podcasting. Yeah And we just have so much to contribute, right? There's there's so much to say about it and we've we've all been involved with it for so long Right, it just feels like it's the right time to introduce that to our especially With audio because how many times you listen to a podcast and it sounds like they recorded it in their bathroom You know and or or an interview that the guest sounds Terrible and well, how do we make them sound better that kind of thing? Right? You know, there's so much to talk about Right. I mean, I was doing a podcast last year and they were an open window in midtown Manhattan And there's ambulances going by And it's like can you take that out? Uh You could take that out by closing the window and perhaps not being in midtown Manhattan when you're doing this Or in a very reverberant dining room or something along those lines We want to teach you guys how to do that properly and those of you but doing voiceover You'll understand all this stuff but we want to encourage people to do podcasting because As I like to describe it. It's the great democratization of broadcasting It used to be those programs you would hear at saturday morning or sunday morning at 5 30 a.m And it's like, you know, and now it's time for this, you know And they bring some priest on or a rabbi or somebody who's working in social services or something That's all podcasting is intro body outro And we want to teach you guys how to properly format it But most importantly making it sound good what we you guys like refer to as Broadcast quality Except you're not broadcasting you're on the internet. It's streaming quality streaming quality broadcast quality means it doesn't sound bad Yeah, all right. Yeah, so that's gonna do it for us this week We've got a little bit more to talk about on the other side of these this break So don't go away. We'll be right back at voiceover body shop tech talk right after this This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying den and george on the voiceover body shop Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead 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 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. It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voiceover x t r a dot com and now God i'm just like i'm in a phase of the moon here If i turn my head that's called this way, yeah, maybe that's what it is i'm the girl with the pearl earring um We're gonna talk to you right now quickly about voice actor dot com What is voice actor dot com voice actor dot com is a great website where you can get a website as a voice actor You have to have a website It's it i mean no matter what you're doing You should probably have a website being a voice actor very very important And there are certain elements that you have to have with the website Now some people get real creative and they take their time and they're like Okay, I want it to have this color scheme in this border and all That's great except I think for the most part nobody cares What you need is your name I mean in a pleasant looking background and an arrangement Your demos which I think are probably more important than anything else and even more important than that You know people might like your demos, but if they don't know how to get a hold of you What are you gonna do? Your name your demos And how to contact you with a pleasant Surrounding easy to navigate That's what they do at voice actor dot com with templated websites go in there see what would look look good for you And pick that one out you can adjust the colors put the pictures where you want It's totally customizable and you can do it really quick the menus are super duper easy In you know, how you change the colors and how you change the fonts and all that stuff And they keep adding more and more templates Which joe davis over at voice actor website is very proud of that. They're continually Updating it you can get yourself online in a dang hurry like within an hour You know less than an hour You've got a website and then for 20 a month you get some other extras with that You're able to get your own URL that you can put on whatever server you want Voiceactor.com to get your voice actor website up and running right now So We are the world voices organization Also known as wobo. We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent Voice over is a complex entrepreneurial business Wobo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voiceover practice And to those who want to pursue voice over as a career membership benefits include a supportive and creative community A profile and demos on voiceover.biz our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player for your personal website Our mentoring program business resources and our video library our annual wobo con conference A fun and educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn and network Webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voice over make wobo part of it world voices organization We speak for those who speak for a living You're still watching vlbs And i'm gonna assume that we're back We should be one last time for 2023 um You know, well, we forgot jeff jeff has a new year's resolution and make it quick It's a good one. So we should throw jeff jeff tell us your new year's resolution My new year's resolution is to get on a cop show I've always wanted to be on a cop show like fbi or swat And now that i've lost 130 pounds now i'm all ready to all right. What's his imdb? Throw it up there. So give us your imdb again it's It's uh imdb.me slash jeff holman There you go with one l one n. All right. Can't wait to see you on an episode of bosh legacy Hell yeah, which is there you go great show about los angeles. Yeah, he says meet at the long pre park I'm like, oh, I know where that is You know, are there a trejo's donuts or a trejo's tacos or something along those lines? I love it or trejo's transmissions Does he have a transmission? I don't know but he might he should the guy's very inventive and uh, you know Very well loved by the community. Yeah. Thanks. Appreciate that. Thank you Uh, if you need help with your home voiceover studio You can come work with me by going over to home voiceover studio Dot com and check out all my services or The guy that's got more services on his website than I know it's a bit of a greek restaurant menu We all know what that is Like the menu at uh at um, what's what's the one we used to go to down the street or the h Oh H down the street starts with an h heroes Hugos hugos