 Hey, it's time for voice-over body shop tech talk number one hundred and three They keep making tech we keep talking about I know and ranting and yeah And we got a couple of rants tonight. So make sure you're you're here for that. It's getting rantier Yeah, but as long as it doesn't get rancid. That's the most important. Yeah, no spoiling If you have a question throw it in the chat room and that way we can answer that question So we want to hear from you. You got problems with your home studio question about some equipment Or a technique with software or something like that. We're the guys to talk to so Stay tuned time for voice over body shop tech talk right now Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voice over essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect Voheroes calm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training Voice actor calm your voice over website ready in minutes Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success and by world voices the industry Association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George There I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George with him and this is voice over body shop or vo Bs tech talk tech talk tech talk Alrighty well, we got lots of stuff to talk about tonight But we always lead off with this because believe it or not The reason this show exists and we've been on the internet for 12 years Which boggles our minds every time we think about it? and Somehow we keep come up with stuff like there was internet 12 years ago. There was internet Well, we were dialing up modems back then almost Yes, there may be a few people like that, but when it comes to home voiceover studios You know, there's really only two guys that really know what they're doing. There are other guys. They're engineers They understand what it's supposed to sound like whistle How you get there? Various because every voice is different every room is different every budget is different. That's for darn sure and so our job as voice actors and voiceover engineers is to make sure that you sound your best and If you don't understand how it all works, we explain it to you believe it or not. I have a master's degree in education So I have a high school Part-time teaching gig teaching kids science Not the same wait. We're at the Franklin Institute. Yes. Oh Amazing how I would pick that one out of my out of my ear not a degree Okay, but teaching is always both is important to both of us right teaching is a lot of fun Especially when somebody actually wants to learn what you're telling them and explaining to them I got to do it to a bunch of people in Lagos, Nigeria last week How cool is that and a big voice conference voice over 4.0 in Nigeria and it was a lot of fun and totally unscripted and Go through the routine. This is what you need to do for a home studio So if you need help with your home studio and the point is is that we've been doing this for 12 years The initial idea with this and still maintained as that is shameless promotion of what George and I do Because if you didn't do this you wouldn't even know we were there Wouldn't write but Anyway, if you would like to work with one of us and help you with your home studio and teach you how to do it Right or something with software after you've got a technical issue. My mic sounds like crap Why is that mm-hmm? Or my phone isn't on vibrate. Oh, it's supposed to be all right Well, you'll get back to them Anyway, if you need help with that you can work with either one of us and if you want to work with George you go over to George the dot-tech there it is right and we have an ever-expanding team huge website Text if you go to george the dot-tech we have updated the banner to show you that we are more than just George we are a team and we've got folks that are specialists in a wide wide range of softwares Technologies techniques and a new thing we're working on soon is having what I call virtual on-demand engineers So that you'll be able to if you've got to get something edited And you're like oh my god I can't get that done and still audition for this really important gig and take the kids home from school Sometimes something's got to give sometimes you need a virtual engineer to help you edit This is something we're adding to our roster of services stay tuned We're working out the details, but we're I'm really excited to be able to start offering these types of services And we have some of the best people you know People you know are working with George the tech you know we dance on the team We've added we just added Jim Edgar believe it or not. He wants to work with us now It's just we have the greatest team of folks over there. So head over to George the dot-tech and Dan He's helping you out with your home studios to over his place on the web and that's Home voice over studio comm real easy to remember especially if you want to have a home voice over studio, right? What my thing there is my specimen collection cup. Yeah, some people say that's really silly. Well, that was the idea gets your attention Yeah, and what you can do is you can drop off a specimen of your audio so I can Give it a listen give it a very very thorough analysis and see if if it sounds great I'm gonna go it sounds great. Maybe your levels are a little off Maybe there's a little bit of acoustical issues with that. Maybe you're too close to the microphone Maybe you're too far away from the microphone. Maybe you're talking into the wrong side of the microphone, you know, that's sort of that's what that sounds like That is what it's so Check us out it at George the dot-tech or home voice over studio comm and Get your audio Sounding what it's supposed to sound like whistle. All