 Go back to your yeah go to bed. Oh, yeah, I was I think Jordan has a nails. I'm gonna go to bed And you know, I own my nerdness. It's okay Hey, and we appreciate that Commercial breaks also we cannot we can't talk to each other. So you have to just use the Yeah, yeah, yeah George and I can talk to each other cuz you know Throw something at them and We're in the same room today. Yeah, so don't make me laugh. Oh, we will or something All right, so we are we are doing the pre-show live stream now. Yep, so we are all right Unofficially live, you know, maybe I'll come up with more if there are any questions you want to be asked I mean, yeah, I would love to talk about the difference between Marketing like Dan when you and I met at Vafcon to marketing was a lot different. Oh What a sweet baby Um, I like Mishka very too. What a cutie But I'd like to talk about how marketing has changed and some of the things that are the same From, you know, what was that 10 years ago? Yeah, and now that it might be interesting to kind of compare and contrast The differences and the things that are always gonna be the same. Yes I Because I Get the feeling that perhaps I don't do any of that stuff anymore, but then again, I don't have to right And and I've been doing this since the Nixon administration. So well, I haven't been doing it quite that long But I do feel like I don't have to hustle as hard Because of all those seeds that I planted back then But the way that somebody knew coming in they're gonna have to plant completely different Seeds so that's I'd love to talk about that just kind of the the things that are Different the things that are the same that kind of thing. It just might be interesting then and now because we always hear about Like I remember when I was new Everybody would grouse about the older talent who Didn't want to market themselves didn't want to get home studios, you know, everybody was, you know And now I'm hearing our contemporaries Doing that, you know, I'm hearing our contemporaries, you know, sounding really grumpy about it, you know, get off my lawn kind of Stuff and I just we won't name names though But I think that, you know, it would be interesting as somebody new coming in to to know what we had to do We had a right. We had a right mail and sent out postcards. I know And CDs and CDs. Yeah And until we started getting like thumb drives and putting our stuff on thumb drives and people like, no, you realize there's a virus in there Right, right Yep, I mean a lot of just a lot of it has changed and it's it's interesting and and what has become more affordable and You know, just the way the access to people just interesting to me How I know my marketing has changed, but recently I just went Back to kind of what I started doing Modified and it's working great Good Let's just check one thing. Jody says hi in the facebook Comments. Ah, is it wait jody krangle? Is it jody krangle? Yeah. Hi jody. Is there another jody? No, there really isn't. There's only one Yeah, you know jody krangle and I um jody krangle and I came up with something for fafkan Do you remember krangle butt? Boy, you're going back about 10 years. I know But you know, we that was our couple name because we said so much alike and we look alike So we decided to have a couple name and we were Krangle butt and then the swag we would give out Was always kind of tongue-in-cheek krangle butt like there was krangle butt spray You know, which was like peppery. There was a krangle butt wipe, which was a screen wipe Yeah, we just realized every voice actor should have a voice doppelganger for Back up if one of them gets sick, the other one can take over. Have you have you guys ever actually doppelgangled? Doppelganger. Yeah, I've said when I when I lost my voice when was that jody? It was maybe four or five years ago Maybe longer than that, but um jody was the one I would give like when my voice I mean I could not speak at all And jody was the name I gave How about that? Yeah, yeah, but that's a that's a damn good idea. I can't That's just important and you know, and you it's got to be somebody that you trust I mean, I've known jody since I started in this, but you know We trust each other. It's it's really easy to refer to somebody you trust and sounds like you and uh, I just referred some folks to Debbie Irwin We sound a lot alike, but yes, you do. So it just was something that I grabbed some kringle butt Who said that? I'll look it up the website Do you like our logo? Yes. Yeah, of course kringle butt.com. I think I just saw a note On so if I pull up facebook on my phone, will I be able to see what's going on there? Uh Yeah, but you'll be 30 seconds behind so okay. I just pay attention. This is what's actually going out there Okay, we are at 459 people people are already loving what we're saying and so sue eventually is going to start holding up her hand Trying to get our attention and that means we are going to start counting in yeah, okay She's getting ready, but miska has to go out Oh But because she's barking and we can't have that. All right, so now I've got the facebook pulled up so I can see I saw jody Bye. There we go Marcy must be home. Okay All right. Yeah. Oh, it's interesting. You guys have um Like everything we're saying is popping up there. What is uh, what? You have you have the you have the closed caption on there. There we go. Yeah, which is actually pretty amazing that it does that in time That's pretty cool times too. Yeah, really Oh, george. I'm telling you. I just I did a machine transcription of our interview I spent almost two hours correcting it So it didn't save any time as I was saying You probably could have typed it yourself. Yeah, I could have and I'm a really good typer I used to be a newspaper reporter Okay, all right. All right. She's holding up her hands and here we go giving us a count five four three Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop And tonight george and I welcome one of our dear friends from we haven't seen her in a long time But she still looks great and she sounds just as great and she's really great. Thank you And uh, great at promoting yourself kelly botrick. How you doing tonight? I am so excited to be back I'm so excited to see you guys. I'm excited to read jody's name down there. This is uh, this is a lot of fun Even for you know late night. This is this is really cool and wild for what, you know Late on eastern time. Yeah. Yeah, it's only five o'clock here. Anyway If you've got a question for kelly about marketing Throw it in the chat room. Jeff holman is in there writing down every last word you guys are typing in the comment section And we will get to those questions in a little bit. But in the meantime, are you ready george? By the way, george is actually Here in the studio with me now It's time for voiceover body shop right now Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com the home of harlin hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect jmc demos when quality matters Vio heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites.com where your voice actor website shouldn't be a pain in the butt Voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover 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 lennard and i'm george woodham. Yes, you are he's right over there And this is voiceover body shop or vio bs All righty. Yes. I'm wearing my official voiceover body shop Look at this my logo polo shirt. You can have one. Nobody's we haven't really been selling these lately. Is it work? Does this do we still have a store and I check it on the on the on the the home site because yeah There was there was a cafe press thing on there And if it's not we will fix it and then you can get your own voiceover body shop polo shirt Or yes, my there was also a thong and a shower curtain You know the clock which I actually have on the wall over here and Things along those lines. We'll fix that because right now it's not there. We're gonna have to fix that pronto Yes, anyway, but it's yeah, I'm not wearing a hawaiian shirt for the first time. I think in 11 years I'll think I'll wear it for tech talk though. Anyway Uh, tonight we have a great guest A young lady who has been I don't think she's actually been with us since we were doing east west audio body shop It's been a while. Yeah, you know, maybe not since you know, I've been out here in california But uh, let me introduce our guest. Kelly buttrick Is an award-winning voiceover talent with the reputation for professionalism Easy directability and exceeding expectations talk about hyperbole Her voice is heard on national advertisements documentaries and corporate productions And we always have a great time talking with her about her methods techniques and how she stands out from the crowd Let's welcome back. Kelly buttrick Hey guys, hey there massive applause as she enters the studio. Yeah, right, right. That's all right. I'm doing good I'm so excited. I know I just said that earlier in the briefing, but I am excited I'm so excited to be here with you guys and and see all these familiar names. I just saw dawn pop up there and It's just it's like old home week. It is We we need to all get together. That's right. You know, I I do miss I miss seeing everybody just being able to Hug everybody and I mean this has been a crazy time for all of us and I miss it Yeah, without the conventions. There is some severe hug debt going on. There is and I'm a hugger, man I am such a hugger which is why I love running into you at conventions. So it's How it all works, um But anyway, we have not seen each other or talked to each other much because we've been In this plague going on around the world Uh, we haven't seen you've written such a long time. How did you fare during the pandemic? How did it affect your business? um, it was interesting because uh, It didn't necessarily affect my day to day because as most of us we'd all been working from home anyway But I did have a panic for about the first week Because everything stopped I don't know about you guys. It was just everything just stopped and I freaked out and I sat my husband down and said bry You know, this may be the end. Um You know, we may have to pull kids out of school, you know the whole bit. Um, but What it was was my clients were adjusting to working at home and they were setting up their work at home Spaces and trying to get used to working from home. So That's what it was and then all of a sudden Everything started really kicking up really fast because everybody was changing their messaging. Um, And I don't know if you guys saw it but somebody in the advertising industry did A timeline it was a an ad timeline Of the basically the tone How it changed during the pandemic like we're gonna go through this together Yep, it's just for a short time and then, you know, we're all gonna be back and then You know, kind of a this is the way it is and especially in healthcare a lot of that messaging changed So it became busy, but I'm telling you what that first week. I thought I was done I I really thought I was done because I couldn't explain why it would just stop Yeah, I was of the opinion that You know as voice actors if it started to wipe out the world, which it basically tried to do Uh, we are all stuffed in our our booths here. And so if it wipes out humanity, who's gonna run the world? Voice actors, that's smart. That's smart. Can I be on your cabinet? Absolutely You're your first on the list I need positivity and exuberance. I'm like, good. I'll be I'll be I'll be the minister of positivity and exuberance All right, sounds like a marksman Exactly. So but but business didn't fall off if anything I heard a lot of people just really did better during during the pandemic because There was so much messaging going on. I stayed honestly. I stayed about the same um But and we'll get into this when we start talking about marketing But I think a lot of that was because of the existing relationships I had with my clients So it really I felt like the pandemic wasn't necessarily the time to go out and reach out to clients But rather it was the time to Continue to foster those relationships be there for them on their last minute Changes again as all these tones are changing so quickly um It was it was it was that that kept my business going It wasn't it wasn't me running out and getting new clients that did not for at least the first year of the pandemic I did not I stopped all direct um reaching out to people Yeah, yeah, I mean businesses were everything was changing like like we said the messaging was changing um What what needed to be voiced but then again so much stuff had to go online And a lot of voices were needed for that so I think it also dragged an awful lot of people into the business Yes, it did You know, it's like well, I I don't have my it job anymore or I'm working remotely Maybe I could do voiceover like weren't they in for a big surprise? um Now I know you as someone who makes No bounds about what you do Right you you probably have a great elevator pitch, which is always fun to do when you're actually in an elevator pitches Oh, okay. Good. I've actually gotten to do one in an elevator Which did you really I did it was actually was at a wo-wo con and So, you know, we're all wearing our badges and he's like, what do you do? I'm like, I'm in an elevator I get to do my elevator pitch. All right. Oh, that's awesome high five All right, um You do what it takes to get your voice in front of people and I have a feeling You know, and you've probably gotten even better since the last time we talked about it How what is it your process about thinking about how you you market yourself? How do you get your your voice in front of people? Well, I would say um, it has changed and I've learned lessons over the years Uh, and recently I think I was telling you earlier that um I have gone back to what I started doing and that is Reaching out directly individually to people. Um and I Made the brilliant hire Of a virtual assistant. She actually was adam varners assistant