 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 63 We think that's the right number anyway. We're not we're not 100 anybody cooperate that yeah, we can't count. There it is 63 63 times we've done this and We continue to do it because we got lots of stuff to talk about tonight I mean you've got you know some a new mic that's come out and some other cool stuff And So we're gonna talk about those and we're also gonna talk about rms And we would love your questions So throw them in the chat room if you got a question about your home voiceover studio or a piece of equipment Or some piece of nonsense that you picked up on some facebook forum group We'll be here to dispel it. It's time for tech talk on voiceover body shop Right now from the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio And together from the center of the vio universe. They bring it to you now George widow the engineer to the vio stars A virginia tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain the professional vio studios of the biggest names in vio today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master A professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home vio studio And each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in vio tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voiceover body shop tech talk Voiceover body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials dot com home of harlin hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone Voice actor websites dot com where your vio website isn't a pain in the butt Vio heroes dot com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training J michael collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for vio success And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in sherman oaks california Here are the guys Hey, i'm dan lennard and i'm george widow and this is voiceover body shop or vio bs tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk All righty well we got Take two No, we're i had that placed exactly on the very edge of the table just so that would happen um tech talk tonight i have A bunch of stuff to talk about okay cool and some show and tell Oh, can't wait i've we got more to that i gotta do more show and tell It's nice if we have a couple friends in the business who like to hear what we have to say about their stuff One of them is vanguard. Yeah So i've got my cure three or four vanguard t-shirts You show up to nam or or one of those things and that's we always come away with a t-shirt So there there are company that gets that there are certain niches in the in the pro audio world that aren't Being well served and one of them is voiceover and i think i think they get that over there They're always asking us about it. So yeah, so why don't we have a brick wall behind us today? Because sometimes brick walls are actually kind of cool acoustically. They actually are They actually are i'd rather have a brick wall in my in my room than that piece of drywall any day of the week Acoustically, it's nice. Yeah, so here. It's obviously fake. Yeah now We know bow weaver actually has a brick wall in his booth. Yeah, he's got stone and all kinds of cool like surfaces in there Yeah, that doesn't mean you need to build a brick wall in your closet, but you know So if if you're joining us for the first time which i sorted down, but if you are george and i are experts on home voiceover studio audio, although we are going to Consciously push the name again because it's going to take hold this time personal professional studio Personal professional studio remember that i i've been hearing from from you know people who are saying I've talked to my agent or i've talked to so-and-so or this and they're like They say if you got a home studio, we don't want to talk to you It's like well why because your audio is probably better than some studios i've heard here Yeah, so you know it's one of those things that But there is a science to it And an art in george and i are artists Yeah, it is an interesting mix especially when we figure out how to just Improvise with things that you already have right practical treatment You know not you don't always have to start with a blank slate and wallpaper the place in foam Right. Yeah, it's I like to say you know use what you got if it works Nobody needs to see how the sauce is just made if it sounds good. It is good. There we go so uh, but if you'd like to work with one of us and Learn how to do it properly as opposed to crowd sourcing it on your on facebook or LinkedIn and say what's the best microphone for voice over or what's you know What interface is going to make me a better voice actor? Well, what's that noise? Yeah, is that a buzz or a hum? Yeah, if you'd like to talk to george about it and learn it properly, where would they go? They'd head over to george the dot tech. That's right. My odd Domain name is also the name of the company george the tech and you can book services on there Through my scheduling system. You can have me do a sound check Where you send me the audio and I send back notes about what i'm hearing or what needs to be improved And you can design a studio. Maybe you're moving and you need to figure out how am I going to make the new place sound like the old place or at least better than the old place That's the kind of stuff I do over at george the dot tech and dan has his own brand of tech support for you over at voiceoverstudio.com Yeah, head on over there see the services that I offer Uh, I like to teach people from the ground up a lot of people learn things Incorrectly or there's a lot of misinformation out there about how to do the home studio and I set them straight. I make it simple for you. It's like you need this this this and this And here's how you use it. I think people tend to obsess about Getting the right equipment as opposed to how to use their equipment Because if you don't know how to use it a $10,000 microphone is going to make you sound really Really really bad and very very poor So Uh, so, uh, it's important that you learn how to do it right and if you've got a technical issue I can help you with that but also I also offer Listening to your audio. I've got my specimen collection cup on my home studio voiceover studio website to scroll to the bottom of the page Click on the specimen collection cup and send me some audio. There's some instructions on how to do it and I will give you a very thorough analysis of what I'm hearing and what you need to improve Or do you really need a full consult to teach