 Hey, it's Monday night once again, and it's time for voiceover body shop everybody gathered out there in internet land Yeah, man Is it my turn to talk? Yeah, you can talk all you want. It's our show. We're gonna have a fun show tonight We got an audience full of folks here and put people that came all the way From Orange County. Yeah here with us tonight, which if you know LA, that's quite a journey Yeah, especially this time of day. You're not getting anywhere Tim Keenan is our guest tonight from creative media recording studios down there Great studio. We're gonna talk about all sorts of stuff Especially social media and how to act properly in the studio. Mm-hmm. Plus. We've got what's up in tech You've got an interesting story story shared to me by Maxine about you know Preparing for and doing e-learning might want to pay attention, right? And we're gonna talk a little bit about keeping your equipment cool and how cool is cool and why is stuff heating up all coming up on voiceover body shop two men Twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voiceover recording technology and the desire to make recording easy for voice actors everywhere together in one place George Whidham the home studio engineer to the stars a Virginia tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voiceover today Dan Leonard the home studio master a voice actor with over 30 years experience in Broadcasting and recording and a no-holds-barred myth-busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is together To bring you all the latest technology today's voiceover superstars and Leaving the discussion on how to make the most of your voiceover business This is voiceover body shop Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan's signature products Source elements remote connections made even easier Vio to go-go.com everything you need to be a successful voiceover artist J. Michael Collins demos award-winning demo production voice actor websites.com where your voice over website won't be a pain in the butt and voiceover extra your daily resource for Vio success and Now live from their super secret multimedia studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are George Wittem and Dan Leonard Good evening. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Wittem and this is voiceover body shop or Vio Yeah, wow, what's in that audience cavernous audience out there. It's huge auditory Yeah, there you go Well, good evening It's time for voiceover body shop our guest tonight is Tim Keenan good front of ours from down in Cyprus, California, which is like near Disneyland. I guess it's Disney and Jason Yes, I mean if you're actually like in the hotel at Disneyland, you can like almost see his place From up there. Maybe from the Tower of Terror Tower of Terror is not even there anymore. Oh, well, that they changed it to something else. Maybe it's a Harry Potter No, that's another park. I'm getting confused in all these parks. Yeah I was down in Orange County this on Sunday visiting my mom and I'm you know, you drive back on the on the five You certainly see the Matterhorn you can only see the Matterhorn going one way if you're heading north That's why it's behind it Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom apart, right? There's no There's no matter on down there. That's right. Yeah. Anyway, so We've got we're talking with Tim about some really cool stuff lots of different subjects We've got some tech if you've got a question for us George or I about your home voiceover studio Technological issues or a question about how you do something put it in the chat room Jack Daniels in our chat room tonight as he always is and he will relay those questions to us Now would be a really good time for that to start. Yes That just indicates that Mrs. Leonard is heading out We're heading in so I'm like, oh Yeah, she actually has a clean up the crumbs. Yes. She has a product that she's been trying to market. Yeah Originally was called can a breeze. Uh-huh, but somebody said well You can't really have the name canna in there because it's what it's wrong with a can of breeze Yeah, it's a can of breeze, but they had a change of the name Yeah, so the new name that we've come up with is because what it does is it neutralizes the smell of cannabis Yeah, so we she threw it out on Facebook. What should I call it? Somebody said crap. My parents are home You know or or or or shoot the kids are home You can market it in two ways Split marketing. Oh, absolutely. This one is more. Yes. Yes. Well, that's her latest venture. I love it Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Anyway enough of this dilly-dallying. It's now time for Extra It's time for the voice over extra news for July 16th 2018 Voices comm lawsuit in case you haven't heard voices comm is being sued The online casting giant has come under fire in recent years by voice actors who've discovered what appeared to be Large hidden fees in transactions that match voice seekers with voice talent These are what voices calls Managed fees and it's resulted in a number of canceled subscriptions among voice actors However, that is not what this suit is about this suit was filed by voice actor and coach J. Michael Collins alleging deceptive marketing specifically for voices comms on Authorized use of a video in its marketing in which Collins shares tips on how he obtains auditions and jobs using online casting Collins had recorded that video some time ago and gave permission to voices to use it in the firm's marketing Until he revoked that permission by email last August. That's about the time He also canceled his subscription to the online service Now Collins says voices agreed at that time to no longer provide a link to that video But in March this year Collins learned that voices was still linking the video in its marketing newsletters the lawsuit filed recently in the United States District Court Southern District of New York charges voices with quote unlawful conduct and deceptive trade practice and Says that this continued use of his likeness and implied endorsement of the firm has caused him irreparable harm Collins is opting for a jury trial to determine Compensatory and punitive damages is rep he's represented in this by the attorney and voice actor Rob Siglin Paglia You can read more details about this suit in an article now on voice over extra comm For several days prior to publishing this article voice over extra was in contact with voices CEO David Cicerelli and the head of voices public relations department Inviting the firm to comment their initial response was that they had not yet seen the complaint So couldn't comment in those contacts voice over extra had forwarded a copy of the complaint to the firm and the video in question was Reportedly removed last Thursday No further comment about this has been received from voices comm Interestingly voices over extra did receive a voice message late last week from voices marketing director to introduce herself Voice over extra is also seeking an update on the class action suit filed in April by several women in New York Against voice actor trainer Peter Rofa They allege sexual harassment and assault during training and recording sessions with Rofa We'll keep you posted on both suits Meanwhile check out the details along with hundreds of additional helpful articles at voice over extra comm your daily resource voice over success Well, I didn't really expect our news to actually turn into like news like this kind of news I did what's going on around here? Well, it's there's news Reporting the news. That's what we're supposed to be doing over. There's actually voice over news Sometimes it's like I find some news Okay, it's the same old stuff. Yeah. Yeah, there's yeah, there's a little bit of drama happening out there in the world of voice over So what's up in tech with you this week? Well, I didn't see anything really particularly interesting from a like nuts and bolts microphones and wires perspective But I did get an interesting have a great experience that actually recently in Hearing a story a tale of learning Dealing and working through an e-learning project Maxine actually is experiencing the process of recording editing and basically doing the import tire process of an e-learning project right now and She's learned that tools of the trade are required to make it doable in a reasonable time frame It's been a very difficult project because e-learning is one of those types of voice over that requires a lot of Steps for the voice actor to execute dividing files into many small pieces Labeling those files consistent sound quality all the way. There's a lot of things to sort out So basically what she's learned along the way and what you guys are going to want to know when you start into an e-learning project is Because there's so many files that have to be generated You don't want to just do it maybe the way you're accustomed to when recording a narration Or even possibly an audiobook there are techniques you want to learn and This is a really important thing when you're trying to get through a project of this nature now Maxine happens to use soundforge out there on the web thanks to Dan Leonard and a video that actually I Located on Twitter by the way and this is an aside this video Dan produced numerous several years ago Yeah, what four or five years ago five years and it was for twisted wave and the timing of this tweet that happened to pop up in the Was amazing because Maxine was struggling with this and I was trying I was like, you know I I know I've seen a video somewhere that explains how to make this easier boom Up comes a tweet from our Twitter system saying have you seen this video on e-learning? Maxine gave it a look and the video outlines how to split your files in Using the markers split the file into a lot of smaller files in an automated way that Saves a huge amount of time So that was one thing that was a big game changer for her that sped things up But another thing is also using keyboard shortcuts Now I'm a bit of a computer geek and I've always liked using keyboard shortcuts I've always thought they were an important part of being fast, but I've never been like a nut about them I know people that are extremely keyboard shortcut centric I use a little bit of this a little bit of that not that much But in the process of doing this kind of work using keyboard shortcut shortcuts can be a massive Time-saver when you're doing things that are really redundant using a mouse will slow you down They may not seem that way but going to the drop-down menus doing this over and over You can do that far faster using keys for keyboard shortcuts. It's not a matter of learning every keyboard shortcut It's a matter of learning the right keyboard shortcuts And so learning a few keyboard shortcuts are going to speed things up for you dramatically So if you do decide to take on any learning project Make sure you've got some of the right tools at your disposal learn some keyboard shortcuts for your software Use a software that's really designed for this kind of production work I don't know too many people that can do what you can do with sound forage and twist a wave in Things like pro tools, you know pro tools