And uh, when she became available, I begged her to come and we've been working together for a couple of years Um, and she helps me do these direct reach outs. So I'll we'll research together We will prospect and research and find someone That we want to reach out to and then we decide how we're going to do that Whether i'm going to do that or she's going to do that and anytime she does it it then Comes back to me. So she'll say something like, uh, can I have kelly send you her demos? And then I am starting the relationship after that After the awkward cold contact Um, then I get to start the relationship with a warm contact. You know, thank you so much for You know letting me send my demos and I loved your work on such and such and so just going back to a very personalized rather than a You know Spaghetti let's just throw it all out there do everything we can. Um, and that works. I have done that before but I am finding a lot more success going back to the way I started So it's a lot a lot of hands-on type of stuff then Absolutely, absolutely. Um, the only difference is that now I've brought in diane which just it It I should say it makes the process a little bit more sophisticated How so Like diane created, uh, a crm customer relationship management So she got me into that Where we can take notes on things it's more sophisticated in that My husband taught me I do what I do well so I can pay other people to do what they do well And I really stink at cold calls. I sound just as awkward and weird as I feel um But diane is great at it and she loves doing it So she will do cold calls and then I will do cold emails She will also do cold emails So just more sophisticated in that way that we're each doing what each of us are good at doing But the basic premise is still the same starting those one-on-one Personal relationships and fostering those continuing to grow those it is a marathon. It is not a threat. I am still All these years later. I am still reaping the benefits of those seeds planted years ago Yeah, I I think the basis of any business as my father taught me is I don't have customers. I only have friends I love that Yeah, he was really good at creating these relationships and you know, but so if there was ever a problem that was like Hey, what's going on? Hey, you know that sort of thing and and that's you know, and you create these relationships So you know their children's names and you know where they're going on vacation and those sorts of things and and Those are important things to to be able to discuss when you open up a conversation And it's like, you know, and why are you sending me this really crappy script? You know Well, I may have but you know, at least they know that you know, you can be sarcastic Yes, but it's it's about creating that type of relationship and you know And who wouldn't want to have a relationship with someone like you? Well, and I look at it as who wouldn't want to have a relationship with someone like our clients So I don't know about you guys, but when I started I was talking to people friends of mine that had their own businesses and were really good at what they did And every single one of them my husband included All talked about forms and you know, keeping everything professional And that's just not me. I am so much more I just how could you not want to be friends with these incredibly creative funny fun people and so I threw their advice out the window and And and I love I mean, I am such a hugger I loved doing live sessions in Atlanta and I would bring in baked goods and we'd chat and catch up and I can tell you guys so I have done the Yamaha boats off and on for years and uh, recently we did the the 20 I guess 2023 or 2022 whatever they are we did the newest ones And uh, you guys may know Jason Shablik He was engineering that and we got on and I've gotten to know them really well I would say that you know, we've become friends these folks And when we started I said hey you guys I moved out to a lake Maybe we need to start talking trade and immediately I get a text That said something like kelly only you would have to do something like that But what turned out is the gal I work with her boss who I also know and I know his fiance Um said as a matter of fact he bought a place On that same lake so immediately after the session I reached out with an email and I said, okay Here's our address. Where are you guys? We just moved here and they are literally across a cove from us And so they've taken us out on boat rides Um, my husband is totally sold on a Yamaha boat. We just you know, they just have to make some Um, and we've had them over for georgia games. I mean, it's just it's just great You got to be friends with the people you work with Absolutely, you know kind of tough when you know you're you're in one place and they're you know a thousand miles away But you know, but if you can at least it's still possible Absolutely, you know, and I think one of the town One of the things that you know, we were talking about the pandemic And georgia and I actually talked about this the other day, but One of the great things I think about the pandemic is that Now we're on camera So it really gives us so many people use zoom. That's what they're used to Um now that the pandemic has come and a lot of people aren't going back. They continue to use zoom So by using zoom I get to see them they get to see me and I think that fosters more of a connection It feels more like those live sessions. Obviously, I can't bring baked goods and I can't really hug them Um, but it's a close second Hmm. They can give them a verbal hug Yeah Yeah, or just give them a little So it doesn't bother you to have to appear appear on camera. No now that's something you just You've embraced it. It's part of Yeah, I don't normally wear makeup. Um, I put on makeup for you guys Um, and because it's late and I don't want to look as tired as I probably am Um But I I usually don't wear makeup. I have taken down what I wear Uh, I would always when I would go into Atlanta. I would always try to dress professional or professionally casual business casual Now it's pretty much a fun t-shirt that usually is a conversation starter um And and yeah, I mean I've I've had sessions where they want to record my face Because they're gonna do some kind of animation to it or something like that So, yeah, I just I I like it. I embrace it. It's the closest thing to doing a live session and I miss those I'll bet if you're just joining us you've missed a whole lot already, but there's still more to come We're talking with kelly botrick who is a voice actor and a master of promoting Herself to the people that hire us, which is something we all need to know and understand Uh, if you have a question for about marketing for your business Throw it in the chat room. Jeff holman is in there taking all that stuff down He will relay those questions to us And we will ask kelly these questions and that's how the show works Uh, anyway, uh kelly again, it's great to see you and uh, you guys the last time you were with us was Sort of at the tail end of your campaign to get jeep To get you as you as your boy. Yeah, how did that go? As I recall you didn't quite have the success you wanted, but you sure made the effort Yeah, so that was So I guess the best way to describe it Is it was a gut-wrenching success? so personally personally, um It was it was very hard to let that go Um when I finally, you know Was convinced that nothing was going to happen from it. So I I kind of went I mean, I just went into a dark place. I was so sad. Um because I had put so much of my heart into it Um, but it was the best I had ever done year-wise my My income increased by almost 40 percent because That effort had garnered so much attention and that doesn't include I think there was over a hundred thousand dollars in what's called earned media and the pr world which is free coverage in publications that People who hire voice talent use ad week campaign us production hub All kinds of assets Yeah, and so it would have been ridiculous To start something and not have that side plan in there so You know when you talk about personal branding And I've always loved that brand. So aligning my brand with their brand. I still to this day Get questions about jeep People still talk about that campaign Like we are tonight. Yeah, I mean never forget that So it just it goes and it went against everything we had been taught as a voice talent It went against everything we'd been taught I will say I did ask my um, and this is gonna sound like funny, but my step cousin in law Who used to do pr for forji and I have always been very close since I was a teenager And she asked a bunch of her pr people in detroit Why she thought they didn't use me? and all of them unanimously Said that they thought that jeep. I mean at the time it was Chrysler, I think it was Chrysler. Yeah Chrysler. Yeah now they're stilantis, but um That the legal department wouldn't touch me with a 10-foot pole That legally they just and this was if you recall this was right at the cusp of content creation like right before content creation and content creators Became a thing but you were already doing it. I was already doing it and so that you know It cross lines where they I don't think they knew how to handle it Because I was creating all this content and I won four tele awards based on that content So, you know It was it was fun and it's funny now Because my daughter who is a lot older now She uh is an influencer I guess of sorts and that's what she's majoring in in college and She has inspired me and talked me into doing like officially content creation so I have pimped out my dog and We do dog food dog treats dog colors And get paid for it not just you know free stuff. I mean, right you got to pay me um And it was great and one of those clients actually reached out the other day and asked about voiceover So, you know, whether I do voiceover there may just what do you know? What were some of the things that you created for jeep I mean despite the fact that they weren't Ultimately successful at that but clearly did oh my goodness a lot of benefits. Yeah, I um, I was working with Zach Miller bless his soul And he would help me produce so much of this stuff But we did the jeep hair weak hair series, which I loved and My favorite was getting to interview fellow voice actor Brian Howard who created the african-american voice actor database He also was bassist for one of my bassist for one of my favorite bands cracker back in the 80s So to have him in my jeep now his dreadlocks didn't Make jeep hair my hair on the other hand went all over the place and I was so nervous to meet him I didn't turn the microphones on so the we just had the gopro noise But it's still that is still one of my favorites. Um that we did was jeep hair weak hair and I loved Doing the jeep dog tales where I reached out on social media and found people who had Dogs and jeeps and they would tell me these wonderful stories about their dogs And so and they'd send me pictures and then I would narrate over that Hmm So you were essentially doing advertising for jeep anyway. I was creating content for them Unpaid, you know, it cost me a lot of money um to do that but no one had ever done anything like that before and I felt uniquely qualified to do it because I came from that side of the business before I went into voiceover. I've always done marketing and advertising and pr So it just seemed like a natural fit. I'm glad I did it um, but it took it took a long time to not Not take it personally not kind of have that gut punch feeling um, I had an agent call and asked if I was congratulated me on being the voice of the jeep compass ad which was the first one in years to use a female voice And it sounded a lot like me, but it wasn't Oh, I cried so hard. Oh my gosh. I'll I'll admit it right now. I mean I bald It was it was hard and it was hard to To maintain the high ground And not you know act all heard about it and just kind of be like, yeah, no problem because I still love the brand I drive a jeep My husband still drives a jeep. My daughter is still drives a jeep. So I mean, you know I gotta think there was people in the company who were like, we gotta get this We gotta have her. We got there was probably internally I bet there was a battle between people who wanted you And then those that were like, we can't hire her. I'm sure I'm sure there was like Are you kidding me the brand that you established all that you did with them and the It was such an obvious fit and but there was it was probably like this kind of a battle going on up and down between top and bottom You know what I mean? Because they didn't they didn't understand content creation because content creation wasn't a thing Where it is now, I mean they at the top didn't understand but people at the bottom I hope the bottom up. I'm sure they did. I made a really good friend. I'm sure they looked at that as a lost Opportunity one of the guys and he wasn't at the bottom. He was mid-level Uh, but one of the guys With the first email I sent out before I even went public Sent me an email back that said holy crap. Who are you and how did you do this? And he and I are still really good friends He comes to my family reunion in michigan or before the pandemic. He would come every year Maybe not even family. He's not even family But I mean he just and he's come to see us and go to georgia games and stuff Great guy, but all of that came about because of jeep and he just he was blown away That I was able to coordinate it like that Yeah, so it made sense. It was hard, but in the long run. It was worth it Oh, yeah, I mean almost a 40 increase in my bottom line. Yeah, that's worth it. Yeah, that would say that was worth it Yeah, I got over the heartbreak with that. Yeah, well I would hate to see you sad. Anyway, we're talking with kelly buttrick We're talking about marketing for your voiceover business again If you've got a question throw it in the chat room whether you're watching on facebook live Or whether