right. Well, let's get into the real meat of the matter here and that is Starting with George's tech update and why is this? Why does he have this thing on his lap? It looks like he's playing a dulcimer. I have an unboxing. Okay, he's gonna have an unboxing. Yeah Did I bring my unboxing knife? No, I did not bring my unboxing knife So do you have a knife or scissors or anything? It's out in the new shed. All right Well, I will use the hammer of this hammer over the years of Going to trade shows like the Nam music trade show I've made a lot of vendor contacts and one of the longest standing longest history of vendor contacts that I have gotten to know Is a fellow in Chris career super nice guy and Dan's met Chris as well Chris's worked his way up in the ranks at Sennheiser, which owns Neumann by the way and Anyway, we've known him a really long time well out of the blue He contacted me a couple months ago. He said would you like to try our new streaming podcasting microphone? And I said yes, of course and here it is. This is the profile USB streaming set So this is the the model that comes with a nice boom arm for the table, which I think is a huge deal I mean, there's the blue Yeti's and all these other USB mics The road NT USB, but most of them come with a little tiny desktop tripod This comes with a proper boom arm, which I think if you really are going to be serious about You're a beginning voiceover mic. It needs to be in the right place. Yeah, right now I consider a USB mic to be a beginner mic I mean, yes, you can get pro audio out of a USB mic We'll trouble with the hammer there and I don't want to destroy the box too bad. It worked though But the the trick to getting good audio is not it's not all about the mic It's a lot about the acoustics and it's especially about the placement, right? Absolutely, so what's great about this thing is really honestly the mic Obviously, we know is the mic's gonna be good at Sennheiser, right? But this is arm any good is the boom any good, right? Let's take a look at this thing What's the resistance? Oh, and is it adjustable probably pretty stuck it feels pretty sturdy stout But the mic's not all there's a knuckle here. Yeah, okay, then knuckle goes totally vertical. It's got a pretty long reach It's got like a preset tension on these right. They're not adjustable. They're preset Okay, you're only gonna use this mic with it and that's probably probably but it is a it is a standard 5 8 or 3 8 thread so this could work with the mics and It has a cable channel in it so it could run other kind of mic cables too, right? Okay, and then it has a nice beefy stable sturdy looking tabletop clamp It's looks really nice. It's got a really nice machined Yeah fit to it. There's no slop and wobble nothing less from the Germans who make that you would not and that is what you're Getting this this is so already. I'm impressed right and we haven't even looked at I like stuff like this This is the stuff that makes a difference, right? I know I'm burying the lead I'm opening everything except the mic first in this box a nice pretty long USB cable USB-C to USB-C USB-C so it's gonna be a radio rock and all your all your modern laptops Looks to be a pretty Let me see six 10 10 to 12 foot long usb cable wow pretty impressive can be useful and finally the thing that we're actually here for Is the get it undressed as the microphone? How it comes? There it is so this is an interesting design because the microphone has a Mount on the base and it has an integrated tilting mechanism So if this was standing directly on a desk stand You can tilt it toward you up off the desk So I think the basic version without the arm has like a little desktop stand so interesting design having it tilt right Looking at the back We have our USB-C connector a headphone jack So if you're doing podcasting or zoom calls, it's built in there And then on the front is the three controls. I always look for on a USB mic What do we got gain? headphone monitor Level or volume is it a mix and a headphone monitor mix between microphone and Computer playback. These are the basic things. I expect to see these days on a USB mic I I know the roads and I know others I am annoyed when they don't include an actual gain knob on the mic Right because then you have to go into the software and a lot of times They have a software that goes with it Yeah, you have to use their software in the case of like the road, right? So this puts all those controls on the face of the unit itself and Bonus, which is really really helpful if you're doing anything live It has a mic cut or a mic mute but coffee. Yeah cough button or a mute cut the mic mute button right here That is fantastic. So I have never plugged this thing in before I just want to plug it in just to see what lights up on it if it's assuming it has Some kind of lights on it Let's see what happens when we plug it in three two one Let's have a light. Okay. It's got some light is that a meter on there So it's got a gain. It's got a light ring around the mic Gain knob, but it's not a meter. Oh, it doesn't change intensity as you speak Okay, and then it's got the mic mute button. Oh, that's nice. So when the mic mute is on The twins right it lights up in a bright red. So, you know, the mic is off You don't want to be embarrassed by being heard when the mic is on by mistake. So What what's the takeaway? Obviously, we're not gonna do a real audio test with it today There's no real practical way to do that because it's USB So we will I will be doing that at some point on the George the tech YouTube channel stay tuned for that But it's a it's a good feeling Mike It feels it feels like it's it's not it's not Plasticy junky feeling it feels substantial the knobs all feel the