is a fantastic tool for recording and doing mix and production But we're gonna convert and make hundreds of small files Tools that are really designed for editing and generating files like twisted wave and sound forage Probably a better tool for you as you mentioned earlier Adobe audition right also has similar capability Yeah, it's it's a little contrived But if you you right-click on a mark you can stretch it out and create a range and then Separate it by ranges you can name all the ranges all the markers and it works just as well Great if you're doing like multiple takes or if you're doing several different spots And you need to send them a separate files like you know do three four takes or something and then send it out That way the thing that makes it unique and if you watch Dan's video Just go on go on YouTube search search for Dan Leonard e-learning Anthony get it also has a video Why these softwares do what they do so well is because they allow you to do an interesting trick Which is select a range of audio with a marker in it and move or copy that audio and paste the marker That may not sound like a big deal, but things like pro tools or Reaper any multitrack software audacity The marker stays locked in time doesn't follow the selection necessarily right so it's harder to do something like this now My expertise on the on those systems is a little bit limited There may be ways to do it and if you have a way to do what we can do and twist a wave and sound forge with those other Dawes, why don't you type it down below in the comments on YouTube and we'll share it with everybody But that was a revelation and it's really dramatically speeding up her workflow on this project When I discovered that feature and twisted wave it cut my editing time on long e-learning stuff where there'd be like 9100 files that I had to separate out and it cut my editing time by more than a third Wow That's really it used to be there was like three to one was like the editing ratio on long format stuff And it's down to you to me. It's like it's one-to-one essentially. I know the math doesn't add up there But I'm not a mathematician One point one to one. I'm a voice actor Engineers it's much much much faster. So basically learn your tools folks. Don't slog it out You know, you might get a project thrown your lap and you're gonna get it done Sometimes you just have to stop regroup learn a few new tricks and then soldier on because it could end up saving you a Lot of time in the end it might be worth it for you to learn something midstream Excellent. Alrighty. Well, Tim Kenan's coming up in just a little bit we have some discussion stuff a couple of questions to deal with and We'll take care of all of that right after these messages. Don't go away Thrilling days of yesteryear and we find our heroes Sheriff Dan and Marshall George on a dusty stakeout at voice over Gulch Let's see what drama is about to take place This is Anthony Mendez and you're watching voice over body shop Okay, you want to be an audiobook narrator, but you don't know where to turn for the best training and The truth about working successfully with ACX Here's your golden ticket registration for the 2018 ACX home study audiobook masterclass is now open for a very limited time at ACX masterclass.com forward slash register you'll get four weeks of absolutely Transformational training via audio video and online with support every step of the way and you'll be led by none other than David H. Lawrence the 17th and Dan O day whose past students have narrated and produced close to 3000 audiobooks on the ACX platform go to ACX masterclass com forward slash register and when you register before 9 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday July 19th today's the 16th. So that's kind of okay Anyway, David and Dan will pay your first five hundred dollars of your tuition act fast ACX masterclass.com forward slash Register do what you've dreamed of doing narrating audiobooks as part of your VO portfolio Go to ACX masterclass.com forward slash register. That's ACX masterclass.com forward slash register As a voice talent you have to have a website But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do they break or don't look right on mobile devices They're not built for marketing and SEO. They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voice actor websites.com like our name implies voice actor websites.com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as seven hundred dollars So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voice actor websites.com where your VO website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? And we're back on voice over body shop Fun week if you're dealing with people with audio problems Had one this week where it's always fun someone sent me some audio and said there's some digital schmutz in it Schmutz digital Schmutz came to the right guy. I am absolutely because I know what Schmutz means Anyway, I'm listening and I'm hearing I'm like yeah, but it's not digital and She sends me you know I said send me a raw file because she you know she was using your stack and all this stuff Mm-hmm, and then I hear the entire thing and at the end I hear all right. Can you do that one again? It's the phone. Oh the phone patch was in the mix Mix minus ladies and gentlemen. Yes. This is where we get to explain the concept of mix minus Well, we can talk about it. We'll get to it But the idea is that this is what charge and I do all day We pull we get phone calls and emails and audio and people send us this stuff and with one little listen We know what the problem is. Yeah, it's the phone. Yeah, I hope she's not watching anyway I didn't name any names. I did not know but she knows who she is Anyway, but if you need if you need help you don't know who you are Sorry, don't call us. Yeah, really If you need help with your home studio, there's only two places you should go one of them is to go see mr. Widow and where do you get him? I'm over at George the tech comm where you can book me on the website. I have an automated scheduler There's also a whole bunch of self-service stuff where you send your files in and I send it back to you And that's where you find me Dan. How about you? Well, they can find me over at home voiceover studio Dot-com where you can read all about me and go eh But then you'll see all the stuff that we do over at home voiceover studio dot-com Like listen to your audio for 25 bucks I will analyze your audio and see if it's up to snuff and if not we'll get it snuffing Mm-hmm. It's it's the way we we look at things and how we fix them and we have heard Many audio files. We need to bring back bad audio of the week if any We did that submit their audio we used to do a segment called bad audio of the week It was it was great because everybody learned a lot Yeah, and then people started searching for bad audio and sending us all sorts of garbage. Yeah, that's true Anyway, if you need help with your home studio, we're the guys that do that So anyway, we had a question before we get into our topic of the evening From Fred north do we want to do we want to go a little further into what that phone patch thing was about? Well, she was holding the phone up to her ear. Oh, she was doing it that way. Yeah, so she had an on speaker phone Yeah, okay There's a couple ways of doing a mix minus I won't get into the details of why we call it that if you don't have a mixer mix minus is kind of like Kind of irrelevant But if you're gonna use a phone as your phone patch totally acceptable It just use an earpiece plug plug in a earbud in or something so it's in just your ear because You never know what's gonna get into the mic. You don't want to ruin a take You don't want to have that thing going on. That's an easy fix, right? And as she said, I'm not gonna be doing that again. No, well, you know, you don't know you don't know That's right. Anyway, Fred north sent in a question this week and the first we invite your questions He said how quiet is good enough for a home studio? What's the target noise floor? Well, first we have to explain what a noise floor is noise floor room tone to two terms get flip-flopped all the time and mish-mashed around right and You know, it's is the way I describe it. There's this phrase of signal to noise ratio and And signal being your voice. That's the that's the loud stuff, right? That bounces along up here, right? It's supposed to be just your voice and noise is everything else That's the junk down here at the bottom that you know, you see when you're not speaking that crud in the waveform That's the noise and when we were deciding upon you me uncle Roy and And Cliff were deciding on what were the standards for home voiceover studios We decided on We looked at minus 50 DB, but we moved it up to minus 55 or down as the case may be or down Oh, hey, look at it. That's negative numbers. I always get confused But minus 55 is what you really want to shoot for but you want to get it quieter You really want to yeah, and it's not easy to do we're talking about peak by the way So if you're looking at your meter for example in twist away, there's a little number at the top of the meter That's the peak level. There's one at the bottom. That's the RMS level the RMS level is not what we're talking about, right? That's what ACX is talking about. That's confusing. That's and that's a whole no ACX gives you a speck of minus 60 DB noise floor but RMS which is a lot easier to achieve than a peak level of Minus 60 or minus 55, right? Yeah, now we decided on that because once that gets down to that level It's It's somewhat inaudible depending on the frequency of the noise. That's the other thing Yeah, so you know, what's the frequency of the noise right the lower the frequency of the noise the less audible it tends to be right? Yeah, you know, it's down there and you'll see the meter going like this rumble is really hard to hear Yeah, the meter goes berserk, but you don't really hear it right the fortunate thing about rumbles is it's really I think the Easiest thing to clean up. Yeah a high-pass filter you can very quickly eliminate that from your recording It's below the level of your voice's frequency because the human voice is really what between You know I say 80 Hertz in 1616 K That's the siblings. Yes tops out around 15 16 K. Yeah, so That's how quiet you've got to get your studio. How you get it Everybody has tried just about everything. We talked about noise reduction right as like sort of a last resort, right? So you want to do the noise reduction physically and you really do get the initial noise floor in your booth or your living room Or wherever it is you're recording down to about minus 55 minus 60 I mean maybe Tim later will tell us about the noise floor of his studio. That's always a piece of I'll bet it's infinite That's a that's a bragging right for a professional studio, right? Unless there's like a you know a C-130 landing at the Air Force base and shakes the entire earth. I'm sure that happens occasionally I mean Or Air Force one Air Force one No, I mean we we go kind of nuts for that number and and sometimes You know some people send me a sample on the sound check and I'll look at the meter and it