you're watching on youtube live Or whether you're hearing signals from space or whatever Throw the stuff into the chat room and we will get to that question in just a little bit Maybe you found a recording that's attached to a satellite and you're from the future on another plan Right. Welcome. Thanks for listening to our record. That's right Of course, it'll it'll take 10,000 years for it to come back and then and then the response will be What was that? Those guys are so cool and so fun. I wish we had guys like that in our time period Why are those noises are making each other? And send more chuck berry Anyway, okay, if you've got a question throw it in the chat room You know, there's so many new people to them since you and I started in this Low before dinosaurs roamed the earth There's so many more people in here and and Perhaps they don't understand what they need to do to market themselves yet as we know it's the key to Getting work What would you suggest to someone who is a total neophyte or a noob or a newbie or whatever it is that we call These people that are trying and we respect them all Yeah, absolutely. Despite the fact that some of them are recovering podiatrists and chiropractors and IT people and stuff Nothing against that they want to get into this business Fabulous, but they have to understand that one of the most important pieces is you got to go out and find the work yourself What would you suggest to somebody to really when they're like They got nothing and they want to get people to hire them. What would you suggest? uh First of all, I would suggest to that you be original Because I will say since the pandemic I have experienced more I don't want to call it theft because that's kind of a dramatic but imitation Which is the sincerest form of flattery Yeah, but when I am going through my LinkedIn feed and I saw another voice talent with my exact bio word for word Mmm You know, that's yucky and icky and not cool and when I would post Um, especially uh, again later on in the pandemic when I would post and tag my clients Which is something I used to really like to do to you know, shout them out all of a sudden A bunch of voice talent would all be in there, uh, you know trying to connect with them or sending them emails and so Be original Don't don't take from other people. You are you're you are a unique wonderful person Uh Speaking of that as being a unique wonderful person It is really important that everyone you know Knows what you do and that is the first thing I did as a voice over talent is even people you don't think have any clue I'm telling you I have gotten Jobs from my dad's fishing buddy that he was kind of put with on a tournament, you know Um, I have gotten jobs from old boyfriends from high school who saw that I did it on Facebook I have got I mean it's just uncles brothers cousins, you know friends friends of friends neighbors Let everybody know what you do but do it in a non cheesy non Braggie way what we do is so unique and interesting really all you have to do is say I'm a voice over talent and just shut up Because they're going to ask what is that? You know, well, you can answer then it doesn't seem like you're dominating the conversation by I'm a voice talent I do this said in the other if you just say I'm a voice talent and shut up Then they're interested and they will and and then tell them what you do But then keep asking them questions about themselves and be genuinely interested Don't be fake about it. Be genuinely interested find some way. This is why I don't like elevator pitches I I believe in elevator outlines So you kind of have these Three or four maybe five points in your head at all times And as you're asking this person these questions you can find ways from those three to five points To tie one of those in with something they do um For example, and I've told this story before There was a guy who Said that he listened to uh Pandora. He was in Athens and he listened to Pandora on the way into Atlanta So that was perfect. I could say oh, well, then you've heard My daughter and you've heard me because I've done this that and the other that's That's voice over and so it tied in but if people are just interested in what we do so just Say it and shut up and answer questions and really just kind of try to find a way to make it relatable For them Right, and that's usually the first question they ask after you said well, I'm in voice over there. What have I heard you on? Right. What do you what do you tell them? What do I tell them? Oh, but when they say do a voice I used to uh network in person with um, I shouldn't say aspiring. He was a new voice talent, but he was really good at characters and so I would just I wouldn't do that and I would tell them this is my voice I actually specialize in sounding real and while that doesn't seem complicated It is not easy to make someone else's words Sound like your own or make quantitative immunoglobulins sound like something we just chat about Or oh my gosh, zero percent financing. Really? I mean, let's try to make that sound conversational But we've all done it or at least we've tried Yep Once again, we're talking with kelly buttrick throw your questions in the chat room And we will get to them in just a couple of minutes, but right now we are going to take a break and we'll be right back with her And lots more stuff here on voice over body shop. So don't go away This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice over body shop Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new Orientation training for snapchat. Were you? Virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smartphone But it's so much more. It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for red Oh, it's your neighbor when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's j michael collins. Bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's j michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show Now Inflated prices not at voiceover essentials dot com Despite the nationwide inflation rate of over eight percent voiceover essentials refuses to raise prices In fact, they refuse to even say the i word They're inventory is large on all their products and they purchase them before the current economic conditions It's simply wrong to increase profit as many retailers are doing right now So harlin and company promised not to raise their prices during difficult times for everyone They'll stay the course steady and sure flat and firm solid instead. Okay enough. You get the point Unfortunately, they're under the same inflationary pressures as everyone else and they'll need to restock in the not so distant future No doubt they'll be sticker shock for them and you So right now is the time to order that portabouth pro or vo1 a voiceover microphone and their vo 2.0 headphones fight inflation at voiceover essentials dot com Hey there, it's david h laurence the 17th What's it like for you when you check your email and there is a voiceover audition waiting for you to dive in and You go great. This is awesome. And then that fear starts to creep in am I good enough? Do I know what I'm doing? Am I gonna give them what they want? Listen I've been there and so has my friend michael costroff who is now one of my voiceover clients very excited about that He's applied his audition psych 101 process and method to voiceover And it's awesome. He's got three free Lessons right now that are available at audition psych 101.com slash join That's audition psych 101.com slash join go watch these right now by the time you watch this Maybe they're all out who knows But it's worth every moment to help you get your mind right on the psychology of auditioning audition psych 101.com slash join This is bill radner, and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham vobs.tv And we're back with hey, how you doing? Good. I mean a surprise you there Well, I'm coming out and sue told me about that, but I um I was I was responding to some of the comments since I couldn't I couldn't do it on there So just that you guys know that during the commercials i'm going through and I'm seeing some good questions Good. Well, why don't we ask you some of those questions? Okay. Oh good. Good. Let's go to those george Yeah, the first one you have the cue is from Drew barbo who's asking through youtube when doing cold emails. Do you send a demo with it and follow up Would you send the full-length demo or just a short version of it? Good question drew. Um, and that goes to something we were talking about Earlier just the difference between then and now um And I would say it really depends on who you're sending it to If you are sending it to Someone at an ad agency I would send a link to your demo on your website First of all that gets them to your website. There's all kinds of other great stuff there um But if you're sending it say to a production company trying to get on their roster You know that their digital media can handle it Uh, I would send And all my demos are varying lengths. So I'm not quite sure when you talk about different lengths I wouldn't send a demo over 90 seconds at most um as an mp3 Many times I'll use the phrase And sorry you guys my voice is going I'll use the phrase something to the effect of um thank you For listening to my demo or agreeing to listen to my demo or allowing me to send my demo If you'd like to hear more demos samples of my work testimonials, etc Please click here and on a mac again something else that My mentor told me about if you hit control k you highlight the word and you hit control k It actually puts that link over the word here Um and so they can just click it and then it's there and that way you're giving them two options But if they are not a production company I tend not to actually send My demo because I don't know if they're they're going to hear it on a phone or Something like that. I would just I usually just do it for um in-house production companies at ad agencies production companies obviously talent agencies Those folks are used to getting demos and can handle it Yeah, and and one of one of our listeners. Let me get the name here just to show you that I can do this In-yan Ig Muthanka Bay Oh, I love that name. Oh my gosh. In-yang In-yan Ig Muthanka Bay In-yan In-yan In-yan In-yan yes, and I'm sorry In-yan. Okay. Ig Muthanka Bay It is so cool. Your your name's just fun to say Yeah, and it's a Moroccan flag. So I'm taking it. He's from Morocco Anyway, he says you know a lot of people are very hesitant to open files fearing It may be a virus as you were saying but you know in-yas right on point and so it's just that's why you kind of got to See, you know, some people are afraid of following links That's true I mean, I mean if it says something like hey, I just saw you're you're in this picture and there's a link Maybe, you know, but if it's a are you in this movie? Yes Yeah, and now it's all in texts we've got rid of spam calls now. We're getting spam texts. It's awful awful I know you know my my old bank in Buffalo is they're like sending me stuff like you're we're checking on your account Well, we're not gonna find anything there. So Anyway, uh, you get the question from terry brisco Yeah, terry asks kelly. Thanks for being here and I know that you are known for bold self promotion But what is your most successful way to attract new clients new climbing friends? Ah, I love that terry. You are so I like it a big hug for terry um I think the best way to attract new clients. Let me think about that uh, the way i'm doing it again is is reaching out with cold emails uh having diane Reach it did did we talked we talked about this? Yes, we official one. Okay. Yeah having diane do the cold call and then once you've made that initial contact then I go and friend them on social media absolutely connect with them on linkedin and then I start to grow that relationship So terry when I'm talking about In in doing it in a genuine way grow that relationship grow that friendship Things like when they post an article I will repost it and say a comment like Have you guys read the such and such so and so I had no idea Or sending them a a dm maybe with an article that made you think about them Hey, george. I read this article about these new headphones. Have you heard about these? How cool is that? Usually, you know, try to leave a question at the end of it if I dm somebody so that you can start a conversation Have you tried these yet? um So that you you're starting a conversation by asking that question You're showing a genuine interest in them And it takes forever terry. This is not a sprint. This is a marathon but It is these relationships that you form now That are going to carry you through the slow times You know, especially with the the big influx of so many people coming into our industry It is really nice to see that my existing clients Keep coming back because they know me. They know I care about them. They know I care about their projects They don't they don't have to guess if somebody's home studio is really a home studio They know and all of that is through Relationship building. Um, I hope that answers your question terry and I I know it's not easy um, but just finding ways to one on one Not sending out a blast like uh, we talked about earlier not sending out a ton of The same postcard or a, you know general Email just one on one Keep talking with them and there are ways there are there are inexpensive ways to stay top of mind with these people um I have a newsletter That I actually asked Liz Dinesnara if she was okay with me sending out because it's very much like hers I thought her idea was brilliant And she does a happy Tuesday from Liz and she posts a picture Usually of the same lake, but because it's outdoors in a nature. It's different every time and it's not salesy It's not talking about voiceover. So I called her several years ago and started something called think outside thursdays and have grown it recently into think outside encounters And they are all about the outdoors all about different, uh