knobs in the buttons. They everything feels Like a little extra attention to detail was a right on a drag Yeah, the knobs have a nice have a nice drag to them. There's nice and it just feels of quality Which is you know, if Sennheiser is gonna have a mic with their name on it Whatever price point and I think I think this is around 200 us with the arm. Don't quote me on that You know, it has to be up to par no matter what the prices that they're selling it for that's why I was amazed when they sent me a USB mic I never thought They were gonna make a mic that was in this sort of affordable Wonder what kind of the capsule it has in it. Yeah, that we don't know obviously It's definitely got a an internal pop filtering going on because you cannot see inside there, right? so We'll have to find out more it. I'm guessing because of the the price point of the mic And it's probably like a small to medium capsule But it doesn't say anywhere very obvious and I don't hate this drawing forever But anyway when I get a mic to unbox or get anything to unbox it's fun to be able to do it So I figured what the hey people making millions of dollars doing unboxing videos. You've ever seen like a unboxed therapy Yeah, yeah, his studio is like this humongous room with LED lighting on the ceiling that stretches the entire Yeah, it's got a little pictogram looks like an IKEA come around looks like an IT IKEA manual What you'd expect coming from Europe, you know, because they have to cover a lot of languages And it's got a QR code for additional documentation online manual Etc etc, but clearly it's plug-and-play and it's obvious to me that they don't and I think this is good They're going the don't have a console Proprietary control panel away, right? They're going the plug it in all hardware. Oh, it's all hardware Yeah, and I think that's a plus a plus. I really do And this leads me into a rant not a rant just to sort of a little food for food for thought thing You're on on the way here a VIP client of mine. I've been working with for a really long time Text me and says I have a 911 and every time I see that I'm like, huh It gives me gives me hives I Give him a call and he's like I'm out. I'm not at home. I'm using my travel kit And I can't get this thing to work, right? What do you got? Oh, I have the you know the audience evo for don't you remember it? You know how many studios we work on right? Oh, yeah, the evo for the one that you use once or twice a year when you go on a trip Yeah, that one. I'm instantly remembered why I do not recommend audio interfaces or any even USB mics any gadgets that require an understanding and a memorization of how certain Buttons work, you know what I mean like well, okay. Well remember to get that might to work you have to turn on phantom power Do you remember how to turn on the phantom power? Well, remember you have to press the number one Then you have to press the phantom power button now if you don't do this if this thing's in your home studio You're gonna do this every single day, right? It's gonna be repeat repetition whatever you put something like this in a road Kit that you use sporadically Maybe once or twice a year and the might doesn't work. It's not gonna be obvious, right? So I really really don't like using gear that requires a Memorization or the reading of a manual just to get it to start functioning like turning on phantom power or wait a minute I can't hear anything. How do I get my headphones? Well, you have to remember to push that button that looks like a Wi-Fi symbol, but it's actually your headphone level Press that then turn the I mean that is not what you want in a portable kit You want if you want something at the very basic something like this with knobs that do one job Each is what you're looking at the mic port pro is always something I love because they had one mic knob for gain Right one knob for headphones. No menus. No proprietary software Easy to remember the new version of the mic port pro the new three It it's good, but it still has that battery in it You still have to make sure that battery is charged, right? So the new the new hotness is definitely gonna be the passport VO and I just want to let you guys know it's still available. I'm gonna get my plug in now It's still available. There's like 19 of them left in the hundred unit batch that we're getting made and even though We didn't hit our hundred dollar hundred unit goal Mike Goodman from Sentron said let's do it. Let's do this thing. So that thing is official now It looks like I'm gonna have to do it. We're all gonna have to buy one It's gonna happen, but that the the design philosophy behind that thing was one knob per function One knob or one switch per function. No menus. Nothing to have to remember Everything is clearly labeled everything is straightforward and that I think is what's really critical for a travel kit The very last thing before we talk about booths. I added the word soundproof. Is that what you're talking about soundproof? Yeah, pretty much just in general. Yeah It's just a little micro rant or maybe another reminder about chrome Chrome the web browser if you're doing anything multimedia or even not multimedia just day-to-day stuff like Click this button to upload a file Those things sent him to stop working in chrome after a while Devices seem to mysteriously stop working Audio things don't seem to work correctly Chrome seems to be needing to be restarted just as often probably actually arguably more often than your actual operating system I find that I'm needing to restart chrome to get things to work more than ever. I don't know what's going on I don't know why this is but think of it this way the chrome web browser is really an operating system Inside