says minus 43 or minus 35 And I'm not bad. Well, I'm not so great. We're not so great Then I'll just apply a high-pass filter just I hit H on twist away I've hit enter and then I do another sound check or do another Meter check and by the way, here's another thing that people get wrong when you're measuring noise floor don't normalize The room tone What I mean is don't select just the room tone and then normalize it and go oh my gosh It's so loud Well, that's exactly what's gonna happen if you select room tone Normalize it you're taking the room tone and bringing it really really really loud So don't do that always record your voice and the room tone in context, right? You need that signal to noise ratio to get a to get an accurate reading. Exactly. That's really important Yeah, now the question we have tonight. You mean there's a question. Well, that was a question This was the question I posed tonight as I was sitting around going what was filling time man I know we're not you're just talking on here. Okay, okay Studio environment how cool should you keep the equipment now? If you've ever walked into a TV studio, yeah, you got to wear a sweater in the middle of summer It's true. They air-conditioned the heck out. I think they did it for two reasons Okay, one is to keep the equipment cool right to is so you don't fall asleep. Ah It's a lot harder to pass out and just kind of get you know groggy when it's cold Right, you've ever been in a TV state, you know in a game show or something like they keep the energy level up Yes, they do. You're exhausted. You got to keep moving around Let's make a deal last year and it was like You want to stay for another? No, I'm good What kind of experience have you had with overheating equipment? Well, my computer tends to get hot I remember that Apple had a problem with a battery About ten years ago and they replaced the batteries. I actually had a fan that would cool off. You know the Machine I think it's probably more critical on computers than anything else because everything else is solid state. Yeah, and But do things fail when they get overheated? I mean, do some things have thermal fuses and do interfaces start to do weird things when they warm up and why? Well, yeah, I mean if something gets if a circuit gets hot enough It can reach a failure point and every piece of gear you buy There's always somewhere in the boring specs at the very bottom of the instructions or something It's like the operating range the temperature operating range of that piece of gear It's usually pretty wide like minus minus 40 degrees or something to a hundred Design to work in your car in the middle of summer. Yeah, yeah, that sort of thing But um, you'll feel you'll find there's an upper limit to that and how will you know if it's overheating? Basically erratic behavior like it's just acting really strange. You don't really know why dropouts Yeah, just just unpredictable behavior with computers. It's a little more obvious first of all almost always the fan goes berserk That's kind of obvious hairdryer Yeah, the fan goes to full blast and eventually a computer will protect itself and it does that by slowing down the clock speed Which basically means your computer gets slow So if you're experiencing really bad performance and your computer fans go and berserk It could be because there's somebody controlling your computer and turning into a botnet and attacking you or It could mean that your computer is just Reaching its maximum temperature and it needs to protect itself in the old days computers didn't have that and I remember watching a video years ago where someone would remove the heat sink off of a computer and The that the dye where the chip is, you know the actual chip inside Yeah, what reached the point of heat failure within seconds Wow, they'd pull it off and it would immediately it would start to discolor and burn out That's how fast those things can burn out now the new computer that we run the show on has a liquid cooling system Yeah, it's not happening to our thing. Yeah, that thing is running some major horsepower. Yeah No, it's incredible that the CPU and your computer is really like the size of a postage stamp And then you have a huge heat sink on top of that an even bigger fan on top of that Trying to dissipate the heat that's coming off that ship. It's pretty Mind-boggling how much heat comes out of that thing. It just makes you think how much heat your brain is can you know creating? Yeah, I mean what are we we put out like a hundred something watts something heat event heat energy Just just sitting there talking. Yeah, but yeah, some of us more do your best to keep it cool You know, it's most homes basically if you're too hot to work the computer probably is It's probably not likely the computer is gonna fail if if you're still working But you know it every studio is different and if it's getting slow time to cool things down take a break It's a good chance to take a break turn the air conditioning back on and if you got a see why I hope you do Yeah Alrighty well, we're gonna keep things really cool here with Tim Keenan in just a couple minutes So stay tuned. We'll be right back to talk to him and answer your questions after these messages Are you confused about how to set up and maintain a professional quality voiceover studio? No wonder the information out there is mostly Mythology this is the best microphone to use you'll have to have a preamp. You need a soundproof booth This software is the best your audio must be broad cast quality Consult with someone who knows the truth someone who's been there in the trenches doing voiceover for over 30 years someone with unparalleled experience with voiceover studios who's worked with hundreds of voice actors and designed hundreds of personal studios He knows how to teach and cares about your success in one of the harshest environments known to voiceover your home Dan Leonard the home studio master Separate myth from fact and get a handle on your personal voiceover studio Contact the home studio master at home voiceover studio comm drop off a specimen of your dry audio for a free analysis Hey everybody Well, this is the point in the show where I get to talk about our friends at source elements and the cool software They make called source connect and they've got a lot of stuff They got source connect source connect now source live source zip you'd be kind of amazed at how many products They have every time I go to their website. I swear I see something new But the thing that you probably want to know about the most because it's the tool that it's going to allow You to connect to clients all around the world and play at that kind of that next level of voiceover where you're live directed and Live recorded by the studio that tool is source connect and you can get a free trial right now over its source dash elements calm 15-day free trial of source connect standard the beauty of that software is it doesn't require any Hardware I lock dongle USB thing of a jig to use it You can immediately download and start trying the software out Then if you decide you like it you can pay for it up front and own that license forever Some people really prefer that or if that's a little bit dear to you Or you'd really rather have an ongoing support contract with ongoing upgrades updates You can actually do a subscription model for that software But go give it a shot let them know that we sent you over there because we really appreciate them sticking around and they know We're we're sending you they'll they'll keep sending us money and we'll keep the show in the air So thanks for watching. Thanks for sponsoring us and we'll be right back here with Dan and Tim We're right over there Let's let's take that again because I've been I was so busy Revelling in how great my spot was that I didn't have their mic on And take a bad habit of doing that. Okay, and Alrighty, it's time to introduce our guest Tim Keenan and Tim for the last three decades is owned and operated creative media Recording in Cyprus, California. It's a professional media recording studio Serving independent producers corporations and ad agencies throughout Southern, California And he runs this with his lovely life wife Linda who really runs the place. Let's welcome Tim Keenan Tim, how you doing? Welcome. Thank you. Great to see you. Welcome to the the clubhouse here. Hey, this was fun Yeah, what's great to have you here watching that sunset as I drove up here to the studio It's kind of blinding coming at 405, you know, depending on what direction you're going it is. I mean, this is California here That's it. Anywho, how did you get into owning a recording studio? Wow? That is really a good question That's why I asked it like a lot of voiceover people. I started out in radio and I was pursuing a you know as a radio TV major at Cal State Long Beach and ran a radio station there on campus at the time I started actually in high school kind of all the radio in high school and Went to work in radio a couple of different stations and the last station. I worked at The chief engineer of that station had started creative media and he says hey Would you like to come do some freelance work for me and where this big projects We're working on above all I could use a freelancer. Sure. I was he could see I was into production that's my background is the production side of it and I said, what is it that you're doing? So I have this army contract with this producer We're doing all these army training programs hundreds literally hundreds of army training programs So that's kind of where I started cut my teeth and right, you know got involved in Exposed me to the whole non broadcast corporate side of production that kind of is a forgotten part of the business proper use of a bayonet There you go And then put it back together But the cool thing was we got to use lots of talent worked a lot of different talent music sound effects production It was it was an elaborate project. It wasn't your grandma's Training as they say related to e-learning, you know, so how did you come in possession totally of this operation? It was yeah kind of a long story But the owner had lost interest in the business when he inherited some land in the high desert And he was a chief engineer at multiple radio stations and it was like hard to keep it busy and the whole time I worked for him. I said boy if I ran this studio, I would do this totally different whoa got my opportunity and They actually carried a note for us when we bought it Then I bought it and it helped us, you know as a mentor and got us into it and then Slowly built the business up and built a new studio in Cyprus exactly 30 years ago Wow, and there the rest is history. Yeah, that's a beautiful studio. Thank you It's always fun to walk in there and go this is really cool. It's 30 years old. Yes held up Yeah, what's really cool is going in the back room and seeing all the stuff. I want to buy there you go These the old the old tape machines 16 track analog. Yeah, those were the days Yes, you know somebody was somebody was asking the other day What'll last a while I said an Ampex mono recorder from a radio station still work still work clunk It's a ton. You know and a