it back so you can learn it from the ground up? Which a lot of people apparently need to do A lot more people in voiceover these days than when you and I started doing this And the pandemic didn't make it any easier. No, we were busy boys for the last 18 months But we're happy to help you and uh, so do that So in your tech update this week, which we have missed for the last month or so. I'm sorry. Yeah, well, welcome. It's good to have you back Yeah, well, I might as well start with the the fun stuff. Oh show and tell Let's do this gracefully We have a new microphone from vanguard It's the v4. This is a microphone that we've checked out before we've both tried before But this is a new generation generation. What have they changed? What I understand is the good news is they didn't change anything that made the first of my good So it still has the same features the same basic design the same, um You know like the first thing you'll notice compared to the old microphone the old one had like a maroon Uh burgundy color this one and I'm literally unboxing this For the first time is it is it still burgundy or is it more of like uh, I would rather more of a merlot Yeah, let's take a look. I mean I did not even take this out. This is sort of an unboxing I don't have the old mic here to compare but it's more of like a violet color. I guess you could say it's very uh rich and looking Which one is that? 416 Okay, um, anyway, this is the way it looks it got a lot of the same features It has an independent pad switch which gives you zero 10 or 20 db pad. Oh, that's nice Yeah, two levels of pad It has an omni position a figure eight and a cardioid. Which one is that? This one here You we have a we have a scratching mic cable um And uh, so it's got a cardioid figure eight and omni which the other one did as well The one thing that's standing out to me differently other than the way it looks is very similar They said they were they were able to improve the noise floor characteristics So it's slightly quieter than the old one. Wow. How much quieter can it be? It was pretty quiet to begin with but I think they're trying to get it closer to some of those really expensive microphones I mean, this is like a $400 ballpark microphone, which is a great price for a really good mic Especially it looks the part. I mean it looks super classy and sometimes that matters You know, sometimes it's some people, you know, it's kind of like the thing that is different is this pad switch on the back used to be A One side was pad and the other side was a low cut Now it's one side is minus 10 db And the other side's minus 20. So there is no low cut anymore I'm curious why they took that out because for me, that's an important feature I really like having a low cut switch Most people have trouble in their home studios getting rid of the rumble, right? All these like super sensitive Large diaphragm mics are really sensitive at low rumble frequency all that low end stuff And uh, this no longer has the high pass filter, which is Interesting. I I have figured out though that a lot of mics with high pass filters That filter sometimes adds noise I have noticed that the cad had that problem And so my only guess is in their pursuit of perfection and quiet lower noise is they decided It's better that it not have that and just fix it filter if you if you got to yeah So I guess that's why they did that But anyway, this is just a literally an unboxing first time ever We've looked at the mic and we're gonna we're gonna obviously do a more thorough test recording and Get to hear it and the whole nine Yards, but that's the that's the vanguard before you're seeing it Probably here very the for the first time. This is serial number four So There aren't that many of them out there yet. So we're excited to try that. Thanks for sending them. That's very cool I can't read myself now. We don't get to keep it. So, you know keep that in mind This is a real demo where we have to send the mic back. So I'll be I will be brutally honest um I just thought I would mention something about the power line Ethernet adapters. Yeah, Dan. Have you ever monkeyed around with these things? Uh, Sort of it didn't quite work the way you want it. Yeah. Yeah So the the whole concept of the power line ethernet adapter is When you're trying to get away with uh, working with wi-fi and you're doing real time Streaming that could be source connect ibtl Zoom even anytime where you're trying to send audio real time Through your house through 10 different walls and et cetera wi-fi is often not going to cut it So the alternative is ethernet and we would always prefer ethernet. That's always the best way to go but drilling holes through the walls or Unfurling a hundred foot cat five cable and rolling it down the hallway is not always going to be Spousely approved if you know what I mean. Yeah, so if you're looking for a workaround, let's figure out where that's coming Wait, I know exactly how to fix that Tell me what that is All right, go on four One two three four one two three four and now it should sound fine one two three four one two three four sounds great Okay, that's my cable goes away um if you are trying to uh My train of thought got derailed. Sorry about that. Oh if you're looking for an alternative to All those things we're talking about cables through the hallways drilling holes in the walls power line ethernet adapters create Turn your electrical wiring into ethernet um So you have a magic box on one end you plug in near your router You have another little magic box that you plug in near your computer And then each of those plugs into the respective device So one has an ethernet going to the router on the other end You have an ethernet cable going to the computer It's it's like voodoo, but essentially it converts your electrical wiring into ethernet And it doesn't it's it's a varying success. It's not I found sometimes it's slower Than the ethernet. I'm sorry slower than the wi-fi connection So it's like a trade-off sometimes you get slower speeds sometimes faster But the real advantage of it is you're getting Consistency and you're not going to have any wi-fi dropouts interruptions sudden Losses of signal etc when you're using power line ethernet adapters. So if you got issues Sue wants to know what are these damn things cost? She gave me the international I don't think she was playing the world's smallest violin Um, they're not that expensive I've seen them at the really low end of about 50 60 dollars for a pair. So you have a transmitter and a