an operating system exactly It's another layer of an operating system and if you're like me and you do run a lot of your business on the web then you have a lot of things open you have a lot of tabs open and So it comes up every single day even just getting our show on the air today We start chrome. I think that's gonna fix it fix the problem My audio device isn't working my evo for the audio signal isn't reaching IPD TL That's running on chrome, right? Let's restart chrome. Oh, it's working now As I usually say when in dude reboot wouldn't do reboot from if you're using anything on chrome Anyway, that's it for the tech talk part for me, but let's talk a little bit about booths. Yeah I you know, I usually base my basic basics on the stuff that I've dealt with this Week because there's always something new somebody comes up someone writes to me and says should I get a new booth and they extend me you know a picture like okay, it looks like a you know basic acoustical booth and They send me some audio and I'm like Sounds fine, you know it did the acoustically it sounds pretty good. Yeah, you got a little bit of a noise floor But you're you know in a house Yeah, and and so this person's like well should we invest in a big booth my daughter is doing this Right, and we want to make sure that we're prepared for the future what I usually tell people is don't overthink this and Do you need a booth if you are in a very noisy place? If you are like in the flight path flight path of LaGuardia or LAX or O'Hare or DFW one of those places were on Broadway. Yeah. Yeah, if you if you happen to live I you know in Midtown Manhattan and leave your window open Yeah, you might need something like that But then again you live where you choose to live So but what do you what are you looking for in a soundproof booth? And we have we have looked at a bunch of them. I mean there's a few more manufacturers. Some have come some have gone Thinking that perhaps they can do it and What I have found is Depending on what your noise floor is which is why I have my specimen collection cups so I can hear Exactly what's going on and I say give me five seconds of open mic silence read some copy the way you normally would and then Ten seconds of open mic silence so I can hear your voice You know juxtaposed to your background as we like to say, you know your signal to noise ratio or You know Signal being your voice noise being anything. That's not your voice and that can be Everything so we want to mitigate the amount of exterior noise So the best way to do it is with a booth and we know lots of manufacturers and we know the quality of these booths The one thing that people don't realize is that all of these things were never really designed for voiceover they were designed for Musicians to practice their violin or their oboe or their saxophone or slide trombone Around other people and not disturb them. So there's soundproof going out and soundproof going in So should you get a booth or not? Number of factors one, what's your budget? You can spend up to ten fifteen thousand dollars. Oh, yes, you can I you know, I saw somebody who bought a double-wide in downtown Los Angeles in a big apartment building and it was like It wasn't a room in a room. It was like another apartment inside his apartment Well, big loft type of apartment. Yeah, you can spend an awful lot of money on these for sure the question is Investment versus return on investment How the only reason you'd need something like that is if you're doing a lot of remote sessions if you know You're a busy working voice actor and you are doing a lot of stuff You know be a source connector something and you've got to have it quiet. I Called quiet on demand quiet on demand. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, so What do you do? Do you buy a booth or not? Look at your budget Really get your sound analyzed in your space so we know what you're working with and We can determine Okay, you don't need to spend the fortune what you need to read need to do and we've sort of discovered this over working with a Lot of people you know people playing basketball next door or there's a construction site or something like that Mm-hmm if you could reduce the exterior noise by about 10 DB if it's just incidental noise from the house or the apartment building And and it's literally impossible no matter what you buy no matter what you do to eliminate Outside noise. Yeah, we're all of all of them. Yeah. Yeah now But if you can keep it at a low frequency under the frequency your place that's good So 10 decibels is 50% that's right 10 decibel reduction is half the noise right so if you have a moderately good booth That's really all you need. So don't go hog wild on this But first let's analyze your space. Let's look at your situation. Are how much work are you doing remotely? Mm-hmm and how much you know audiobook people probably need it Because we need to have a consistent noise floor and stuff like that But don't you know like should I buy a booth? It's not a question. You just need to ask yourself It's someone you need you need to ask someone like George or I to really listen to your room to see how much noise reduction You need physically. Yeah, the microphone is gonna hear what it hears your ears are gonna hear probably something different Right like so how that Mike hears you and what noise is the Mike hears is really what is the most important exactly? You know like you never hear your refrigerator until you're sitting in your kitchen and go Does the refrigerator make a noise? You know, it's always making a noise You just notice it, you know, it's so funny our refrigerator makes an odd noise it goes Something like that right and we were used to it right right