little it'll but you know Still got edit with that and and that's the way you learn to edit ways. Yeah a little bit if you learn that way This was only like drawing with crayons doing it digitally it really it really so much simpler and yes Yes, definitely, but it was a learning curve. Definitely, you know, when did when did you transition to? I would say in the 90s. Yeah, we transitioned with the early system in the 90s and Then went, you know to PC based system Initially and now Mac based how many different microphones do you have in the locker there? I you know, I've been weaning myself Microphone collection and have some for sale as a matter of fact So I'm limited it down to about four or five that we use on a regular basis. What do you usually use? Audio-technical 4033 is kind of the one, you know, my go-to mic But we own a Neumann u87 which I pull out for some people and AT-4040 which is a little kind of a different sound than the 43 here. It's a little brighter. I Won an AKG mic called an icon from music connection and I actually like it. It's very quiet It's got a different sound. So I pull that out when we're doing demos or something like that I don't own a shotgun mic. Oh, you don't have a 416 because we've never really done a lot of promos Don't you know that the the sound never turned me on and I never wanted to invest in one and So there you go. That's the sound that your studio has there you go Yeah, no, we have two studios in there. What goes on in those two? so we have two different production rooms and one booth in between two production rooms and Initially when we were when we first opened that studio in the late 80s It was a go-go time and we would book a narration like a nine o'clock that way and a ten o'clock that way But we also do a lot of things that aren't voiceover related We do a lot of post-production things and so that's why we could get away with doing two studios and one booth in between And that's mixing music and sound effects and we do foreign language conversions of projects We do you know what then after we record we do a lot of editing and file making and all those things and So yeah now studio B is more of an overflow studio that we use for Editing multiple projects. So when we got things going we can be in the booth and somebody can be editing in studio B So any big-name talent that have wandered through your doors. Oh, you bet Well, you know the the great thing for me is I started in this business like we said 30 years ago And I've seen you know Sadly people pass away or the fabulous voice-over people we worked with one in particular that comes to mind is a guy That name of Larry Burrell. He was a TV newscaster in LA in the 80s 70s and 80s and very prolific narrator on the side Because you know, you know what the TV newscaster deal is right and during the day He was running around doing studio work great narrator And I'll share one of the tricks that he did because I love to share this story when we were doing, you know, he did a lot of corporate narration say a 10 minute 15 minute show and Everything that we do at our studio is a directed session So the directors they are giving direction and we're stopping and starting and we'll get through the whole 10 minute show And maybe a half hour and when it's all done What do you think mr. Client the client would say wow that was fabulous. I loved it Larry would say, you know Just for me, I'd like to do the whole thing over again now that I know the direction everything else and The client said You won't let's try it right boom He would do the whole 10 minutes make a few mistakes Remember all the direction and give a fabulous performance and the client said that was even better Time after time after time and that was just the something that made that talent Stand out and guess what they would call him back and they would say let's get that Larry Borell again And you know lots other folks and Bill Ratner Andre Stoica used to come in the old studio years ago and then they got ISDN and home studios Tom came is a friend of mine and I started Working with Tom when he owned an ad agency and used to do voiceover for his own projects And then he came to us one day and said yeah, I'm getting rid of my agency and I'm going the voice over visit So I looked at each other what give a successful ad agency. No, I'm gonna give it a shot and The rest is history voice of Yoda He's done, you know tremendous games and oh, yeah done the Oscars three times great guys They'll keep in touch but he just went on Twitter for the first time. Well, he's some people are catching up 21st century Yeah, absolutely now you're let's talk a little bit about the voiceover business because you deal with voice actors, right all the time Yeah You're a big proponent of social media or at least of networking and right because this is a business of relationships exactly So what what advice do you have for people that are you know trying to get going in sure one of the things that I love Social media and it's been successful for my business and live social media in particular I love live social media and I found that you know people like to make that face-to-face connection Sure Facebook is cool and there's groups and Twitter and I've been on Twitter for a long time I'm not in Facebook, but one of these days LinkedIn LinkedIn is a valuable tool Tracy Lindley has that great Course webinar that she does a course about but and here's the basis of Tracy's Thing on LinkedIn that I learned on Twitter, you know eight years ago that the people that you want to interact with and socialize with Yes, it's great to have a network of voiceover people and it's great to know that you guys as a resource to voiceover Important that they don't hire people exactly you want to go to where the clients are the potential Clients documentary producers video producers filmmakers e-learning producers Instructional designers, that's who you want to socialize with live and social media on meetup meetup.com You can find all kinds of meetups for instructional designers and e-learning folks and you should go and participate in those Why you know, oh, I'm a voiceover person. What do I know about e-learning? You read e-learning scripts and have a lot to contribute and maybe throw out some advice and when people say Well, you're an e-learning narrator. Well, you seem like a normal person. You have a car, you know, and it's like boom That's how it works. Yeah Say someone is just starting out. Mm-hmm. What would you suggest is the first thing they should do in Networking because they're not gonna know anybody. That's true. Well, I always say start locally because there's lots of opportunities locally Chamber of Commerce is one There are like I said meetup.com meetup.com has meetups in every you know city around the country but Google is your friend, you know Find video producers that are in the area use me association called ITVA became MC AI Now there are a couple of chapters that are still active Liz Dineshner is very active in her chapter in the east We have a very active chapter in Orange County of it's called SoCal media pros now Because they've disbanded MC AI, but it's video producers to get together once a month and share Share information about you know the technology and what's new and what's hot and they'll recap NAB and that kind of stuff So you're hanging with those people and many voiceover people come hang with them because they want to find out what's new in technology But they also want to have that face-to-face Contact with people so big proponent in that yeah now is someone who also cast voiceover talent now you're you're in there I take it that Clients say can you find me a voice and then I'm sure that happens once a day or something some people call that old school Yeah, but in Southern, California I think there's a lot of that that goes on and actually I have found Because I have a client that likes us to find that they record subject matter experts in other parts of the country So I've had to run around and search for studios in other parts of the country and the most surprising places, Texas And you know just things that you wouldn't think that that are the hubs of wherever and I have found many other studios like ours Run by one person or two people or a husband or wife who do the same kind of thing that we do that cast voices They I see on their website. They have a pool of talent you know, it's so There is hope for everybody in the country to find a look I'm a high proponent of finding a local studio and making a relationship with a local studio that does this kind of recording Sure, there's lots of music studios out there, but there are a lot of media studios out there as well Yeah, and so when I say old-school. Well, when I started in the 80s, there weren't places to there was no voice one two three and voices Dot com to find voice talent or any capedal go any other casting sites Now, you mean you just Google search it and everybody's a voice talent. You find out everybody But because we've been in the business a long time and I have clients that I've had for 20 25 30 years plus that have stayed loyal to me and The ones that are busy that that are concerned about their time We'll just make one email one phone call to us and we'll help them find a voice or you know It's still quite a few clients like that now I'm sure you've heard lots of different voices and all types of people when you know if you're networking like this Yes, if somebody's new and you're like well, this is this is an interesting person I might want you know might want to let you know audition them or try them on a project How does someone prepare if they're not used to actually working in a studio? Or with a producer or somebody else How it's the best way to prepare for a first I would hope that if they personize training that the training is with somebody live training Where they're coaching or directing or whatever because doing a project with a director or with two directors or with a client Is much like that you're just doing the read and you're getting feedback and direction You're taking it in and you're doing your performance not being feeling like you're being criticized or We're not coaching. We're directing, you know, we're trying to you know pull the best We're all the same side and we're all trying to pull the best performance out, you know, so There's that yeah, it is it is a challenge I we've actually had a few people say you know what I don't do directed sessions We only do directed sessions at our studio right that means either a director is there in the room with us a director's Listening on the phone and I I've actually mixed the phone with the with the talent Even a professional studio person Wait wait wait, I realize my mistake. Let's do it over right right now Something wrong one thing I've learned is that when you do make a mistake like just like we did at the beginning of this segment You have to like immediately call it. I screwed up. Let's do it again, you know, like don't go Notice They'll notice so then but I've actually had a couple people say that you know I I don't feel comfortable being directed live or or doing directed sessions Well, if you aspire to doing high-end commercials