receiver Um, the really nice ones are like 60 80 to 100 dollars I like the the more expensive ones tend to have faster speeds and they have A pass through socket because you have to plug these into the wall Most people don't have a spare plug in the wall like for anything Everything's being used. So the better ones have a separate Literally another plug in the face of it. So you can plug more stuff in which I really really like but um Get them try them out and they don't require configuring. You know, there's no ip address bs you just Plug and go so that's those are power line ethernet adapters and they might help you in your situation Especially with source connect Um, I know a little piece of news universal audio Apollo hardware, which you know, we love to hate Um and hate to love but sometimes we just have to use them because that's what has become Expected in some studios Finally is officially supporting apple silicon max. So Um, we've been using them. I've been using one in a couple studios With silicon max for a really long time Like I don't know almost since it came out the max came out a year ago But officially they are now supporting it So they will troubleshoot it with you and show you how to get it working and deal with the drivers keep them updated So that's good news For everybody who's been on the fence. Are they are they ready to buy and invest into the new mac technology? Um universal audio is now Finally fully supporting it. Well, that should solve a lot of problems because people have been like I bought an Apollo I can't use it with source connect and it's yeah for various reasons people have been frustrated With compatibility. This is going to happen like every time There are new mac series that are released like a a real ground up redesign It doesn't happen that often like every 10 to 15 years, but When intel's came out that was about 15 years ago when intel mac came out There was a period of time where you just couldn't use those new computers It was it it was probably more than a year Um the transition to the new computers the new technology the silicon mac Which are we are calling the m1 processor That's been more rapid and it's thanks to something that's called rosetta And that's what allows you to run plugins Older versions of software and have them run seamlessly On the silicon max and that works really well. I've had very good luck with it Running all kinds of stuff chances are if you're running isotope You're running your software in rosetta mode. You may not even know it But isotope and a lot of plugins are they've been the slowest to to What do they call it recompile or rewrite their software to natively support? silicon You can only guess that it's really time consuming and expensive for them to do that Right, and that's why there's quite a long delay Um, but anyway a lot of stuff you shouldn't be using anyway So yeah, there's a lot of plugins that everybody buys because they hear from another voice actor friend that This is the thing i'm supposed to be using and end up usually I usually end up turning a half of it off Or just detuning it completely, right? One or two more things. Oh another plugin thing If you're looking for a plugin that works well in multiple platforms That gives you control over eq And compression that can also work as a dsr There's a great plugin that a few of the engineer type people that I know Uh in the business I've been talking about for a while and I've more recently Uh started to adapt and what that's called tdr nova um It's it's a really great plugin That will maybe confound you if you haven't worked with any eqs or compressors before I wouldn't say it's your Fisher price compressor, you know something that's really really easy to learn You know like something with just one knob But uh That was like we used to say like anything that was like really simple and basic to learn We call it our fisher price version It's a little more advanced than some but it's much easier to operate than say the equalizer Or I think in my opinion the compressor in um audacity, for example I always have trouble with those plugins because you can't tweak them While you're listening which to me as an engineer should be a default Yes, if you're going to tune an eq you have to be able to listen to what you're doing You can't do that with audacity with a lot of plugins, but this one Even in audacity you can preview the audio and fine tune it So now when I set up Someone's using audacity and they need a better sounding audio book preset for making their audio book client happy whatever it is I'm now usually going to integrate the tdr nova eq in the macro. The good news is Bizarrely, it's free Um, they I think they have a pay version which is a little more sophisticated Um, but it is a completely free plugin, which is quite amazing Um considering how good it is. So that's been my tool One of my more recent tools of choice I may take to just adopting using that one plugin for Most of the different DAWs just so that you can have this one consistent Interface for how you set up an eq or a ds or anything like that I'm going to have like, you know three variables to work with there as opposed to well I could use this one and put that one here and yeah Yeah, I know I know jordan reynolds is is doing a uh An audio training program and he's using that plugin because you can teach one plugin and it will translate over all these different DAWs so Check out tdr nova if you're looking for some other type kind of tool again. It will also work as a ds or Um, so if you don't have a good ds or to begin with and you really need one It could be really helpful. Anyway, that's my tech update and now looks like we got a lot of discussion Settle. Yeah score to settle. Well, it's not a score to settle. I mean, no I want to ask you to teach me this stuff rms versus peak blah blah blah, right? Well, I I had a client this week. Yeah Yeah, and I said, well, you've got a you know, here's you know set your levels You should always be like, you know Modulating to minus nine peak between minus six and minus four Or as I like to use the traffic signal thing Always in the green Always in the yellow Flash in the red. Mm-hmm. And that's you know, and then he wrote back. Well, my agent says I have to keep it at minus 18 Keep what at minus 18? Well, I'm figuring I think that's the rms Because if they the they always ask for the rms But did they when when the client said that that I like I love getting these suspicions Oh, yeah, of course Did they give you any information or did