ways you can get out there encourages people to get outside The benefits of being outdoors it talks, you know, sometimes I'll pull a poem or a quote I'll talk about the picture I've taken because I love taking pictures outside. I'm not great I always say, you know took this with my iPhone while I was running past But it's just a it's a fun way to stay top of mind which again the blasts are okay for staying top of mind But the relationship building Really needs to be targeted consistent And show that you genuinely care about this person Makes a lot of sense You use linkedin a lot, don't you? Yes. Tell us a little bit about how you use linkedin because I I know it's We have a mutual friend that talks about this a whole lot A lot of people are like, you know, they make a connection on linkedin and then they're like, hi I'm a voice actor, right? You want to hire me? No, no, no, no. How do you? How do you do that? What's the proper way of doing that? Don't do that? First of all, I highly recommend our mutual friend Tracy Linley And her linkedin edge because I took that when she first she let me kind of try it out Prototype it or whatever and I learned so many things and I took what I learned from tracy and my own marketing PR brain and have kind of meshed those things together. So the way I do it It really kind of depends on what time of day it is If it is in the evening and I've had a glass of wine sometimes I just reach out and I don't make it personal at all. I just connect If I if I see somebody who has a ton of common common names I'll hit connect which goes against everything I just said about making it personal But it's amazing how many people if you share enough We'll just go ahead and connect with you The the people I connect with after the cold email It's usually something to the effect of like if it's a georgia alumni I'll say because I graduated from the University of Georgia. I'll start it off go dogs um You know go dogs. I I'm assuming you had, you know, dr. Hollander's class too Um always nice to connect with a fellow grady grad Finding something you have in common A lot of times with videographers or photographers They have a picture of something that's really cool And so I'll say wow that picture was amazing. Can you please tell me how you how you got something like that? That's just Awesome, and I'm not a photographer. I just use my iphone But even the time of day everything about this picture just speaks to me. How did you do that? Again asking a question so that it leads back to Leads back to a discussion and a conversation All righty, uh John O'Rourke asks can you give us a tour of your booth? I mean, it's gonna be simply at turning around What's in there? Um Yeah, jonah. So my booth is a studio bricks booth And if I take this camera down, unfortunately, it will um It's a pain to get it back up and you guys will have to watch me like lick the sucker thing and stick it on It's not pretty you might want to fix that. Yeah, so this is a studio bricks triple wall pro And I worked with gear mo jung bower back in the early days before you know became such a thing To custom design it and I based my design on a whisper room that shon caldwell once had So right here where I've got this camera is a window and my Monitor is behind the window. So it keeps the heat out Um, there is a 300 pound glass door that right now is open That I had to use my car jack to get in. Yeah, it usually takes an honor guard to pull that thing Yeah, I hired um, a local not local from charlotte. So not far away Engineer and he has come to help me put it together We've decided now that we're both too old to drag each piece down from the garage to the basement level We're gonna hire somebody young and strong Out here is a windowless area. It's a it's a finished room in my basement And then way over there in the corner is a little window where I have a desk though. I don't spend much time there um Johnna to be honest with you because I have spent years in this four by five padded room all day I 90 percent of the time that I'm not in here. I am on my laptop out on my porch I just I have to I have to get out Um, but yeah, this does that oh and I have a stand up Um, and it was cheaper than a stand up desk you guys I got this thing on amazon here man. Probably it's messy But see this Right. Yep. So that is a it's a rolling cart. It's a rolling laptop cart and there's shelves and stuff underneath it Um, and so that's a great thing to have because it just takes up a tiny little bit in my In my booth and it allows me to stand That was a great purchase Yeah, I'm a big fan of that kind of a thing for your laptop or anything in your booth Yeah, really it rather than a permanently mounted shelf that's not exactly the size Or the height that you really wanted it to be. Yep. These adjustable stands make way more sense Oh, they're so good and they and they're on wheels. So like when I vacuum the booth out Uh, because sometimes my dogs are in here with me I just vacuum it out and all of my gear jonah is outside and the cables are running in through the bottom and the front But it's all outside. There's just there's no noise Everything is yeah right here and there's not a lot of heat Yeah, even better. That's really important Especially now. Um, jim mcnigolas asked trying to expand my client list Where would you suggest I start? I think this is kind of a rehash of maybe A couple things we've covered. Yeah, but I don't know if you have a new angle. Yeah for getting new clients expanding Okay, so expanding where you are um Hmm So i'm trying to think of some of the things that I did that were new Uh, I mean if you have an established connection with a certain Like industry Is it easier to move horizontally through the same industry and establish new connections in the same industry? Yeah, definitely. Um You know as far as linkedin goes it's just you know looking at your your first connections Um, and if you're following their feed then you will see people comment on their stuff and You can always reach out to that person and say something to the effect of your comment was so on point Or I'd be interested in knowing a little bit more about why you felt this Logo of the three he presented was best um, you know just something to ask a question on linkedin And again making sure everybody you know knows what you do In a non cheesy way and the basic principles of marketing have never changed It's it's how we present that that has changed Everything about marketing should be about increasing your no like and trust factor everything you post Needs to be and not all about you, but it needs to make you knowable approachable likable people work with people they like um so no like and trust and trust is things like this like appearing on v obs this gives me credibility As as a as a voice actor who gets to come on to this really cool podcast About you know the whole industry So that's a kind you know just everything needs to be focused on no like and trust whatever it is you do Yeah, I hope that answers. Oh, I did certainly did we got time for one more question here And this is a really good one from steven blair Do you source through a google search first? Who do you target and how do you establish a relationship with them? Oh like where do I get my oh prospect? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay. No, um I have not done a google search at all When I first started again the differences. There was no No, there was I'm not that old There was a google um But I am old enough to have used the digiphone ISDN database and I started in alabama And worked my way down through the states because you could tell on the database Which ones were individuals and which ones were studios and because having ISDN at that point was so expensive and rare For a voice talent to have it really narrowed Uh the competition And that I built so many relationships that way but you can go to um So say the uh, I used to go network again before the pandemic at uh, there was a group of production people And they would get together once a month and a group of us Uh voice talent. We're all very close in the atlanta area. We would go and network and meet with people in person Um, you can also go to websites. Uh that are focused on marketing Production you can join groups on social media That are focused on that and you can absolutely do that if you do a google search It's kind of like when people google search voice talent It's it's really kind of you're you know, you're taking you're taking a risk Right, um because everybody puts their best foot forward And you could waste so much time doing a google search and then trying to vet this client Whether they're worth your time and effort Just start with a known quantity Look at where your ideal client hangs out and go hang out there even if it's just online Be there search that area. That's that's what you want Absolutely gold. Yes, you know, this is this is the kind of stuff that I wanted our audience to hear from you because Marketing is is it's a mystery to most people and you've got a you've got a very set way of doing it in a very logical way It's so nice to hear you say that because sometimes I feel like oh my god, what am I doing now? Well, well that well a lot of marketing is like taking stuff thrown it against the wall and then seeing what sticks So you gotta try everything. I've done a lot of that. I've done a lot of that over the years Yes, well, it is great having you on here. It's great to see you again Hopefully we will see each other soon at some conference here or there or whatever. Yes. I really hope so I want to hug y'all again. Oh, I you know, I do So where can people get a hold of you virtually virtually? And it's funny. Somebody actually already did from the the promo A guy reached out and asked me about prospecting using um paid uh I guess paid it was an AI Connection something or another and I felt bad because I had no idea. I was like, uh, yeah I'm old school. Um But you can reach me through my website, which is brand spanking new Finally, if it tells you anything the folder with all the stuff in it was called website refresh 2019 So It's taken a long time But uh, it is kb voiceovers dot com And if you're interested in the think outside newsletter again, I'm I'm not pitching myself on it I just I really think everybody should take some time and get outdoors Uh, not coaster bike racing coaster break rates soon. Just saying. Well, okay. Um, that's not for everybody Um, a little scary, but if you want to get on the think outside newsletter, it's there. Um And if if I can help you, you know, just shoot me an email kb at kb voiceovers dot com Please do not take offense if it takes me a long time to get back with you. I'm so sorry You're a busy lady Well, it's just, you know, I mean, there's just there's a lot going on in my life right now So I I will do the best I can I promise I will get back to you. It just may take me a while Alrighty, kelly. Thanks again for being with us. We'll have you on all of you who came and yeah Ask great turnout. Thank you guys. Thank you. All right. No problem. All right, kelly botrick Big hug. Alrighty. Well, we're gonna take a break and george and I'll wrap things up for this week And then we will do tech talk. So if you got your tech questions ready, throw them in the chat room now too We'll be right back to say goodbye right here on voiceover body shop You're still watching vlbs 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 via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? Hey, it's my turn. It's your turn. Okay. You got it. It's my turn to talk about source elements the creators of source connect Boy, what can I say that has not already been said I've been improvising commercials for this company for five plus years And I'm telling you they're still dominating especially now having had the the pandemic Come and I wanted to say go Well, it hasn't that's the sad story. It hasn't gone Most are still more comfortable working remotely. It's pretty clear And you need the right tools to do it and this is still the thing people In production really love using because it saves Time at the end of the day your job as a voice actor is to provide your talent But also fit into the machinery that they have constructed You have to be this cog that meshes and turns smoothly and doesn't make noise, right? Except when they pay you to and that's your voice acting So the source connect allows that to happen allows your voice to go right into the production Fit in be previewed be reviewed Listen to by the client and even signed off on a final edit Before the end of the session and that's the kind of thing the efficiency that source connect allows This is why the big paying jobs the best working voice over happens there And if you're gunning for that you've got an agent or you're considering going that level It's time to get signed up go over to source dash elements calm Get a 15 day free trial Check out the new website. They've been putting together. It's got better content more content to learn from it's easier to find things Than ever at source dash elements calm. Thanks. Let's get back to the wrap with the show Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voice over body shop. It's great Turn mic on got it. It's been a long time since I've had to press that button had to actually press usually the only one in here So you don't have to mute it. That's right. Absolutely Boy, great having kelly on. I miss her a whole lot. It's been way too long And she's such an exuberant great example of how you're supposed to do this business So we want to thank her again for for joining us Uh Let's see here next week on this show or if you'd like hang out live right now and just stay with us If you're watching the show live, we're gonna do tech talk tech talk number 83 is coming up next week Who are our donors of the week people like jonathan grant christopher apperson sarah borges Phillips appear tom pinto shelly avilino george wittem. You're dead. My dad brine page patty