and you aspire to doing the best of the best and getting paid a lot of money Better get over it. Oh, that's what those are the those are the sessions you want Those are the sessions where when a client talks to you and here's your delivery and here's you take direction Here's your performance. That's how you build loyalty That's how you build client loyalty the director appreciates it and I can't tell you how many times people Come back and say, you know, let's get that person We had last time because wow that was so easy and she performed so well and I love what she did being directed as a treat It is a treat when you're alone in your studio all the time going how should I do this? This is something different. Yes. This is like no second chance that way It's much more fun. It cuts down on re-dos it cuts down on callbacks and pickups and those kinds of things believe me when we're done We've gotten all opportunities to get all our possible choices and that's it and I guess the other good thing about it is We do all the editing we do all the editing post-production So it's you get to do what your favorite thing to do is is read So those are the kinds of clients you want and there's lots people out there still doing that. All right Hey, if you're just joining us, you've missed a whole lot already We're talking with Tim Keenan from creative media recording in Cyprus, California Which is just south to here about 40 miles and but that's it art It's Orange County, but it's still it's LA right. It's it's we like to say five miles from Disneyland Yeah, because surprisingly I have a couple of clients a couple of voice talents who come from like the Bay Area and On it to Disneyland on a regular basis. Yeah, and we're their go-to studio because we're five miles away I'm sure they could set up the pillow fort in the hotel room But if it's an ISDN session or something that they need right away, right? We're just five miles away absolutely at the convention center we picked up business from that Excellent location location. That's it. It's it's always location If you've got a question for Tim throw it in the chat room right now and our czar of social media Jack Daniel will relay that question to us in our next segment. So Put it in the chat room right now What about demos do you do demos over there? Yeah, I'm sure you do yes, I do demos You know, I I would let me put it this way I do demos, but I don't sell myself as a demo producer. I've never really promoted the demo production side of it I'm more so lately because You know the studio business has evolved and changed and I also feel like I have something to contribute But I've been producing demos for people friends voiceover people Primarily they were compilation demos You know some of you come in with a stack of things or a list of YouTube sites and say hey Tim You know what you have a great ear you pick these are the things that I think we're good that people complimented me on and let's cut Something together right and what services do you provide of that you provide the scripts or I do yes Because primarily for the corporate side of it e-learning and corporate and medical because that's our specialty of our Studio business, you know 70% of it is the corporate non-broadcast side of it Right and 30% is we have a couple of really nice commercial accounts We just commercial stuff for so you probably have a tower of Babel of Scripts lying that's it and I draw from our you know real projects real projects that we've done and And also some other material that I've gathered so that's my forte is the corporate side of it I'm I can do a killer commercial demo. I've done a few of those too And I but as if you want a promo demo go to somebody who specializes it if you want an animation demo I recommend other people go to someplace and have an animation demo lights done by somebody else because I don't do a whole lot of animation When someone is doing a demo because I think a lot of people are like I gotta have a demo Mm-hmm. I have my own opinions about how demos are supposed to be sure I don't produce it I could but I don't right let you guys that do them all day do it cuz I have other things to do I gotta go walk the dog and various other things, but What do you expect from the talent when they're going to prepare a demo What do you tell them and how do they what when do they know they're even ready to exactly? Well, I think you can tell you know dealing with somebody when somebody's ready and not not you know They've reached a certain level where they've prepared they read every day. They've worked with a coach They've worked with a coach to maybe prepare some of the material for their demo You know, I would say the difference now I own a studio and people say well, you're a technical guy Can you help me with this technical stuff? No That's what differentiates me from the two of you guys is that you guys came from the engineering technical Background and I came from the production side So while I have a little bit of technical knowledge my background is production And so I bring my production expertise to the table and all the projects that we work on including demos So clients hire me because I have production expertise. We do sweetening. We've cleaned up projects for people for videos We've done audio for video. We've done, you know gobs and gobs of just straight narration e-learning But we've also done foreign language versions as I mentioned and we have resources for finding talent for that and and helping Do the translation soup to nuts that kind of thing So I let the technical guys do the technical stuff and I do the production stuff So that's kind of what I bring to the table is I hundreds of production Disks and music libraries and resources to drop from production music and sound effects because I've gathered all that stuff And that's the important stuff is to have that have the elements that you to uses exactly for background And for the production that you do now and that's the difference between a studio like yours correct and someone with a Home studio. It's a completely different environment Now and I'm sure you I mean you have ISDN Yes, the source connected you you do remote sessions with people or so people send you audio What do you expect from them and and and how you know and and how bad are some of the studios? Well, you touch and then can I have their names? Yes, you touch on it because it's it's earlier when you were talking about the technical side of it the noise floor If you're gonna work for somebody like us for a studio that's directed you have to have a great Facility that's very quiet because I'm gonna hear that as soon as I dial in That's not something like a post-production patch would fix you've got to have that dialed in so that when we connect via IPDTL You know, I don't have source connect and I need to get source connect I see they're one of your sponsors, so we'll talk afterwards And but I we've had ISDN for many years In fact what prompted the ISDN was a lot of voiceover people were not able to come down anymore Well, please Bill Ratner is an example because he landed an account that was broadcast account that needed he needed to be close to the studio So he couldn't run to far away studios like Orange County He could go within a few miles of his home and eventually it's like boom it had to be ISDN So I said well, let's look at this ISDN thing So we got ISDN early on and we're a resource for ISDN for like NPR We're in their database any NPR station around the country if there's a subject matter expert near Disneyland in our area Doing let's say a book tour or something like that. They've tend to find us We've had Guy Fieri in our studio doing triners driving the dives the production company found us We didn't do it ISDN actually we did a phone patch, but they found us because we're listed in all these resource guides at primarily as ISDN and a remote studio resource and So, you know, that's opened up a lot of doors for us to have that technology But as soon as you click in with ISDN or IPDTL or Connection open. I've used very successfully one particular talent. The two of us have connected with that better than any other Any other element and that was something I got from Dave Kravase Yeah, and You hear dogs barking and leaf blowers and children and things like that Yeah, so you've got to have your noise floor down You've got to have a quiet studio to be able to work it with directed sessions and outside studios Yeah, here's a well, let's change gears here for a second. Mm-hmm aside from having a very successful recording studio in Cyprus You also have been very civically minded now last week We had Mike lens on the show who used to be the mayor of Saratoga Springs in upstate, New York You are the mayor you served on a city council and we're mayor of Cyprus for a couple years Tell us a little bit about your your political career Well, it was a few years after we had moved to Cyprus and I had spent a lot of money building a beautiful studio in Cyprus They wanted to build a casino in the nearby Los Alamedos racetrack, which is in the city of Cyprus and My wife and I said a casino. Mmm. That's not really something we want to have close to our business You know Cyprus has it's an image town There's the headquarters of Mitsubishi Motors and Yamaha corporation and some big name people United Health has 3,000 employees there name people and it was this was a California style casinos before the Indian casinos came to California and We just have that's not something that we really want so As citizens we challenged that and got politically active and wouldn't you know We defeated the casino by spending we raised about $16,000 including some pro bono legal help and the casino spent half a million dollars And the citizens one it was like David versus lawyers one. Yeah, there you go. No, the citizens one Yeah, the lawyers one to say but and so of course after that Then it's like two of the people who helped us got elected to city council and they're constantly out voted three to two Tim we need to find one more person to run for city council and so you guys being very civic-minded and It was funny because I have a producer client friend who was in the city council in Costa Mesa Nearby City in Orange County, and I called him for advice and you know what his advice was hmm. Don't do it Yeah, I just so that was come now when people ask me Tim Should I run for my town council in my city? I would say no, don't do it It was a bit. It was a drain on business. I felt very good about it. I did some fantastic things While I was on the city council. I served two terms as mayor We rotate mayor in our city and so I got to be a mayor twice in that eight-year period But even better I was elected to the board of the Orange County Transportation Authority an even bigger organization with a billion dollar budget 11 member board. I actually got to be chairman of the board for one year and That was where I felt like you know I was able to give back to Orange County and we did a lot of good things from the transportation standpoint Yeah, that's why when you get into Orange County, the freeways are so wide and they flow so smoothly like mm-hmm Oh, this is this is