they say they tell me to keep it at minus 18? Is that all they said? That's the thing is no one ever explains it because they don't understand it themselves They're getting this stuff second hand and third off and it's a game of telephone from from from the engineers All right, I just tell them to keep minus 18 like everybody knows what the heck that means And and people are like completely thrown off by this now like oh, okay I see it like a minus 18 over here. So they try to keep it So so I know enough from audio that minus 18 rms is pretty loud, right? Right, that's like the when you're finished mastering an audiobook and it's super loud. That's minus 18 So how would you keep your levels at minus 18? How would you do that? Well as you're performing Personally, I think that when they say it's got to be at minus 18 If you send them a good loud properly modulated file Oh, that sounds good. I don't think that they really care. I think there's a lot of You know a little it's techno rabbit hole Trying to send people down buzzword buzzword stuff exactly. Yeah, and and you really As long as you keep your modulation proper You know if an engineer gets that he's got enough headroom to work with it And it's not too low. So they had to boost it way up If you keep it consistent within those those parameters that you know that we suggest keep it You know modulate to minus nine peak between minus six and minus four you can go up to three But you don't want to get too much louder than that Uh, I know some engineers are saying, uh, maybe not quite that loud Uh, but as long as it's clean, you know, we had tim freedlander on last week And he was like, you know, I'm telling people maybe not quite that loud. Okay Um Because you know if you if it's a good clean signal they can at least boost it up Right and it's not going to add any noise and it gives them the room to really do the manipulation that they want to do Using all the amazing amounts of plugins that they have and know how to use. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I I've been using silly little mnemonic things to to remember like for people like When it's in the green you're you're a little lean if you're into the yellow let it mellow If you're up in the red, you're nearly dead That's been my silly little saying but yeah, it's at the end of the day if the if the playback is clean without distortion With very low noise Whether you peaked at minus three or minus ten even right you're gonna be okay Right and with 24 bit recording now, which has become the standard of all the hardware we have even the The cheapest scarlet interface You're you have a lot of dynamic range now So I wouldn't be too concerned about it if they give you a weird spec like that ask Like we don't we can't just assume they know what they're talking about and if they don't know what they're talking about I think you should put them to task and ask them Do you mean minus 18 db rms or peak? What are you talking about because there's a very big difference between those and then you'll see steam come out of the end of your phone This guy's annoying too many questions I think it's important that that you know when these these These terms get tossed out there that they at least explain them, but nobody does that's frustrating The only ones that explain this stuff to people. They're like no one ever talked to no end I you know, I went to this coach. I went to this guy. He says I've got to use all this compression And I've got to use this and that and I got to use that Gotta use is different from here's how you do it Yeah, you know, it's the same thing with equipment if you're you know, like well, this is a great microphone Oh, I got a great microphone, but You still have to know how to use it properly and you still have to use it in the proper environment But that never gets seems seems to get discussed So listen to us we happen to know what we're talking about and if your agent's confusing you have them reach out Have the agent reach out to us or something Absolutely There are some agents and producers out there that send out really good info sheets to the talent right cut sheets that say Here's the parameters we're looking for They're not that many of them, but there are some out there that do that so that's nice when you have an agent or Representation or a client or whatever that gives you clear information. That's really refreshing So that's that's a good good suggestion is Get people to specify And if they give you a term that perhaps you don't understand You know google it Right, you know, but then again It's also important to be able to hear the difference between these things as opposed to just reading it on a page You know, I mean you and I tend to do things by ear You know, if we walk into a room and we're listening. Yeah, it's uh, it's a little bit reverberant over here We've got to know it there We're not doing all these equations that these acousticians do You know for for nasa and all those other things and for car companies and You know If it sounds good, it is good. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I tend to get you know Units matter. I know it sounds nerdy science, but units matter Like oh, it's oh my gosh. I was outside and it was 47 Uh That's not that cold No, it was really hot. Oh, you mean celsius. Yeah units folks Like if when you just give a number if you don't know what the units are it doesn't mean anything Alrighty, hey, we'd love your questions Since you clearly understand that we now do know what we're talking about Um Just drop us a line right now in the chat room in facebook or on youtube depending on where you're watching And we will be happy to elucidate on an answer that you will understand So stay tuned for that. We'll be right back here on voice over body shop tech talk. Don't go away Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voice over body shop. It's great From voice over essentials dot com. It's the relationship savior the multicolor Vio recording sign not just a stock on the air or recording sign It's our exclusive voice over recording sign This brilliantly lit led 20 color beacon tells everybody at home, which is currently everybody Hey, I'm auditioning recording podcasting narrating or broadcasting here and a few moments of relative quiet would be very much appreciated What's more the wafer thin remote control lets you choose a multitude of options from color to brightness Flashing to fade in and out you can even set up your own personal codes red means i'm recording blue playing back green It's a wrap plug in the seven foot long cord and hang it on a door knob or wall hook using the included chain For voice workers silence really is golden and gold is one of the 20 colors you can choose from Order yours now for just 69 95 from voice over essentials dot com. That's voice over essentials dot com Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice to announce her guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you Stick around you don't want to miss this Power 1039 at target we want you to come as you are be comfortable Okay, maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer on aisle four, please Representatives watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices Sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com the ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge Until you forget to turn it on Well, that's it guys Time is up. Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voiceover body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos dot com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom This is the part of the show where we get to talk about source elements the creators of source connect And a lot of other tools that allow engineers to work remotely with voice actors engine musicians Anybody that wants to collaborate with audio all around the world? And it has really become a mainstream tool a very mainstream tool in the use in in commercial production Production for film post etc Why because for one thing they've been doing it a long time 15 plus years just in perfecting and improving Source connect alone and then the fact that in the studio the side that you're not in the one the one that you're connecting to It's plugged it directly in integrated into their pro tools production workflow. So they love that They love that your audio goes straight into a track And actors love it because when the session's over It's over. You don't have to do any editing. You don't have to do any post So during that session your microphone is like on a virtual mic cable that goes from your studio All the way to that studio halfway across the world wherever it happens to be Anyway, get signed up go to source dash elements dot com and get a 15 day Free trial just so you can get it up and running and become familiar with it If you're really feeling overwhelmed head over to my site I've got a page on there all about source connect with some videos and some help info To help get you up and running and we can also do a little one-on-one to get you up to speed a little bit faster Anyway, thanks source elements. Let's get back to the show and answer some tech questions You're watching v obs dot tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think i'm going to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich And we're back here on the reserve robotic shop tech talk Love to get some more questions from you out there Just put them in the chat room in facebook and we will be happy to answer them First question up from gary mcfadden from the twisted wave facebook group earlier this week It was recently asserted in a facebook group aimbet professional voice talent That twisted wave is one of the worst programs to use for recording audiobooks for multiple reasons One being that single wave files get less and less stable the longer they are Twisted wave can't handle that. I find that to be complete nonsense This was news to me as you know Gary apparently as I work primarily in audiobooks another long form recording and have twisted waves since george would have mentioned it in the webinar I produced back in about 2012 I'm wondering If a this assertion that dot wave files become more unstable the longer they are Is true and b if it is true What might be considered a safe length for wave files when using twisted waiver any other da for that matter? That sounds like a pile of misinformation and somebody trying to throw somebody in the wrong direction Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot to unpack in this one. That's why I wanted to put it in Where do we start? And and and it wasn't like he asked for us to talk about on the show But when I saw it come up in the twisted wave group facebook group, I thought this is a great topic Absolutely So there's a few things that play here. I think one of them is Twisted wave Soundforge and a lot of other audio editors are what we call destructive, right? So the file that you're when you're recording and editing a wave file You're always doing all of those. You're doing all those active those Steps or processes, whether you're cutting whatever you're doing it to the actual Theoretically not the actual wave file. There's a temp file, but you're working on a Contiguous wave file, right? So it's destructive if you cut out something and save the file and close The original audio whatever was removed is gone forever. Okay That may be something that's been conflated into saying that Recording these long files is more unstable beyond that. I think it's just a little bit of techno elitism slash tech You know missing misinformation. I think it's just a little bit of both You know, I've I've definitely heard folks in the business say that, you know, you should always use non-destructive recording programs For audiobook production. They say it's the only way to do it It's a way to do it It's like their way to do it I've been teaching how to record audiobooks and twisted waves since before 2012 and dan's been doing it for years It it totally does work and it is very Reliable. Is it less reliable than Pro tools, which is more crash prone? um Does pro tools auto recover your session for you after a crash not I mean, I don't know if it started doing it recently twisted wave auto recovers your file When you crash or have a software failure and it does it very reliably I have found that whole statement to be the exact opposite of what my experience is because I mean, I'll use adobe audition Primarily is my my main recording software and when you're in wave form mode. It's a it's a wave editor It works like twisted. I've recorded hour-long files on that. Sure, you know But I if I do a long format thing that's going to be an hour or so I immediately use twisted wave. It takes up less resources It it doesn't glitch It's it does what it's supposed to do So I don't know what this person is saying, but I think you're absolutely right I think it's a matter of somebody saying well I use this and I'm good at what I do and Which is why we tell you don't crowdsource your home studio