gibbons rob rider greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions shanna pennington baird martha con don griffith tray moseley danna birdsall and sandra man willer Yeah, you can donate to the show maintain the amazing Technical excellence that you witness every week here on this show. So just go to our website There's a little button there underneath this. It says donate now or is it above us? I can never remember Anyway, uh, what's the next george the tech webinar coming up universal apollo? Yes, I really am It's it's the audio interface that we love to hate on But a lot of you use it and a lot of people are still interested in adopting this tech So i'm teaching a webinar august 2nd At 3 p.m. And you can sign up over at george the dot tech slash webinars And be there alive so you can answer so i can answer your questions. That's the main reason to be there alive For that interactivity if you can't be there alive, you can actually rent it later after the fact Yeah, and knowing universal apollo there will be lots of questions Why does it do this? Why then why doesn't it? It's so hard to do. Why doesn't it do that? Anyway, uh, we need to thank our sponsors harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements Do heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com And world voices dot org the industry association of freelance voice talent joined today Our thanks again to jeff holman for doing yeoman duty in the chat room And on facebook on youtube and all the other places he hangs out Sumer lino thank you so much for a great job as our technical director and of course Lee pinney just for being lee pinney Uh Well, we're gonna rack it up for tech talk Do not go away if you've got a tech question through at the chat room and we'll be right back But that's gonna do it for this week. Have a great week everybody. I'm dan lennard And this is voiceover body shop or vio B s Oh tech talks next next it's coming up next Yeah, we're in the same room. It was no delay that we were able to say it in sync together So much easier to time stuff when you're in the same space. Yeah, otherwise, it's like, you know trying to talk to somebody on the moon Almost all right. Okay tech talk. All right, so if you got a question out there throw it in the chat room and uh Because george and i love to answer these questions And i guess i'll keep this shirt on so we can promote the shirt again You know go back over to cafe press and Check the website i shared i shared it's not on the website But i looked on cafe and i did find our store. It's still It's still an active store and you can still buy Let's see a thong. Yeah You could buy a dog shirt. Oh good You can buy flip flops Yes, you can you can buy a flask It's still yeah, it's still active. All right get your official voice over body shop merch There's a word that didn't exist a couple of years ago merch merch. We got merch check out our merch Alrighty, uh, okay All right, we'll give it one minute here and we'll go live with With tech talk again. We'd love your questions and uh, and thanks for joining us with with kelly buttrick too who is fabulous Okay Okay, sue count us in whenever you're ready Hey, it's time for voice over body shop tech talk tech talk number 83 tech talk number She does it again tech talk number 83 Uh, so if you're taking notes, i'll make what show did they talk about this? You'll know it was on 83 Uh, what are we going to talk about tonight george? We have a great video to start off with tonight. We did we got a We just did it this afternoon an interview with the folks over at mojave audio The micers of microphones like this very microphone right here Um, and then uh, I'll talk a little bit about a few topics that I thought thought what might be helpful like avoiding buying overly buying Solid state drives on amazon with ridiculous sizes for the price. Oh, that's a thing um window inserts do they work and uh, Well as universal audio paolo fixed zoom yet Stay tuned. All right all that and more and I have a little bit of talk about what's the best mic for video On voice over body shop tech talk right now From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio And together from the center of the vio universe. They bring it to you now george wittom the engineer to the vio stars Of 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 voice over 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 voice over body shop tech talk Voice over 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 voice over training jay michael collins demos when quality matters and voice over 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 Well hello there i'm Dan lennard and i'm george wittom and this is voice over body shop or vio b s tech talk tech talk tech talk talk tech talk Actually from our studio and clubhouse in sherman oaks california for reals. Yeah, we're like reach my arm long far enough You know, we can actually like poke each other Yes, it's weird it is it is Uh, but you know, we're gonna get back in front of the green screen eventually and for now This is fun. Yeah, it's okay. It's a cool backdrop. Yeah, I do know we we will be having a live guest in beginning of august Somebody who we really like having on the show. Awesome. Uh, who always brings alcohol, which is even better Anyway, uh, if you have a question about your home voice over studio And despite the fact that we've been doing this 11 years you guys still keep coming up with questions And we are still coming up with the great answers Uh, so throw those in the chat room and jeff holman will get that question to us in just a little bit But today we did we did a road trip It's been a while but we did it again. Yes, we went out there and actually videoed something with us in the same place and uh So our we talked with dusty wakeman over at uh Mojave audio. How did we how did we end up over there? Yeah? Well, uh, you know It's our you know, it's organic, you know, they they uh, I ran into dusty over at nam show And he said hey man. It's good to see you again Uh, gosh, how's things going over the donald fountaine voiceover lab because they were an early early supporter of the lab You know and and he was like we need to get you a mic and he sent me over this ma 50 mic right here to play around With which sounds fabulous to do a review, which I will be doing a proper review I promise um, and then uh, then it became hey, we have a youtube channel We want to come on our show was like a force and while we're there Can we interview you and show see us around the studio? And if we made it happen dan edited it for an hour got it done just in time for you to watch Right now go for it The mall Come on and welcome to mojave world headquarters. I appreciate somebody who Has a neat desk It's impressive, isn't it you know a place for everything and everything in its place I did tell him you guys were coming so it's probably a little neater than it normally is because you know There's a lot going on over here, but uh, you know we all of our tube mics We burn in over here for 24 hours And then all of our microphones david listens to every one every single one and actually signs a card. I'll show you There's a little card like this that goes in with every mic That after he signs it or after he inspects it he signs it and dates it looks like he's pre signed somebody hasn't dated it yet So he's got to fill in the blacks That happens over here and then our highest end microphones the ma 37 and the ma 1000 Actually get built here or finished here. We installed the capsules transformers and tubes here And then this is all shipping and receiving these are mics that are all good to go ready to go out to customers and to dealers And more four boxes boxes and more boxes And this is our storage room. Uh, these are boxes full of tubes We were fortunate that we stocked up a long time ago. So we have tubes for all of our models for the foreseeable future Probably past my lifetime in this business And then these are all capsules and all the other parts to go into our microphones So people wonder what it is that makes a high-end mic a high-end mic I mean we use you know, most of the people in voiceover use a good studio condenser mic But what really separates it and what is it that mojave is putting in their mics? To create what we would call a high-end mic Well, there's a couple of things involved in that one our secret weapon david royer Designs them. So it's his I call him simple yet elegant designs Which is something I stole from the wine world, but I love the sound of that simple yet elegant Yeah, uh our mics if you open them up. There's not a lot of circuitry going on We don't heap on a lot of special sauce Circuits like, you know three different microphones in one. We don't do anything like that what we do Put our money into and what really makes a difference is the quality of the components There's a capsule That's a capsule for our ma 37 the chinese Many many moons ago and we were just talking about the mic that you referred Standardized cap capsule making so they're very consistent We don't see a lot of variation. We never have any problem with them They came up with a jig because the a lot of them are hand tuned like a drum And that's great. But out of one batch, you'll get some great ones and some not so good ones Well, they figured out a long time ago how to just use a jig and standardize it. So boom boom boom They're all the same And then you've got the other things like the the quality of the fets the resistors the capacitors The tubes all those components. It's an audio chain So in any audio chain, it only sounds as good as the worst piece the worst link in that chain So we're all about having high-end quality components all the way through the all the way through the chain And that's what really makes the difference So what what component has the biggest impact on the quality of the sound within a microphone? As you were saying, there's lots of different things within the the circuitry, but what's most important? Well, I would say oddly enough. It's not the capsule which most people think It's not the tube Which a lot of people think tube microphones aren't like guitar amps in a guitar amp You're really driving that tube and that really you're getting a lot of sound from that or a lot of coloration With a microphone that you don't want that you want high fidelity. You want performance So the tube is not making a huge difference in the sound as long as it's providing all the Proper voltages for everything to work. I would say probably the transformer or the amplifier Probably you hear the difference more than anything else But like I say, it's an audio chain. You're hearing whatever the weakest thing is. That's what you're hearing, right? And let me turn this around There you can see the tube So this this is an ma 300. It's our multi-pattern large diaphragm tube condenser Basically, david royer's take on the classic u67. So the question is Why use tubes? I mean, I love old radios and I and I play with them and I understand that they create a certain amount of harmonic distortion Is that why are tubes essential to a good quality mic? Well, they're not essential because we do make mics with fets So you either have a tube or a fat a fat is the field effect transistor That's the modern replacement And I say modern from when we were kids and the little japanese transistor radios show up And they started having those instead of tubes But tubes give a certain warmth And like you say harmonic distortion of a pleasing Distortion that creates the the good harmonics, right? So it can sound a little warmer a little smoother But really david is just an old school designer. He's really using it to achieve high fidelity performance More than coloration Why is this important say for a voiceover person? Well for voiceover I mean, we have people that use all of our mics But the ones that the voiceover people seem to like most are the fat mics the 201 which is a cardioid only And the 301 which is the multi pattern version of that Because the fets are a little bit faster. They have a little more presence A little more grab if you will of the voice and especially some of our people like uh toby browning And some people like that that are doing commercials where there's explosions and Car crashes and stuff where the vocal has to cut through like movie trailers that kind of stuff So they seem to prefer the fat mics These are all coming from different places. You're you're you're just assembling all these things We use a factory in china to do all of this stuff the metal work all the parts And then some of the mics are finished there Like I said the ma 37 and the ma 1000 which are are high high end mics They're finished here big john puts them together over here and he installs these things and the tube But all of them get burned in here and And go through our qc What makes the difference in cost and quality? I mean you're not you're using high quality components in every mic What makes the difference between you know say between a $500 mic and say a $5,000 mic or something? Well, you know people always wonder that one for some reason, you know, that's an interesting question I mean i'm an old studio owner and recording engineer and The difference between a $500 mic and a $5,000 mic is not you'd help me with the math here set 10 times Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it's not 10 times better It's you know the higher in higher up you go the more it becomes incremental And it just depends on how much of a geek you are, you know, I would think in the voiceover world It's really more about having one or two mics that get you Quickly to where you want to go right the the idea being that you know You want to be able to sound the way you sound capturing you as you exist And that's what you want to hear right an altered or color the whole line, right? And you've gotten feedback from your customers that like love love the sound of your voice So it's like check don't change anything change. Yeah, exactly