nice. Yeah, and that's how my mom gets around there on the Orange County Transport There you go. It's the senior citizen. Yes the access bus. Yes. Yeah, she loves it. It's like cool She doesn't drive anymore. It's like I can go work. I can go play mahjong wherever I want. There you go I love it. All right. So there you go. That's my political story And I I feel like I it was a great community service and I felt like I did it and good And you and you did it and you're done and it's like all right Let's move on. That's it. All right If you've got a question for Tim once again throw it in the chat room right now And we'll get to that question in just a few minutes But right now we're gonna take a little break and we'll be right back here on voice over body shop. So don't go away The all-new iPhone reserve your Disney World season pass now through all the runny noses three in the morning coughs And all-new American crime story tonight on FX this week only it's pasta-fest at all of Garden heart rate crime blood pressure Perfect. I grew up with the classics and now with stuff up I can get authentic tickets to the best shows the all-new Chevy cruise from 16995 Fee inspired think at the beauty that's uniquely yours at Sephora this week at home Depot It's our garden fest sale with up to 30% off all garden tools sod and seeds. Hi It's Jay Michael Collins, and these are just a few examples of the first-class demos My team and I are producing if you'd like to have something similar visit JMC voiceover calm and click on the demo production tab to find out more So Tim The Sun still has not set then you know, it's fabulous. It's sunset all year. Oh, wow. We love that I know for you. It's important You know we talk about you know quality audio as we were just discussing you know people have noises and all sorts of stuff You tell people you know it's like you the audio doesn't sound right right correct And what in what do you usually tell them? I refer them to somebody to help them out right that we you know We need to find what the source of the issue is, you know, right and and then if you're gonna make an investment You know people oh, I just bought this $1500 microphone or I just like uh, but what about your studio? You know how well how what's the investment in the area the space where you record? You know as that locked down if you spend some money on that to make it solid Yeah, and if you want to spend money on that there's a great place you can go it's voiceover essentials calm and You can get just about anything you want there But most importantly you have Harlan Hogan's signature series products like the VO1 a microphone Which our co-host George Woodham is now displaying you can click to George for a second And I don't know if it's on camera. Oh, it's not on camera. Well, let's just aim a camera. Yeah, there we go. That works and There it is the VO1 a microphone and George's hand and Great design for voiceover microphone or the VO1 a headphones which George is also wearing he can turn the camera and show you those and They're great headphones right there. They are right there and And he's got some other great products that he's designed himself specifically for voiceover and He also gives you access to all sorts of other stuff and voiceover essentials calm All you got to do is go right there and the best way to do that is to go to the bottom of the Are home page that you are probably watching this show on right now and click on the icon of Harlan Hogan talking into his VO1 a microphone and his porta booth pro and again more products that he has and That's the best place to get the stuff you need for your home voiceover studio and your voiceover needs even has lots of books and stuff really good stuff So anyway Go over to voiceover essentials calm and buy everything he has right now Well, maybe wait till after the show, but anyway, thanks Harlan for being our sponsor for seven and a half years here on voiceover Body shop. We really appreciate it. Go buy more stuff This is the Latin lover narrator from Jane the Virgin Anthony Mendez and you're enjoying Dan and George on the voiceover body shop Alrighty, let's talk a little bit about What you do you talked about you know, you do sweetening and those sorts of things These are not things people should attempt to do at home unless they really know what they're doing correct I would say, you know The business that we built up doing that kind of stuff is we work a lot of video producers That that's that's my opportunity to do something Not that's even beyond the voiceover side of it is doing scores and finding a right piece of music and finding the right sound Defects and that kind of thing I've you know built up a library of stuff over the decades that we've been doing it I might pull something out, you know, like that, right? So do you believe that the best thing that any voice actor can do if they're sending you audio is to give you Clean dry mono file and that's it and don't mess with it. Absolutely don't normalize Necessarily don't definitely don't edit out the breaths. I'm a big proponent of not editing out breaths But that's your job. That's my job and and I don't edit out breaths You know, we especially for our e-learning projects, you don't need to sanitize and deep breath You need to minimize you need to keep it in there But you want to keep the read to be as human sounding as possible That's the one thing I tell people is like in 30 years that I've been doing this business from the razor blade days to the electronic days I have never had a client say, hey, can we cut out all the breaths? Yeah, and why are people doing it? It's because they're listening with headphones and they're being super hyper critical of themselves and it's like, you know what? The the people who are listening to your content are listening for for content, right? They're listening for the subject matter listening for the material and if it's totally deep breath David H. Lawrence wrote a great piece on it go to David H. Lawrence website Be out of go-go and check out his site on not cutting breaths because what he talks about is it takes the soul out of the project It it you you can't find yourself catching your breath as you're listening because you're like well, there's the breath Where's the space for the breath right video editors are notorious for taking somebody's voice over and chopping out the breath But also chopping out the space, so it's this lovely sentin sentin sentin slam Yeah, sentin sentin sentin sentin slam, you know, and it's like to the viewer. It's like what the heck just happened It's a sentin slammed into a sentence a very unfortunate trend in YouTube editing. Oh, yeah Too much of that It's amazing Anyway, yeah, so what I think what Carpenter's called the three-shot. Yeah, it's a butt hinge a butt Oh, yeah, it's right it up. Yeah hinge together. Yeah, so we're sort of like that shot there anyway Questions. Yeah, do we have some questions from our amazing audience? Jack Daniel? All right, let's go to some of these questions. Mr. Whitton you get the first question. Oh Well, actually the first question looks like it's more of a general question to To all of us or to you and me Dan I'd address this to Tim. Yeah, where might I start looking on your site or any site for that matter for information For beginners to get their feet wet Thanks for your consideration and relay William Gillander. I think he missed the P. I think he went reply relay Yeah, best way to get your feet wet typing. Yeah, there you go Well when people call and people call all the time or you know send us an email or whatever It's like I've been told I have a wonderful voice and we've all heard these You know, so there are every day lots of lots of resources and lots of places we go Years ago Sylvia Moreto a voiceover gal from Southern California nice about 15 years ago We started our own four week Once a year voice of a workshop for people that to face that kind of thing because we would say Oh, we'll find a workshop somewhere and there's some great workshops in Southern California And so we started doing that I think that trend has kind of run its course We both got very busy and so we have we've suspended that for now we haven't done one over a year and But we are I am doing a creative media some Saturday workshops with some surgical subject matter experts who are We're hosting him at my studio basically Anthony get it when he was in town six months ago or so He and I did a marketing workshop together and Anthony shared some great resources and that was fun Because he was in town I said Anthony come on down to a Saturday workshop Okay, August 4th Everett Oliver is gonna be in studio and he does a coaching workshop He's gonna coach for animation and commercial and it'll be on his website So go to Everett Oliver's website, which is my booth director. I was both director. Yes dot com and And we've hosted for a number of folks Brian Page as a voiceover director guy down in our county Yeah, that's a great guy. Yeah, we've done some things together Saturday workshop So a little four-hour workshop snacks at one point and we just have some fun. That's really a great resource, but You know one of the places that I recommend me personally Tim Keenan for You know getting started for a raw beginner getting started is Rhonda at introduction to voiceover Dot-com introduction of voice over introduction voiceovers I don't remember off that my head now, but she's got a great program That's she's put all on video now She used to it live with webinars that kind of thing. She decided it was hard to get everybody on the same date same time So now it's just $199 and by her weapon. Yeah, so I would I would also recommend Peter O'Connell's website. Oh audio O'Connell and he has the voice of the voiceover Entrance exam yes, which is great at it'll answer it'll answer more questions or create more questions and answers But you know, it's like oh, maybe I shouldn't be doing and Google is your friend and meetups There's actually a meetup that started in Orange County about a year and a half ago that I participate in and Edward Oliver has come to many of them too At Tom Jordan an audio book narrator started this about a year and a half ago. He charges two dollars great information So if you're down in Orange County, it's a fun meetup. We get about 25 30 people who come every month Sometimes we have guest speakers and sure some great resources. All right Well, now it's time for our weekly jack-a-tack-tack-tack-tack Jack Daniel gets to ask his question Jack. I just love that. Thanks Tim thank you for this great information. It's it's really interesting. Everyone's really loving it Everyone in the VO world loves to complain about the race to the bottom in terms of rates and that's often driven by buyers Who don't know better and will often not realize the value of say someone in your position like a casting director Could you from your perspective as one give the sort of the value pitch to say a buyer? You know a hypothetical buyer who you doesn't understand what you can bring to the equation. Sure As far as art as far as art clients if a client came to us and said race to the bottom And I don't want to pay a lot for talent We try to explain