on facebook Yeah, I mean, I think you can get good answers there But you're also going to get some very strong opinions from people who do not want you to succeed Yeah, that can happen. I mean also if you're if you're hanging out in a forum or a group That's all about a specific program. Right. There's obviously going to be a lot of bias towards that program Um, whether it be reaper or studio one These are some of the becoming more much more popular as of late multi-track Dawes and there's a lot of folks who believe they are the best tools For recording audiobooks They are a set of tools for recording audiobooks and when you know what you're doing they work brilliantly well I think they require a lot more steps to get from a to z But it's how you learn it and how you use it and I don't feel like there's anything to show that one is more stable than the other I read the comments from that, you know, there were somebody said well There actually is a wave file file size limit of in a 16-bit file of two gigabytes or something Okay, that's fine like twisted wave if you reach the end of a file size It's going to just generate another file. You're going to get a second file. I've never had that happen to me Yeah, it's it's so incredibly rare that that problem comes up and it's just it's sort of a non-issue I know we're harping on it But I wouldn't I would not worry about it if you're out there running twisted wave and you heard this and you're having a little hand-wringing moment Really chill. You're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine. Yeah I I thought this was an interesting comment from Jim McNicholas who threw us in the chat Sometimes if it sounds good acx doesn't think it's good. Oh, boy You know, I I gave up doing audiobooks about eight nine years ago One because I I felt what acx and audible due to audio is sacrilege I mean, yeah, it's got to be loud enough for you know, for little old ladies to hear it in their headphones or whatever Um on the subway or something exactly and I understand that. Yeah But Sometimes they get the idea that they don't actually know what it's supposed to sound like. Yeah And you know, somebody's listening to it and they hear one little thing and they're like, oh Not not not up to our standards. I've people have sent me audio that said was rejected by acx and I'm like I don't you and you want to think well, maybe it wasn't because of that. It might have been purely on a mathematical basis. Yeah I I I think there might be another issue there because Clean as a whistle. Yeah, and and I don't know what their problem is You know, and sometimes I might have gotten on the phone or on email and you know, it's at who specifically said this But yeah, why why fight with people about it? Yeah, if you do it, right you know the one of the things you can do is Say, okay, I'm gonna fix it and then resubmit it the same way and if somebody else reviews it. Oh, that's just fine You know somebody was having a bad day. Well, there's also a lot more automation in play now at companies like that So the audio goes into a computer And a computer is analyzing the audio the computer doesn't know What sounds good like our human brains? So far are the best things to determine what sounds good Absolutely because we're the list the ones listening to it, right? If you're recording an audiobook for a computer listen to It would be a whole different discussion And someday we we have to do that. It's very important to Do this at the same level all the time and even cadence so that the computer can pick up each word some of individually Yeah We're talking about AI too. That's a whole other topic. We're doing we're doing performances for humans to consume So acx they have these very specific requirements It's because they it needs the audio needs to get squished by an algorithm so that the file can be shrunk as small as humanly possible So it can be more easily transported on devices and it's kind of old technology Hopefully there's acx hd or the next generation of audible Where the fidelity becomes important, you know, because I do hate that it's it's really frustrating that What passes muster? Like on the other because on the other side as jim said what they accept is audio that meets criteria can sound like garbage sometimes Yeah, we've heard it. Yeah, just because it actually Passes their check doesn't mean it sounds good. Those they're totally mutually exclusive You know, so that's something I'm always grappling with I I set up a lot of mastering presets for people That will meet acx while still sounding good Like still it's the best I can Yeah, like Still has clarity to it still, you know, it doesn't sound like a robot reading, you know, I try my best I don't always exactly succeed, but um, you know, it's very easy to make acx standards happen. I I have Methods to do it on every platform, but you still want to start with good audio. There's no substitute if it sounds good It is good. Yeah, I mean if it's clean at the baseline And they can do anything they want to it, you know, I think some of the problems may come up with people aren't mastering it properly Yeah, yeah, it's very easy to make it sound much worse after mastering Especially if you're trying even if you're not trying to acx to have acx specs You can still make it sound work but when you add in the variable of trying to like Meet this deep this rms ballpark range and a specific peak level And a certain noise floor I've come up with, you know workflows to make that way easier Um, and still and still have good sounding audio just just the other day somebody said I use pro tools and I have a whole chain that I use and I I took her audio and I said yeah, it sounds great, but it's Let me teach you a very specific paint by numbers method to Readjust the levels using the maximum limiter. That's what comes on pro tools And how to analyze that audio and a workflow pro tools was not designed for this stuff at all So after making music Yeah So coming up with a wake workflow to to take a bunch of files that you have And make them all fall into this certain volume range There's you have to hack you have to kind of hack the system. So That's what i've been doing for folks And and successfully, which is hopefully hopefully it's working. Yeah, uh, j. Horace black you got this one Oh, um, j's j says I have a lot of power outages in the last year. So Damn, why why in the last year or so? I wonder what's going on? Um your bell j I We can laugh because he's a good. He's a long time listener and client one