I'm not gonna like well, let's audition, you know for this commercial Let's audition a bunch of microphones. You're probably not going to do that in the real world. George might do that Sounds like keep some some people are known for being a little over the top of the mic selection But uh, I tend to say, you know pick a couple that you love and stick with them Because consistency is pretty big deal, right? And you know, I know a lot of voiceover artists are doing auditions all day long and you don't have you need to go flip a switch And hit record So that's exactly that's one reason our FET mics that 301 FET the 201 FET in the MA 50 are really good for voiceover work What are some of the things that can really Damage your mic if you're what things are people doing that? They're not taking good care of a good. Well with fan and power It's always good to have the fan and power off until you actually connect the mic and then turn it on Uh, always make sure your speakers are turned down And if you're wearing headphones, you might want to slide them off Those are good practices. I still have ringing in my ears from the 70s. Right. It's like, yeah, right Those are all good practices if you have a tube mic. You want to make sure it's all connected and the power supply is turned on, right? Question I've always wondered about Say on a multi-pattern mic, how do you change The patterns? What is the electronics doing that, you know, it's you've got a diaphragm and all that What is it that not allows it to be omni or figure 8 or or cardioid? So on a on a multi-pattern mic like this, it's a dual diaphragm, right? So in cardioid that the back one the back plate is just turned off And you're just getting the front with the For omni you're adding in the back diaphragm In phase. So now you're picking up 360 you're getting both of those on and then to get figure 8 You flip the phase of the back one So now they're out of phase with the front and back are out of phase So you're picking up here. You're picking up here, but it's null all the way around all the other lobes Dusty, thank you for showing us around. My pleasure. It's great to have you I was just going to say if you go on our website. Yeah, bohaviodio.com There's a whole section for voiceover with examples for every mic that we make we have Professional voiceover artists giving examples of what that mic sounds like So it makes it easy to go on there and kind of take a look in advance if you're in them If you're shopping for a microphone. Yeah, that's that's the interesting thing is that you know, there are no companies specifically making Microphones specifically for voiceover. I mean, it's like it's all primarily designed for making music, right? so But you've you've actually created microphones that are easy to adapt to doing voiceover work Well, your voiceovers are music to our ears. So It is music remember that Awesome. That's great Just there to sell you a mic. I thought that was cool. And I always always love learning things when we get to talk to these Uh company representatives and owners in this case Yeah, and I like that he answered some of these tech questions that They're a mystery to most people. I still want to know what it means to be fast You most you notice he mentioned the word fast. He did I've heard that used in in talking about preamps and things And I still need a good description of what that means. But unfortunately my mic is muted. So I'm I'm gonna mute my I mean my mic. I can't hear myself. But it's just saying no I'm why why am I why does it say? Oh, I was am I still going you're on? I can see I can see your levels on there So we saw a lot of lost audio. Um, but you know, it was great having such a straight shooter to to talk Uh about the way the mics are made. It's really cool, right and he gave us a hat, which is even more important I really didn't uh So what's what else you got in your tech up? Well, just a couple of things. I won't go on for too long, but um Recently I was like, you know what? I need to get a bigger backup hard drive So I started searching for large capacity hard drives and it's you can buy for 300 dollars now a 14 terabyte External hard drive from western digital Which I was considering actually getting just to have a single drive that backs up All of my archive drives because I realized I have a whole bunch of hard drives that are archive Meaning that they only have the the the data on that drive is only On those drives. It doesn't exist anywhere else. And then I thought well, let's go go buy one So I did some research went to go look on amazon then all of a sudden I stumbled on 16 terabyte SSD drives solid state drives for $100. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Whoa $100 and then there was a bunch of reviews And I posted about this on the vio tech talk facebook group for for the geeks over there to laugh about and read The comments on the on the the reviews were all over the map because what they do over there at amazon Is they allow a a product? merchant to essentially Swap out the product so they can build up comments over time selling a bunch of products cheap stuff like a hat Or whatever and then they can essentially refresh the product and change the product That's exactly what they did. They had over 100 reviews Most of them all five stars. So this thing was Visible it was floating to the top of the search It looked really legit because I had so many great reviews But when he started reading them, they were on completely unrelated products I did a little more digging a little more research some youtube video watching found out It's crap. These drives may lose you a ton of data Don't buy them. So the takeaway is if you're looking for solid-state drives Chances are if it's under $100 and it's more than a terabyte. It's probably bs It's probably not true. You also want to buy solid-state drives from reputable manufacturers like sandisk Kingston other companies known for making those things and be very careful Don't buy things that seem way way too good to be true in storage because guess what it is And you're going to be upset when you find out You've lost a ton of data Beware Windows and window inserts not windows window windows open the sash windows. Yes um James romick posted on on a group recently about his experience with window windows and I've seen these I've installed them and I recommended them And his takeaway was it wasn't as effect as effective as advertised Which didn't surprise me. Um, and the thing is when you look when they're looking at these when they're selling these products They're giving you these figures sometimes 70 improvement In noise and the thing is that's extremely dependent on the type of noise Is it and how loud is it how loud is it the type is it is it low frequency rumble Is it lawnmower? Is it bird sounds? These kind of window inserts are only like eighth to a quarter inch if you're lucky thick of plexiglass And um, they have a good tight seal on them which helps a lot But it's still not enough mass and it's still not enough depth of an air gap to get rid of lower frequencies So don't expect a lot of the lower end But if the types of sounds you are wanting to reduce dramatically or sound of the wind in the trees birds Higher frequency sounds maybe a distant highway that kind of stuff Yeah, they they really really help a lot, but they will not get rid of lawnmowers and rumbling engines and and just low frequency Crud um, don't expect that like if a tank is rolling by or something like that Yeah, or even if just even if the neighbors mowing their lawn, you're you're still going to hear it It's it's going to help a little, but it's not going to completely fix it. Um, lastly before we move on Um, you know, I am I am going to be teaching a webinar on universal audio Apollo And one thing that probably people may be have been wondering is if they haven't used one in a while Or maybe they haven't used zoom in a while is has universal audio fixed Zoom or thick has universal audio fixed their driver So it will work properly with zoom see the problem with universal audio is Apollo Compared to a nice straightforward simple audio interface Like a scarlet two i2 something where it's just two channels in Two channels out the problem is is that universal audios audio inputs and outputs All appear simultaneously In zoom with absolutely no way to control which of those channels you're actually using in zoom So zoom just looks at the first two channels like an Apollo has 14 inputs. I think last I checked And you may not have 14 inputs on the back But there are 14 input channels available And then there's like 10 output channels and zoom uses the first two of the inputs And the first two of the outputs guess what those are not the ones you want to use with zoom So the problem you have is that you get echoes You get weird faziness and headphones sometimes Uh, a lot of things go wrong when trying to use zoom with the Apollo So, um, it hasn't been fixed since the newest updates In console 10 point whatever the newest one. It has not been fixed. It still happens And I don't know if anybody's ever going to fix it even though folks like myself Tim tippets jordan reynolds tim freelander all of us have been telling them time to fix this guys Um, it doesn't seem to be a high priority. In fact, their own tech guy says Oh, just install this hundred dollar extra other program Call loop back To fix the problem I just don't think that's the right way of approaching it. No, that's kind of like walking through the back door to make something work and that's It's really frustrating. Anyway, it's one of the reasons why Apollo is something I don't recommend without a lot of Asterisks a lot of disclaimers and if you are going to get it, you really need to learn how to use it And that's what I'll be teaching in my webinar coming up in a couple of weeks Good luck with that. Thanks man. Anyway, Dan, we're going to talk about the best mic for vio. Is it this one? Uh, tell me is this one right here? I mean, it sounds great But it sounds good. It sounds very much the same as mine, but it does it sounds very much the same as yours Yes, just let the same components. I think it's probably a lot of the same components. Yeah handpicked components Yeah, everybody asks this question and we've we've we've joked about this before, you know Like what if you have a question and the question is always what's the best mic for voice over? And it depends on a lot of things one, how much you want to spend Two, uh, how much, um, you know, how what kind of a voice do you have? And I still don't buy the argument about what's the best mic for my voice I mean, there's you can you can keep it limited to a couple of things Now it was interesting in that video that the dusty wakeman explained to us What goes into the mics and what makes them really really good? That's a good mic. There are a lot of mics that really suck But they're like Under $150 if they have bad components if they the amplifier and the transformer in it are Top-notch, you know, they went and bought them at Woolworth's or something Or they're inconsistent from mic to mic and they're in absolutely a big time so I'm of the opinion and you can you can disagree with me all you want I mean I tend to find the best mic for voice over is the one you got if you have one that's over 150 dollars It's the sound you have It is what your clients are used to I doubt there is anybody out there that has a good microphone That is somewhere between 150 and say 300 dollars that is losing work Because of that microphone. I don't think I've ever heard of anybody losing work because of that type of a microphone unless It's a crappy microphone and we you know damaged Damage, you know, it fell over. They didn't have their abs on there The adjustable boom stop from Harlan Hogan and So when I come Oh, great. Who are we bringing on the show today now? Okay, no, I am I will be there for my appointment. Thank you very much Actually, I just did Being 65 is no thrill Uh, anyway, uh, so if you're looking for the best mic for voice over if you're getting work Chances are you've got the best mic for you. You want to upgrade? What's the upgrade gonna do? You know, now you can get them a hobby mic and they are great mics and they are and they are really reasonable to what they are So, yeah, so they got some free advertising. It's a good next step. It absolutely is Just don't cheap out of the mic Like these guys don't do a low end mic. This is this one's the na 50. This is their entry level 500 Yeah, $500 a month. So their entry level is still for many people an aspirational mic But that's just because they just will not They just won't uh my level stopped very low on folks about this place All your level just stopped on folks Oh, that sounds okay for me Okay Huh Yeah I don't I don't quite see what it is. I mean, I can raise I can raise the game from here. Oh the phone rang and we lost the audio Oh Let's go back into this and go back to And just may not be safe You know what they did they got rid of do not disturb. Oh, okay. Can you hear us now sue test test test? Okay now It's working three four five. All right You know what you know how we love apple You know what I hate that they did recently and I love to hate when they make things worse There used to be a very convenient do not disturb that you could just turn on it was just letting button do not disturb They ain't there anymore It's called focus now But uh, yeah, the key thing is being able to do not disturb your computer So things like that don't go haywire in the middle of a live show. So anyway, we're back So the last thing everybody heard us talking about was what's the best mic for voice over was what was the best mic with for voice over? um It should be 100 over $150. Generally. Yeah low self noise Right low distortion right and the mic that you have is probably the mic that you actually need And look at an aspirational mic when you're ready dan, you always say this Don't buy really expensive equipment to get the work