the value of what the what the The training and the expertise and the resources that go into that now the issue that I face is that on top of the fee For talent I'm charging a studio fee as well. So I not only do you have to sell the value of the talent I have to sell the value of the value add of us being there doing live directed sessions And I'm proud to say that because I've been doing this a long time I'm able to do that in many cases and in some cases I can't and so I've lost a few clients to the pay-to-plays and They're just going on doing themselves and maybe they're directing I don't know and they didn't see the value in hiring us and going to a studio But many do in fact I manage projects for a number of e-learning producers who don't want to be involved in that process They don't want to have to go searching for talent They don't want to have to You know it every talent has a different way of delivering files every talent has different levels of normalization And so then they would get a project and it's like well this doesn't match a project I got from that other voice and this doesn't match from that other voice But what everything they get from Tim Keenan and creative media all the same The files are cut exactly the same way levels the same way doesn't matter if it's our home studio It doesn't matter if I recorded somebody IPDTL or ISDN or in my booth It all sounds Comparable so I vet you know the people that we work with so that you know they would at least match our standard Whether it's the noise you know of their room or whether it's the quality of the microphone or mm-hmm the quality connection, whatever All right Yeah, as far as promoting the value of it. Yeah, it's a challenge. It is a challenge and we're all facing it every and me too Me too. We're all facing That particular challenge that raised the bottom it is hard All right, JV Martin has a question George Yeah, actually, I'll get to mine real quick But we were you touched on it, you know the quality of equipment the quality of sound we talked about your mics earlier Any other special sauce do you have a preamp? It's like I gotta use this preamp blah blah blah What are some of the other things that your tools of the trade at the studio that you like is that a question from you? Yeah Yeah You know, I'm not a big You know, I went through that equipment phase in the 90s, you know, I had to have a microphone I'd have this I'd have that I'd have a ribbon microphone Yeah, and I'd have this preamp and so on so forth I've settled on what I like in my particular situation You know I've listened to avalanze and avalanze has a color to it So I'm not a big avalan fan. I'm a grace fan So I have a grace 101 that I got that I bought used from a studio that was going out of business and so I bought some stuff and wow It made my Neumann sound better than I had ever liked it before. I'm biased because I know I know the grace You know the guys. Yes, their factory is just north of Boulder. Oh, okay. I've hung out with them I've met them at AES met him at NAV. Yeah, so I was impressed enough that I went out and bought another one I bought the grace channel strip the 103 103 is a very nice and like the sound of it I have an art Processor or my preamp that has a tube preamp that's you know, I play with it once in a while pull that in for things You know a mix and mash a mish-mash a mish-mash a DBX Preamp, but yeah, I've never gone out and felt like I need to spend hundreds of thousands dollars What do you like to edit with? What's your mix? Oh, the the tool that we use is soundtrack pro You sent a pro which I've had for a long time and I know all the ins and outs and they don't support it anymore Oh, it was part of logic and it was part of final cut a lot of my clients are video clients And they edit on final cut and so for us sharing of files and projects back and forth that worked really well now I'm just like I'm looking at Adobe. You're a man on the island right now I'm a man on the island when your back dies. You're gonna have that's it. We'll be happy to teach you Adobe I'll be auditioned. Yeah, a couple people have also offered to teach me Adobe audition I think that's where I'm headed next because I've heard the learning curve transitioning out of it But I also have twisted wave and I also have some secret sauce that I use for E-learning file making that I'm not gonna share keep it. It's a secret. It's a secret. You got to hire him. Alrighty JV JV Martin You were talking about the mics you have as I get older now into my 60s Should I consider any particularly a particular Mike? Young I already I already raised my copy stand way up when I need a younger sound It's great. And he said it was also a great meeting you at Vio, Atlanta I was gonna say I had the pleasure of meeting JV You know what Lanny took one of our and Yanguz and I did a thing together about corporate narration and JV has great pipes because he's done a lot of Video work for some TV networks, right? And so it's like a TV network narrator I think I think what's buried in there is can a microphone make you sound younger Wow or preamp Oh microphone or I don't know about that one No, but but you know I would recommend playing around with different microphones to make your sound more pleasant You know if you can borrow somebody old is going to make you Pleasant not at all, but if you're not trying to sound old don't use a warm Ribbon mic or something that accentuates low end. Yes, something you probably want to I would say that especially if you have big pipes You know that great, you know deep voice when we say big pipes Let's say that typical kind of deep voice or warm rich voice So then you want something that accentuates maybe the mids and upper mids, you know, mm-hmm There's no easy answer to that JV guys borrow some mics and see what our center, you know, whatever. I don't know Blair Has a question. She's recovering. We're glad that you're back with us Blair. What's the weirdest thing a client has asked you? To get from your voice over talent Think about that. It's a long list. I'm sure yeah, you know I will the cool thing about what we do is that every day is truly different I mean, we do you know, yes, I said we do a lot of corporate and we do it e-learning We have a lot of repeat clients, but we have done some one of everything in the 30 years that we've been a business I put together a laundry list of kinds of the things that you could do But the weirdest thing Can you help me? We've done we've had to do some weird things I would say I Can't pick any one thing, but you know Well, okay, we used to have a studio cat and we actually captured some cat sounds For you know project that we're doing It wasn't something a client asked for but for two seasons We did the audio for a reality TV show called who let the dogs out and of course it involved a lot of dog sound effects and And all kinds of things and the one thing I could not find in any of our sound effects libraries was the jingle jangle of the dog collar as a dog walked around and The star dog had a beautiful set of collars and clinky things and so a friend was in the studio with his dog And I said hey We're working on this show called who let the dogs out Could we borrow could we take your dog in the studio? Could we record some jingle jangle and we did we have a whole bunch of it and every time he watched the show Which of course then he started watching the show and he heard jingle jangle jingle. He knew that was his dog's dog That was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was cute Questions of that question from Natasha Vox She says you are very active on Twitter and LinkedIn and do the most wonderful Relevant consistent job that I have seen are you thinking that Facebook and Instagram are relevant for your business? Also, what social mediums seem to have the best return on investment for you? I know you touched on that a little bit earlier a Twitter has been, you know, surprisingly I am very active on Twitter on my I have two different accounts because after I started a voiceover account where I was sort of tweeting to voiceover people which I Interacted a lot of voiceover people so that was important to me But I realized I took a class in Twitter for business and it was like no no you need to be reaching out to clients So I started a different Twitter account where I talk about audio and voiceover From the client's perspective and offer my expertise and advice and I set myself up as a subject matter expert on that But my voiceover Twitter page has exploded. I have nine thousand ninety nine hundred followers I am close to ten thousand followers on my voice over Twitter page So I would say that I've made I've made some great friends and met some great resources on Twitter And that's why one of the blogs that I wrote was you know what just because you think somebody's doing voiceover Don't fail to read their bio and don't fail to go after folks that are producer types because you know sure enough Somebody will follow me and say hey, thanks. I love connecting with other voiceover people I'm like well, he didn't read my bio because my bio clearly says I cast voices so missed opportunity Next one and he'll never go back if if when you follow somebody you haven't looked at their bio You're unlikely to go back and start looking at bios, you know, right? But as you're going along in the process look at a bio whether it's linked in or Facebook or Twitter or whatever It's a key point that there is a blog on my website about social media for a voiceover I highly recommend people take a look at which a website address by the creative media recording Dot-com thanks a lot of listeners on podcast so they won't see the title. Oh, there you go Yeah creative media recording dot-com dot-com, you know, since we're on that little social media topic Let me just share I would like to be on Facebook In fact, I'm looking for a Facebook friend Maybe we can trade resources for some assistance in getting started on Facebook because I've been promising and Gangusa that I would get on Facebook and get into all those Facebook All those great Facebook voiceover Subgroups Exactly so I want to do it. The value is definitely in the groups But I want some help and I want to you know be involved in groups like I'm but talking about social media You had a guest a couple weeks ago Dave Kovace and I use him as a great example because he is a giver he gives away a lot of great time and information and resources and Let's use and many people know Dave Kovace and subscribe to his daily blog and if you don't I do or a listener And you first thing I read the morning exactly, but let's flip that on his head If Dave Kovace took that energy that he puts into that daily blog now Dave Kovace's background is a TV newscaster and he knows news and he knows Presentation in front of a camera if he did a weekly blog for corporate executives and communication people about microphone presence delivery dealing with the press I say this because I do know a former TV newscaster who has that as her business and she helps advise people on their presence in front of camera and their presence in crisis management and those types of things which Dave would be perfect at