happened on the day and time That a source connect session was originally scheduled But thankfully they rescheduled they rescheduled the next day. Do you have any recommendations for home power? Generators. Well, you want to get a backup battery for starters? I mean Something you keep your computer going and and all the other stuff I've had those and they they work pretty well. Yeah the ups. They call them ups is right on uninterruptible power supply I would go that direction first I'd go that route first and I'd get a larger capacity one. So they sell really cheap ones At staples and stuff for 70 80 dollars looks like a giant fat power strip, right? But they can't run your equipment for very very long on battery. They will die within five ten minutes The larger units have more capacity and can run your equipment for longer The problem is most of them admit an annoying beep Saying you're on battery You know So they're not also can be there. They're also probably not ideal Now you mentioned generators Generators are also not ideal because they're noisier than hell Right. Yeah, I don't want to run them in your studio because the carbon monoxide thing No, so you can't really so but there are thanks to van life hashtag van life Um, it's gotten so popular that there's a ton of companies making portable power banks or power packs They're essentially just hand, you know, lunchbox or actually larger sized, you know Maybe about this size sometimes bigger battery packs with lithium batteries and 110 volt plugs That you can charge up and keep on hand Oh, um, yeah, there's great for emergencies And they're great for living on the road and again The whole van life thing has made these things explode in popularity. I mean you have something like that with a solar panel and Exactly. So keep it charged So what you would do in your home is you would just keep one of these units plugged in all the time It would just be tucked away somewhere and just it would keep it topped up all the time Then when you really need it you could unplug it and plug it in to your system get it fired up But that that does not make it uninterrupted You would still lose power and still have to connect it So it's not Unperfect slot flow a flawless solution, but it's still I think a lot better than going with a generator There are some very small like Honda generators that are very quiet Get a hundred foot extension cord Run it out the door Put it as far away as possible plug it in and And hope for the best. I've heard of people try that but uh now back in Buffalo Back when I lived in Buffalo. It seems like a hundred years ago Yeah, we had a big ice storm once and power was out for three or four days Oh, it happens here. Oh, yeah, we were not ice storms, but windstorms windstorms. Yeah. Oh, yeah A week long power outage. Is that or an earthquake or something like that these things can happen um We had you know for some reason we're like, okay now we want a backup generator So there's you know, we got a backup generator powered by natural gas So It would never run out of gas that thing that thing Would have been great except that there was never another power failure after we So, you know, but it would you know, well, there was a couple. I mean being lightning striking in here You know on the outside of the house and then all of a sudden the lights would come back on Oh, okay And then the light and then it would shut down the lights would come back on because Whatever it was that shorted out was was fixed very quickly But if you're having extended power outage, uh, you know, which I mean they have the flex alerts here in california because it's been Flex alerts brownouts. Yeah, uh, you know, and you'll know it because if you have your air conditioning on Suddenly you'll hear the fan, but the compressor will shut off because it doesn't have enough voltage To run it, you know, it's really a brown out Uh, so, you know, it depends what you want to spend to Well, there is that I mean if you ever want to like find out how much you can spend on this technology Type into google whatever you're looking for uninterruptible power supply backup battery and then the words hospital grade Then you'll see how much how much you can spend on these things if it's hospital grade It's studio grade in terms of power. It's going to be clean The power is going to be what they call a pure sine wave You know cheaper inverters. They can make a buzz noise when they kick in Um, you want something that's like hospital grade pure sine wave That uh, you can run for hours on end without having any technical issues Bill uh, bill rattner I remember he showed me one time he had this unit on the wall in the basement And our basement full of marine deep cycle Because he had lost power once he's like, I never want this to interrupt my business ever again Right and he got this setup or Tesla power wall power wall. I we want to get one of those you got to scratch That's the ultimate. I mean I got a 22 kilowatt solar system on top of the house You know, and if you get a tesla battery you could basically go off grid because Well, you're even with solar for num for several days probably yeah, depending on your air conditioning and stuff Even though they're sort of stuck in the back the electricity back out. We're it's just you know We're saving money with solar Trust me. We're doing it. I gotta admit. I'm really excited about the fort f-150 a lightning Oh, yeah, you know about this. Yeah. Yeah, it can run your whole house It has the equivalent of nine like a nine kilowatt generator It has enough power to run an entire typical suburban home Wow from the truck. So you plug it into your house to keep it charged And it's like a your it's like a tesla power bank in a truck So as soon as power is lost the truck is now feeding the house And you're you're good for several days right off of the truck air conditioning cooking air conditioning. Yeah You got a dead truck in the driveway But that's that's exciting to me I have to admit I'm I'm curious about those those trucks Yeah, might be the first truck I ever You'll ever see me driving a truck Try driving a semi once that was That's the thing I ever want to do again. Anyway, uh, thanks Yeah, that'll do guys Yeah, you know, there's lots of cool stuff that we could talk about but we're out of time for this segment So we'll cut it right here. We're gonna take a break and we will come back to say goodbye right after You are watching vobs.tv. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here. I think I want to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich Well, hey there hero, it's david h. Lawrence the 17th of voheroes.com and this past week we opened registration for the brand new updated vo heroes pro 2021 program And we closed registration No more registration Everybody's got to wait until next year Except for one group of people and it may be you if you went to the registration page and you thought I'd love to do this, but I can't come up with all the money at once Okay, we we've created a payment plan for you a four month payment plan You start right now you get right into class You get everything that everybody got that registered during the week the equipment the the courses the Support the discussion group the workouts every month the accountability everything just by simply going to vo heroes.com slash four Pmt You go there the payment plan is yours and I would love to hold your hand and help you build a successful and Satisfying and profitable voiceover career Vio heroes comm slash for pmt and we will see you in class In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Yeah, hi, this is carlos ellis rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop And we're back I think yeah, we think we're back. You never know sometimes streaming is a Kind of a you know, you never know when it's going to work right It's been mostly pretty good. Yeah, but it's been that way since we started doing this show 11 years ago It's been mostly Pretty good. Yeah, but that's half the fun and sometimes it's great. Exactly. Exactly. Now you're going to be doing Webinars, I know because I get the guest star and one. Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. Okay. You're welcome. Yeah, october 5th We're going to do an adobe audition sort of more of an advanced webinar. I call it pro tips for power users And like me, that's why I want to have dan on because he's a daily driver Of adobe audition for his own voiceover business. So dan will be there for the second half to do His give you some of his tips and be there for the q&a But if you want to sign up for that you can just head over to george the dot tech Slash webinars and that's where the sign up page is to join in on the fun and It's going to be live streamed and then if you can't be there for the live It's going to be a pay-per-view type thing where you can watch it on vimeo pro later So join us and look forward to it and it's always fun to Collaborate or commiserate with my partner in crime here. Dan. I mean, I use adobe audition Every day. Yeah, it's like turn it on hit record. That's what it is And you've got probably keystrokes that you might use I very simple, you know, silence s You know normalized and but I Yeah, it's it's very simple things because you can edit all the keystrokes in it and really make it The way you want to you want to use it. It's very customizable. I love that And it's really a much better software for voiceover than say pro tools or logic or one of those guys Because it really was designed For doing for voice for dialogue essentially no question about it. Yeah, you know, and you can record music You can do all sorts of fun stuff with it, but it is a fully functional excellent tool for doing voiceover and So that's I we highly recommend you you show up for that one anyway Next week on this very show I mean you may be watching it Like the day before we start the next one Like saturday or something and i'll throw it up on sunday morning. Uh September 27th, September 27th that monday, uh, rob siglum paglia will be joining us once again the voiceover lawyer film producer floor wax He's all of those voice actor director And attorney and he knows his stuff. He knows his stuff and he's actually argued stuff in front of the supreme court Holy cow. I don't know if he won or not, but he actually did get the chance to do what the ice in his veins This man has yeah, he does he really does but he knows voiceover legal stuff Inside out backwards. Anyway, awesome. So that is on September. He's on the other coast. So we probably won't see him in person No, it'll probably be on Over the internet. Yes. Yes Uh Who are our donors of the week? Mm-hmm. Well, I'll go first this time. Let's flip it around. Okay, rob raider Uh patty gibbons ant land productions michelle blanker christopher epperson sondra manwheeler philip Sapir tray moseley shelly avilino asian thomas pinto Uh, greg thomas shana pennington baird martha con Don griffith steven chandler robert leadham michael kerns and graham spicer All right, all supporters of the show and you know some of them or most of them are subscribers Because when they click the donate button They chose to do it a recurring lee do it record recurring lee with paypal But you can just do a one-time shot thing if something was like Changed your career or just helped you out and you can make a little little nudge our way. We really appreciate it It helps, you know, it helps the technical perfection of this show Which is why we keep changing the set and you know, I mean we were doing it on the couch for a couple of weeks and then I started Sort of slouching. This doesn't work for me. This has been working out a little bit better We still have some things to sort out and improve. We got some green screen issues We're gonna work that out this back here. You might have noticed But uh, we're not here. Yeah, no If you have ideas for backdrops that you like, let us know Send them in ways to have people send in their studios and we would be in their Boots show us your boots. Just make sure it's in Landscape not portrait. Yeah landscape send them to send them to the guys at v obs dot tv We'll start using those again. I think I think that'll be I that was one of my favorite things to do it Which is why you know, but the pandemic came and we stopped doing it. Oh, anyway All right, we're out of time. Uh, we need to thank our sponsors, of course Arnold Hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements bio heroes dot com voice actor websites And jmc demos Alrighty, thanks to uh sumer lino for uh Getting it together again today. There we go quick on the button quick on the button and uh Great job, uh, and uh lead penny for being lead penny. Well, that's going to do it for us this week. Thanks for your questions Thanks for your support. You know when it comes to voiceover if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan Leonard and i'm george widow and this is voiceover body shop or vo B s tech talk tech talk tech talk dan. I think it's time for dinner. I think you're right