get good work Make money and then get better gear exactly. So this this mic right here this um This is the Muhammad ma 50 This could be an aspirational mic for some Yeah, but it's a $500 mic. This is their entry level. You don't start there You don't need to start there right you could if you have the budget But you don't need to this could be your aspirational microphone Or this could be your first mic depending on your budget. So yeah, but what good is the mic if you don't use it, right? So that's acoustics all that stuff really important critical Alrighty, well, I've got some editing to do tonight. Anyway, we're gonna take a break right now We'll get to your questions right after this enough editing already. Yeah, that's right I'm in good practice. We'll be right back and voice over body shop. Get sending your questions kids Yeah, hi, this is Carlos. I was rocking the voice of rocko and you're watching voice over body shop Inflated prices not at voice over essentials dot com Despite the nationwide inflation rate of over eight percent Voice over essentials refuses to raise prices. In fact, they refuse to even say the i-word They're inventory is large on all their products and they purchase them before the current economic conditions It's simply wrong to increase profit as many retailers are doing right now So harlin and company promised not to raise their prices during difficult times for everyone They'll stay the course steady and sure flat and firm solid instead fat. Okay enough. You get the point Unfortunately, they're under the same inflationary pressures as everyone else And they'll need to restock in the not so distant future No doubt they'll be sticker shock for them and you So right now is the time to order that port-a-booth pro or vo1 a voice over microphone And their vo 2.0 headphones fight inflation at voice over essentials dot com Hey everybody, it's time to talk about source elements. Yay our sponsors for a very long time here on source On vobs and their flagship product as you probably know by now Is source connect for a very good reason it is definitely established itself as a as a must have technology at the best in the best projects out there because These are companies that understand how workflows important to getting things done It's efficient the client can hear you the voice talent during the session real time The audio that is being heard is being recorded directly into the timeline Of the production and it's done in a very smooth And easy to understand way for the for the engineer because it actually works as a plugin Into pro tools as well. No, you don't need pro tools But a producer an engineer loves that it will appear magically in pro tools it even has a cool thing called called the The queue manager which can automatically fix dropouts from bad internet connections It's really really amazing stuff. And if you want to be on Basically on the bandwagon because you're getting those bigger clients You're getting agents and you're starting to see source connect as a requirement to get those big jobs It's time to go over and get your free trial and get started at source dash elements Dot com and get the ball rolling and let them know we sent you because they'd love to know that people are finding out about them From us. We'd appreciate that. Let's get right back to those questions right after this Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone But it's so much more. It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for red When hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish Hey, it's j michael collins. I bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's j michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great All right, we're back in one piece Which is the best way to be now. It's time for Our lightning round of answering your questions Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Uh, let's get into our questions here All right, the first one I actually grabbed from facebook myself because I just thought it was a good question Excellent get things started tonight this Greg you don't if you're watching I don't know if you are but if you are this is for you Um, greg says greg tomas says is it normal for two of the same Make a model of a microphone to sound slightly different from each other Is this why they sell matched stereo pairs? um I'm glad he met it was great timing that that question came up because as as you saw in the video earlier from dusty Some of the key things in microphones sounding the same is the way the capsules are being made And they have to be made and tested to make sure that they sound consistent from mic to mic and depending on the price point of the mic you're buying who's selling it The lower end microphones tend to not be matched and checked to sound if they sound to See that they sound identical and yes Um, the best microphones you'll notice can be bought in stereo pairs And it's almost always more expensive than buying two mics As crazy as that sounds but it's true because they do actually go through an extra level Of testing and comparing at the factory to make sure they output the same exact level Within a decibel of each other and sound as identical as possible So, um, I think it's less of a trouble than it used to be Because of manufacturing practices being so good now But that is definitely an issue that needs to be Checked out and uh buying an older mic and a newer mic They might sound different another thing is if you bought them at different times of the year or different year You know years apart Your old mic will almost always sound a little less crisp and bright, right? Right. They get dirty And as the as dirt and scum gets on that capsule and everything It damps the capsule so it doesn't respond as quickly and you lose some top end So that's another thing he mentioned that a newer mic sounded more forward It sounded brighter and crisper than an older mic and that would probably explain why that Happens right but when someone has a microphone that might sound slightly different It's just is it going to not make them sound as good that someone could That it was be perceptible by an engineer that it's like it's not going to make that much of a difference Like you know, if you're listening to it under a microscope It's only because you're comparing an older one to a newer one But the likelihood of one mic booking the job and the other one not extremely extremely low Unless one of them is actually damaged So and that and that will make a difference and I've and I've heard that Grace newton asks for the guys that would be you and me I have the scarlet solo interface. Will you please explain the function of the direct mod with the Function of the direct monitor button is I never record with my headphones on and I always turn it off all editing So I don't really know what it does. Guess what if you don't use your headphones It don't matter Exactly. Yeah. No, it's yeah, there's a there's a direct monitor button on the focus rights. It's Right under right under the the phantom power button, right? Yeah on the older one It's a switch and on the newer ones. It's a it's a push button right and and and what it does is it allows you to hear yourself Um, and you know, if you're not wearing headphones, which you you know, as you know I say don't wear headphones unless you're trying to listen to a director somewhere else um Then just don't just keep the you know, direct monitor off. It really doesn't help What direct monitor is for is if you're as all of this stuff was designed for If you're a singer and you are syncing up with other tracks In a multi-track program That's what the direct monitor is button is for so you can hear the other stuff that's going on And your voice in sync with that and that's pretty much what it's for pretty much Yeah, I mean if you're engineering yourself and you want to check things test things make sure they're working Direct monitor can be useful so you can hear what's actually going on But acting while listening to yourself at the same time being fed back into your headphones at a loud volume Even when it's not delayed if it's zero latency It's still distracting and it is still going to affect the way you perform Guaranteed absolutely you get the next one All right, this one's from Zachary Chalmers. Hey Zach. Um, is there a way to use an external bluetooth receiver? on a mac studio Either switch or default to the external receiver because my magic mouse or trackpad are a bit too far from the mac studio In the adjacent room. Thanks guys That's a good techie question. Yeah, I would say, um, there are many many usb Bluetooth receivers out there um You might plug one of them into a long extension so that it's closer to the space wear your mouse and Trackpad and keyboard are I have found that with my mac mini m1. It's really crappy with my bluetooth keyboard and mouse Um, I always leave my trackpad. I have the apple trackpad I always leave it plugged in and when it's plugged in it's actually not just charging It's actually connected to the mac same with the keyboard So if you're using the apple keyboard and the apple trackpad, you can plug them with usb to a hub Old-school style and now they are permanently charged and hardwired to your mac But if you really got to be wireless, um, just get it get get a bluetooth receiver dongle for 20 bucks on amazon Uh and uh extend it and give that a shot I don't know how to get the mac to prefer one over the other That's uh, that's gonna take a little googling or uh asking on some apple tech forums because I don't know the answer to that question All right. Yeah, and I Bluetooth, I mean I I have a mac magic mouse Now this is this is not bluetooth. This is just this is uh, is it bluetooth? Yeah, it is blue. Oh, it is blue You think about that one Is that the one that takes batteries or the one that you have to recharge you got to recharge this one And it's in the bottom of the freaking mouse Yes, so yeah, so be in the end of the mouse where you can plug it in and charge it while you're using it Why I always keep A wired mouse hooked up When that happens, it's it's it's all of us do it except I no longer do now because I use the trackpad And I leave it plugged in all the time But yeah, that's just uh, you know apple gets it right 90 percent of the time The other 10 percent of the time they do bonehead stuff Like put the charger on the bottom of the mouse where you can't plug it in right, but I'm You know, I'm sure they're sitting there in the design meetings going I just put it here, you know, there's no place on the bottom where you know, so Yeah, design, you know, they're very they're very specific about their design requirements, but sometimes they just lose it Uh, grace newton asks again, uh, do you know someone reputable who offers a twisted wave course? I'm hesitant to go to youtube brood as there's a ton of misinformation on them interweb thingy Well, we've both done it. You've done one. I've done one. You've done one extra I've done a series of them in the last year Um, so if you want to see dan's go over to voiceover extra and just type twisted wave Yep, and then you want to find mine george the dot tech slash webinars Everything i've ever taught on george the tech is on that page Including all my uh twisted wave stuff. So yeah, there you go You know, we actually failed to mention at the top of the show. Sue says you're a little hot right now Oh, well, I can I can turn it down. There we go. Thanks. Uh, I probably because I got a little closer to the mic You and I do something that Basically, no one else does And that is work on home voiceover studios. And if you're watching exclusively Now there are people out there that are like, you know, I've been doing this for five years. So I can teach it Yeah, well, you know, there's It's not a perfect science. It really is an art and george and I are the Picasso and Monet's of home voiceover studios. How is that for a bizarre segue? There's a there's very specific things you have to think about with a home studio Every room is different. Every voice is different. Every situation is different You we have to consider your lifestyle. How is it that you want? You know, how is it that you want to be able to use your home studio? I was working with a Some clients last week a studio sent me over to talk to somebody And they're like, well, I wouldn't want to do this here in my living room I'm like, well, you have a closet. Well, no, this is the only place that I can do it Is here and I don't want to put up a room divider and I don't want to have all this stuff. I'm like then You're not there's no way to make you sound great without a whole lot of technical wizardry And we don't want to use the technical wizardry We want to create a studio that recreates or captures you as you exist and uh, so That's what we do. We find the best spot in your particular home Uh to set up a studio whether it's in a closet whether you think you need a booth What do you got a really quiet room and we can build you a You know a pvc booth or recommend something like the the tri booth or something along those lines Those are the types of things we do and people ask us these quite types of questions It's when they get into the really specific stuff like how big should the duct be on a On an exhaust system on an air vent and what type of fan and Really specific stuff. Well, guess what we actually know the answers to those things And and because we know how to look them up. We know how to google them But we've also experienced it ourselves. We built these these units ourselves We know what it takes to do that if you would like to work with one of us And get the top notch expertise you need To have your home voiceover studio recreate you and capture you as you exist You can work with one of us if you'd like to work with mr. Wittem. Where would they go? Oh, you can head over to george the dot tech. That's My name is my address. That's where all my tech support Access is you can find a tech menu with a whole menu of different