It's got a heck of a menu. Oh great restaurant But my website has got a lot going on. We understand that but if you go to george d.tech And if you click the green button at the top left, that's a good place to start If you just don't want to read through the site and navigate it You can get help uh with what help you need right there And that's a good way to start but if you also like coupons, you like discounts Uh, george d.tech slash v obs is where I will have our coupon codes and um Maybe we'll have some juicier ones for the you know, it's that time of year So we'll kick it up a notch. So stay tuned over there Wonderful time Oh no. Oh no. Did they just defrost what's her face again? Yes, they did actually they defrost around halloween They start really early now Anyway, oh and we're also we have three booths for sale that were brokered Two massive studio bricks about seven feet by six feet And it's a and one uh diamond vocal booth dot com series booth All here in la they're on the website now If you go to the services page because that's the only place I had to put them you'll see them on there We need to get these sold for our clients. Uh, they are taking up some serious space As you can imagine and they need to get them out of there. So if you're interested Reach out to us actually sue is helping with that. Oh good put her in charge of that To so you can email sue and she can get you get your information and get your bid in the ring Throw your hat in the ring. I'll get one of those. Um Let's get to the don't oh, oh one more thing. Oh, but wait, there's more. We want your contributions. All right Yeah, I mean if you've been watching this show for a while, uh, which a lot of you have for like 12 years Some of you, yeah In the last year or so if there's been a real golden nugget something that you thought a guest of ours talked about or something that George and I brought up on the show That you think would make a nice little short because we want to throw a bunch of those on on our social media During the next month or so before we retool a little bit Right to us and say this was a good section. This was a good segment And and we will curate that down and get that out because we want that information getting out to Put a link to the youtube of the show or at the very least the episode number of the show And approximate time Time stamp and what we were talking about that we will try to assemble those We'll get those out on social media and if you contribute one that we use we'll Include your social tag in there if you want to be tagged Put that in there and we'll also include that and give you credit So people would really appreciate that but the other people we need to thank are the people who donate to the show Oh, by the way, how do you send those in because we didn't tell them that part? Oh email to the guys at v obs Dot tv You got that up there. Did she put that up? I'm sure she did. She's always on it, but uh, she got oh there It is the guys at v obs dot tv. Thanks. So does a great job. Alrighty even in pain Yeah, let's thank our our amazing donors who have stuck with this through thick and thin mostly through thick Uh, these are our executive producers Okay, we're not gonna go that far donors. We'll stick with them. You start Greg cooper grace newton christopher epperson robert ledum steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tom pinto Greg thomas a doctor voice antlion production martha kahn 949 design sarah borges philips appear Brian page rob rider got that right. Shawna pennington baird don griffith tray moseley diana birdsall maria makas and sandra man willer Thank you all for your donations making the show technically perfect. It actually probably looks really good tonight I hope so. It's good to be in the studio. Yeah, it's more fun this way It really it is it is it's worth the almost hour drive in traffic Come a little early come for lunch. It's a lot easier I could get here a little earlier. Couldn't I you're really good. It's only twice a month. It's easy enough Anyway, uh, we also need to thank our Sponsors like harlan ogan's voiceover essential. Why do I have to actually read it? You think I would have it memorized by now Voiceover extra. Thanks to john florian. Thanks john source elements vo heroes.com. Thanks to david h laurence the 17th Voicehatcher.com. Thanks to davis and world voices dot org That's world dash voices dot org ryan the president and ceo and chief bottle washer We got some great stuff over it. Uh world dash voices dot org Please join us and uh be part of lots of cool stuff like we've got a big conference coming up in chicago Cool next year. That's right. It's gonna be it's gonna be great Anyway, uh, we need to thank jeff holman put up his imdb one more time because he's been You know he has been so loyal. Thank you jeff. We really appreciate it. We really do appreciate it, man Yeah, right on. Yeah, a lot of work in the in the chat room there and no it makes the show so much smoother We appreciate it. I am db dot me. I am db dot me this for all you listeners slash Jeff jeff ff not the other jeff holman not with a nae. There's no 2l h o l m a n Right the simple thank you enough home and and thanks a whole lot to sue merlino's suffering Yeah with back pain and You know and she but she gets it done Not even here. We like having an awesome job because she's real pleasant to have a round But it's also great that she gets this done Uh, sue take care of yourself and thank you looking forward to working with you in 2024. Yes feel better, sir Yeah, so anyway, that's going to do it for us tonight. Mr. Mr. Whittom, you know, always a pleasure Yeah, it has been a pleasure, but you know he's missing and we didn't get to thank Lee penny And of course lee penny just for being lee penny Where are you lee? Yeah, come visit us france, arizona. I don't know somewhere in the kitchen. I'm sure it's around that guy That's right. Uh, anyway Look, we're here to help you with your home voiceover studio And advice on how to run a voiceover business because it's an entrepreneurial business kids It ain't showbiz. Yeah, add a little bit of showbiz It is a business and we want you to learn how to do it, right Mostly we want you to sound good and there's a lot of ways to do it But we've come to the conclusion that if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan Leonard and i'm george whittom and this is voiceover bali shop or vio B Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk talk Have a great holiday season everybody. We'll see you next time