Think how much business would turn around to Dave, you know if he channeled all that energy that he does her voice Or what does he get out of that? He's not a coach. He's not a demo producer He's just a great guy who loves to share his information But if he flipped it around and he pointed his expertise at people who could potentially hire him How many people would see his blog or read his blog and say? You know, we should have that guy as our spokesperson on camera voiceover whatever Many things would follow if he were to do that and I know he's actually doing that. Oh my goodness He's I did not know that I'm just throwing that out now. I mean, he's he's retired now Yeah from from his you know from his newscast so he has opportunity to do that and I hate when you say that But you know retired from newscasting so what I say is everybody has an expertise of some kind that could come back to Being hired for voiceover, you know, it's something to think about Final question the night comes from our dear friend Rosie Amador in Boston Tim great to see you here in addition to what Natasha asked. Do you also use email as part of your marketing strategy to build clientele? Absolutely email is very important for building clientele, but I'm also a big proponent cold calling You know that that's another thing, you know people say not only are they camera shy their telephone shy, right? And it kills them to think about picking up the phone and actually making phone calls So you start with warm phone calls you call people that you know former clients whatever and touch base And then you call cold people, you know and Google is your friend and you start local The story I love to tell is that we were doing a project for the United Parcel Service. They did they used to do a Regular they had a cast of characters like six or seven voiceover people They would bring into a studio and they would record sort of a whole you know Slew of things that they used for training purposes and they did it like once a month Well, their regular studio wasn't available and here came the cast who grew into my studio because I was available that day and When they were leaving I met a bunch of nice friendly voiceover people that day that I'd never worked with before One guy came after me says wow Tim. I am so glad to meet you. Hi, you know My name is X and I live right next door in the townhome complex right next to your studio And I'm like wow what we exchange cards and so on so forth and after he left I'm thinking why has that person never Google searched Studios and production facilities because there could be a video production facility right next to where you live And that's when you go over you knock on their door. You say hi I'm a voiceover so I live right next door if you ever need a voiceover like that or an on camera thing or Whatever whatever it is that you do you start local and you work your way out You know people don't do that. So all those tools email is important and hi Rosie. How you doing? Voiceover all that stuff is really cool. Yeah now you brought your level live wind Linda with I did and she really runs the place doesn't she does Well, the great thing about Linda is Linda is our face and our voice of creative media So she deals with the clients she answers the phone another one of those things when you're making cold calls You do not want to upset the person that answers the phone you think I need to talk to Tim But surprisingly the person who answers the phone actually plays an influential role in who works and who doesn't work and create a media Or at any other facility And so, you know, it's like in your rush to think you're getting to the decision-maker Don't overlook the person at the front desk. Oh, yes, you know, well, I don't overlook I'm glad to see her smile in face when I walk but what that allows me to do as a production facility is it allows me to you know spend the focus of my time on the studio or on social media or Making in a marketing context. She does marketing as well And she makes sure everybody gets paid. She makes sure that people get scheduled on time and the projects Because fortunately we're an active busy facility and things are jumping and we're doing stuff all the time Well, I'm glad that things are going so well for you. Me too. By the way, we were having our Hawaiian shirt competition You know, it's and it was a challenge. Yes. I know an extra shirt to just in case I know That one that was a nice. Thank you perfectly. Oh, thank you. Thanks so much for being with us This is my privilege now. It's always a pleasure talking to you guys brought me up Oh our thrill anyway So again, if they want to get a hold of you your website creative media recording calm already Fabulous info at creative media recording. All right. You can email him there. All right Thanks to Tim Kanan and thanks to you all for watching George and I will be right back with even more important information right after this Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead now There's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer that place is voice over extra calm Whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level stay in touch with Market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like Audiobooks auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing Performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voice over audition It's all here at voice over extra.com. That's voice over x t r a dot com and we're back It's always fun talking to him, you know, yeah great guy to have lunch with and you know pick his brain And he picks your brain back and then your brains are all just lying if you're gonna pick brains make sure there's a mutual brain Picking situation Next week on this show one of our sponsors and a guy who's in the news That's right with the we talked about at the top of the show J. Michael Collins and his engineer another great friend AJ McKay hey does his demo production We're gonna be talking to them next week about demos and maybe a little bit about the suit Whatever Rob lets him say Is Rob gonna be sitting right off camera. No, he's still back in Jersey You know this you know that waiting to get onto this, you know the argue in front of the Supreme Court, right? July 30th in studio Chris Edger Lee will be here. All right great voice talent August 6th Jamie Moffitt and his podcast V. O. School podcast. He's a voice actor director. You know, I was on his podcast last week I better start listening to that one. I don't have that and say him bad embarrassment of not listening to the guests podcast Yes, you better start doing that myself August 13th Bob Bergen's gonna be here Hey, talk about all sorts of cool stuff that's going on very early early on guest of ours on ewebs Yes, he's like number three or something. Yeah, but if the bad Bergen, that's right Paul papal be joining us the following week and we've got lots more coming up a little time off at the beginning of September For Labor Day and some holidays and stuff like that But we have a great lineup and we need to thank Catherine Currid and our fabulous booking a producer for getting us lots of great guests coming up For the remainder of 2018 The remainder of it Goodness all righty, who are our donors of the week and we thank you We got a bunch and you guys have heard these names before because they donate like pretty much every week like Tracy H. Reynolds We got one that just came in. That's a new one a new name to me voice Presentations limited. Thank you very much. Very generous. Thank you Andrew Kauffman have a great week guys says Andy. Thank you, man Blair Siebert. Thanks guys education in the humor. She says I keep forgetting there's messages in some of these. It should be Eric Aragone. Thanks, buddy System system Sarah Borgias And land productions. That's Uncle Roy a Brian Roush Graham Spicer. Thanks, Graham Still holding it down up there in Toronto Jack de Gaulle. Yeah, I said vacation He's on vacation, but he still donates to the show despite the time he puts in Joseph Harrison Those are all new donations since last week. Wow. All right. Thank you so much Yeah, you know the reason we started the show was strictly for shameless promotion of what you and I do So shamelessly promote where you are once again. I'm shamelessly located at George the tech calm Or if you like short URLs George the tech is where you can find me but George the tech calm All right, and you can find me at home voiceover studio.com. I am not ashamed of that at all Let's see you have a geek podcast that you're trying to stay awake at The show could sometimes drag on with the geekitude even too much so if you're a big-time geek It's your kind of gonna love it. Yeah, we interview all kinds of folks We just had one of the original founders of the Hooters on the show. Check it out It's the latest episode really fascinating stuff We really go down the rabbit hole tech and audio and everything audio production. All right the show logs You can access the show logs from the VOBS website. It's right up there Dan Sutton was doing is doing the show logs This week is Jack's Dan. He's he's on vacation. Thanks a lot. I appreciate you filling in. Yeah We're here every Monday night almost every Monday night at 6 p.m If you want to be here live in our studio get a shooting a studio shot there if we got it there So and show how many people eyes of this place is the cavernous into Amazing studio we have Great to have you here I have to do is write to us at the guys at VOBS dot TV if you happen to be in the greater Los Angeles area and greater it is We'll be happy to give you the secret handshake and let you into our clubhouse Let us know when you can be here Let's see show us your booths You know, we have the sunset. We like the sunset, but we'd like to see the inside of your booth shot Portrait or landscape not portrait landscape landscape not portrait like that Yeah, so we get a wide shot so we can see what your studio looks like we would love it We'd love to see the last last week was great, right? That was a closet video Yes, the microphone was like this big behind it was great We will if it's funny, it's if it's weird. We want to see still fun. Alrighty All right We need to thank our sponsors like Harlan Hogan's voiceover essentials and voiceover extra source elements via to go-go Voice Hector websites calm and J. Michael Collins demos. Alrighty. Well, we'd like to also thank the Dan and Marcy Leonard Foundation For the betterment of live webcasting our producer Katherine Curden who does gets great guests for us Jack Daniel sitting right over there Yes, and of course our floor producer director and technical Person that pushes all the buttons and makes it come out the way. It's supposed to sue Merlino And and Dan Sutton tonight for doing the show notes for us and of course Lee Penny simply for being Lee penny Alrighty, that's gonna do it for us this week right on time and We appreciate you joining us every week for help with your home voiceover studio and your voiceover career So let's say good night. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whitton and this is voiceover body shop or VO BS Have a great week everybody. We'll see you next Monday night