types of services That we provide and if you're really in a pinch and you need an emergency support Yes, we do have that. We have a phone number a hotline. You can call 424 226 8528 and press the option 9 and that goes to our emergency Support help desk dispatch. It sends off my beeper It's it's more low tech than that they literally just start calling our list of approved and really talented techs that we have And uh, you will get patched through to somebody ASAP When i'm not available. So it's uh, it's we we love that plan and it's helped a lot of people Save a big gig. So those are ways we can help you dan has his own world over ads home voiceover studio dot com Uh brand new site. It finally got it's up there. The specimen collection cop is right up top Uh, so if you want to drop off a specimen of your audio, uh, you know unprocessed The way you would record without you know compression and noise reading. I want to hear what your studio sounds like When you use it and uh, you can uh, send that to me for 25 dollars I will give you a very thorough analysis Of what your audio is sounding like as opposed to what it's supposed to sound like unless of course It sounds like what it's supposed to sound like in which case i will tell you guess what it sounds what it's supposed to sound like Whistle exactly So should we do a more light lightning round? We still have a few more here Yeah, douglas the voice guy asks so which mics are dan and george using today Well, this is the mojave mojave 50 and then dan's got something really really unique. Yes. Well, this is a Homemade mic. I mean, I mean it's not homemade. I mean, I made it here in the studio but uh from our friends at mic parts dot com and it was a A donor body from an old mxl 2001 which was a really lousy mic Uh, but I got it for free when I bought something else 20 some years ago. Yeah, I mean 20 21 years ago Uh, but it's we stuffed it with new stuff. I did all the soldering I did all the stuff that we saw earlier that that dusty wakeman and his guys over at mojave do and it's got a a k47 capsule and the right Uh stuff in it and that's why george and I sound almost exactly the same tonight It's surprisingly similar and very much so which is which is good because usually, you know, if you're on your I'm often on a shotgun. Who knows what it sounds very different. Yeah Anyway, also in the same room. Well, that helps too and we're in the same environment We're running through the same exact preamp right in the same mixer There's a lot of reasons that we could get such similar sounds and it's hard to beat being in the same place Right, so that's why we're gonna start being in the same place far more often. Yeah, that's right We're gonna have to wear hazmat suits, but that doesn't matter Uh, jeff holman has a question says if you were building a booth in an unfinished basement What would the walls and floor and ceiling be made of well in an unfinished basement? Wood and concrete Oh, you mean floor would be concrete. Yes, you would just leave it right on the floor Right, there's no reason to have a floor you can put down a rug But you don't need to put a floor in right um the ceiling uh The ceiling's much more complicated because if anybody walking around upstairs You're gonna hear a footfall and I I guarantee it. It's uh, I've seen some very expensive builds Come out where someone's like, yeah, they didn't do it right and I can hear people walking around upstairs Yeah, well, it is the most difficult thing to get right is the is the ceiling The walls. I don't know drywall studs insulation Quiet rock. Yeah, I mean it's the walls are not are pretty simple on a basement setup Right, they don't have to be mega mega walls because unless there's going to be another family down there with you Well, your family or who knows what down there making noise You don't need to do a lot basement to get rid of sounds from the neighbors. So if you're below grant below grade There's not much noise coming in from the outside. That's right. And of course here in southern california. Who has a basement? Yeah, maybe just maybe are you hinting that you're moving or did you get a house with a basement? Well, his movie career has been taken off HBO is working out. That's right. He he can afford one of those houses over in beverly hill Loaded up the truck Last one from bob Lead him in the youtube. He says in another week or so I'm about to get delivery of the new m2 macbook air Oh Can I use migration assistant on my own to transfer contacts from computer to computer? Well, yeah, that's just one of a thousand things that migration assistant will transfer Um, but the contacts will come over as long as you're using assuming you're using apple Stuff like if you're logged in the iCloud and you're using Uh the contacts on your iphone and your mac and all that kind of stuff all that stuff Yeah, it should migrate over pretty nicely I don't know if I would migrate every like I don't know about migrating The apps it just depends on how old the other mac is. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean I When I got my new m1 When we got when you know, when you and I bought the new m1 minis year and a half ago about a year and a half ago at the same time Uh, and I tried to I had a migrate From the old one to the new one Somehow it burned out the old one and which reduced its value a whole lot and was not easy to get fixed We're not exactly sure why it did that but you know, but That's the one great thing about iCloud. Well, one of the great things about iCloud is that, you know, you just sign in and and it just It transfers everything. Yeah, it's it's almost as long as you're doing cloud backups with iCloud and you have all your contacts your Counter stuff your notes and everything that you want to be backed up It's almost better to just start new and not migrate and just let iCloud bring in the content you need and then if there's other files you can bring over you want to copy over that's fine but Going from an old system. You don't want to migrate over problems So if your user account had little issues or things would just funky Don't migrate if it was working perfectly and you were already on the most current update of the mac os and the machine Is an eight nine years old Probably will be okay, but i like fresh starts. I just find it almost always Comes out better when i'm starting from a fresh Machine without migrating everything over that's just been my experience. Have you noticed that? I mean my mac seems to be doing weird things and i i mean i love it It's fast and everything it's fast and quiet. It's fast and quiet But sometimes weird stuff happens, you know things will get lost. I was working on audition the earlier today And I couldn't find the razor blade and all the other stuff I'm like, where did it go and i'm like looking at that was an audition and wasn't in mac os It was in the app itself, huh? It was in the app itself. Yeah, and you know, but then I clicked on the top thing and Suddenly reappeared. I'm like, well, where'd you go? Yeah, I mean my macbook air when i'm using right now is on Not mac os mod array. I think you are too right 12. Are you on 12.4? I'm always on the latest. All right I They fixed they're still the fixing bugs And what I tell people ad nauseam is that if you're on the current os You're on the newest os when you're on the newest os You're not on the best os because they're still fixing it The best os was the last one the one that's not being repaired anymore That's already had all the patches and it's fully fully baked. So in my opinion probably the best os is still big sir Um, whereas monoray is still going through its growing pains So yeah, things are going to be a little bit funky. Well, they still be funky when ventura comes out Gosh, I hope not. I hope everything has been fully repaired But it's still 12.4. There could be a 12.5 At 12.51 2 3 4 5 6 7 The last update I got for big sir was 11.5.7. I think so they're still updating Um to get rid of some bugs and stuff like that. So yeah, yeah, this is technology It ain't getting easier We and and when you're going to be on the newest thing Expect there to be some unpredictable Things that uh take a little bit of patience to to sort out So be be prepared don't wipe the old computer and donate it the next day Right, keep it around for a little while Yeah, well, you know and for classic douglas voice cases would love to see a video of dan's mic mod if one exists No, you wouldn't I mean it's you know tubes and screwdrivers And all sorts of stuff hours and hours. It was no, it didn't take hours, but it was uh It's just soldering and following the instructions. Give me a go over to mic parts.com Exactly. They probably have some fun videos over there. Absolutely Alrighty, well, guess what another hour of your life has gone by and look how much better informed you are Uh, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be wrapping things up right after this. So don't go away Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else Hey there, it's david h. Lawrence the 17th What's it like for you when you check your email? And there is a voiceover audition waiting for you to dive in and You go great. This is awesome. And then that fear starts to creep in. Am I good enough? Do I know what i'm doing? Am I going to give them what they want? Listen, I've been there and so has my friend michael costroff Who is now one of my voiceover clients very excited about that He's applied his audition psych 101 process and method to voiceover And it's awesome. He's got three free Lessons right now that are available at audition psych 101.com slash join That's audition psych 101.com slash join go watch these right now by the time you watch this maybe they're all out Who knows? But it's worth every moment to help you get your mind right on the psychology of auditioning audition psych 101.com Slash join In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish They'll try it yourself Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voice over body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv And we're back good to hear her voice again. I think you're I think you're still muted. Oh man I think i'm not muted because uh, I hear myself I hear you too, but it says it says you're muted. Oh, well, I've been muted the whole time because we're running sound through you tonight Ah, well that would explain it. I know exactly. All right I actually did figure that out. Yes. Well, you've seen another hour of absolute magnificent technology Sort of flawless. Yeah Well, we'll just forget the less Anyway Oh boy, this was this was a fun day running around getting things edited Yeah, I really ran us ragged today did not you did at least we got to eat a little bit Uh, who are well next week on the show. Yeah, we have another great guest. Who's that's gonna be? Let's you know soon. We will know probably sooner than later Uh, let's see here. Who are our donors this week? We've got robert ledham steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tom pinto Shelly evalina patty gibbons greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions and the one of lonely. Yes. I martha con martha con yes Haven't seen martha in a while. Um, anyway, it's great that you're here and uh, we really appreciate it once again If you need help with your home voice over studio All you got to do is if you want to talk to me I'll be happy to talk to you if i'm home or by my phone go over to home voice over studio Dot com and there's all sorts of options there. You can Send me your audio on my specimen collection cup or contact me directly And uh, I can help you if you're just starting out or if you got a tech problem or any of those things Go on over I can help you out, but george does that as well and he's over at george the dot tech and uh When you're watching this if you're quick enough you can grab the webinar. I'm going to be teaching all august 2nd for universal audio apollo for vio covering Everything to do with the apollo for the voice actor who decided to plunge into buying one because somebody else Said you should get one of these And it wasn't us But if you bought one I'll I'll navigate you through the mess and show you how to set it up and that's on the webinar That's uh, you can sign up at george the dot tech slash webinars great if you're a musician voiceover It's gonna mess you up great if you're a producer Yeah, absolutely just a voice actor who wants to audition and book a job sometimes Way more than keep it simple. Yeah Which is the most important thing. Yeah, uh, we need to thank our amazing sponsors who are just great people Aside from being great sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements bio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and jmc demos and world voices dot org. That's world Slash dash voices dot or i'm the president. I should know that Dot org the industry association of Voiceover talent freelance voiceover talent. Uh, thank you to jeff holman Got all those questions in there was paying attention tonight. We really appreciate that and he's clearly moving to a much nicer house uh, and Sumer lino our wonderful technical director for getting it done and of course Be penny because he's be penny Anyway, that's gonna do it for us this week. You know, this is not an easy business voiceover takes all sorts of things You got to have talent. You don't have talent. Why even try it? You got to have Uh, you know quiet quiet. You got to have a you had to have good bass business acumen We had great marketing. Yeah, kelly buttrick on last week and she was talking about you gotta You got to get yourself out there. No one's gonna find the work for you. You got to go do it good people's skills right But it's really important that your audio sound good But the bottom line is if it sounds good, it is good. That's gonna do it for us I'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voiceover body shop or v o b s tech talk tech talk tech talk We'll see you next week. Have a good one everybody