well, we have two friends stay over at the place as guests, right? Staying in the living room And they're like your fridge right sounds like a sounds like a moaning animal and I'm just like oh My gosh, you're not yeah, you're right. It absolutely does But you two we tune it out. That's right. So you need that objective set of ears, right? And so you know send it in you know go to our websites We both have ways that we can listen to your audio and determine if indeed you need to make a booth or Do you just need to be in a quieter place? You know if you're in one closet you have an exterior wall Go to a closet that has no exterior walls and it will insulate it from a lot more Stuff anyway. Yeah, I'm gonna cause I'm gonna I'm gonna cause total chaos Oh, I'm gonna turn on this not a good idea. Here we go. Here we go. I Wasn't able to select the correct microphone beforehand. So I don't know I just plugged in the mic I don't know if I can choose the mic one two Actually, maybe that's gonna work now one more try so do you hear a double you hear two signals now? one two three four five five four three two one I gotta be Well now it seems like a really good time to take a break Break I'm on Mike. Now. I hear myself echoing back. So I know it's working now We know this mic works and now you know what it sounds like and Okay, we can get back to business Once again, if you've got a question for us now It'd be a really good time to put it in the chat room whether you're in Facebook live or on YouTube live We'd love to hear from you you probably got a lot of questions after all the rambling we've just done So get into it Yes, we know we're not if we've been doing it this long anyway We'll be right back after these messages and voiceover body shop. So do not go away This is Ariana Ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Whidham V obs dot TV As voice actors we need to hear the clear transparent and honest sound of our voices Harlan Hogan signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 Provide both that accurate transparent sound with enhanced mid-range audio less bass and the creature comforts voice workers deserve Clearly different from traditional studio headphones the upper mids and highs are clear as a bell No muffling or cross bleeding between frequencies like a pair of studio monitors The low is there but at the same level as the rest of the spectrum They're comfortable like no other phones. 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You don't have to buy a license Fully up front. So this is a great way to get going and not spend a penny But if you do need extended help, they're there for you if you sign up for a subscription You we can also provide help at George the dot-tech if you need it But source connect is the tool for pros to connect to other pros For the big voice over gigs out there anyway, thanks source elements. We're gonna get on to the rest of the show But right after this break Hey there, I'm David H. Lawrence the 17th and with my company VO heroes and my team of coaches and my community a voice over talent We guide voice over Actors along their journey and you may be watching VOBS here And not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching you may not even have Started yet and we actually specialize in helping you do just that So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on VOBS and going I have no idea what they're talking about I don't know but I really want to do this I'd really like to help you. Please go to VO heroes comm slash start That's a VO heroes comm slash start and you can take our getting started in voiceover class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again, VO heroes comm slash start. That's VO heroes comm slash start Hi, this is Bill Farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great All right, we're back. We're on a single shot because George was not paying attention. No, it looks like we're on the right shot There we go. Okay. Sue went to the wide shot just in case. Oh way to go Sue. She's she's she's on the ball Anyway, uh, it's time to answer your questions and again, you still have time if you want to throw it in the chat room Let's start with the first one here from Justin Ramos Alrighty Do you want to read that one? Oh, sure. It says I have a question for tech talk. Well, gosh darn it You've come to the right place since we're here What is the simplest digital audio workstation or DAW as we like to call it for Android phones? Or should I just bite the bullet and get an iPad? I have an iRig pre HD interface and want to audition on the go. I Also just wanted to give a shout out to the guys for leaving up e-wabs episodes E-wabs 166 is how I discovered that the iRig interface Zurich and Doug Terkel were oh, that's the one I did down in Miami, I guess. Yeah, we're both on I was probably in Miami at the time that was more than eight years ago. How cool is that? Thanks for thanks for the trip down memory lane Yeah, saw Doug over the weekend. That's great. Oh, that's good. It's been a long time um I haven't had an android phone a long time. I was an android user up until the iphone 11 came out and that's when I Jumped to the apple world Um Think about what the reuse case of this is. Is this a first setup? Is this a travel setup? Is this a supplement to what you have at home? It kind of depends if this is like a first my first vo studio situation Absolutely, I would get like a used ipad Even a brand new iPad whatever the current iteration is is around $300 So it's pretty reasonable. You can get a couple year old one for less money If you really do want an ipad device or a touchscreen device I would I would highly recommend going ipad now there I don't know of anything as simple as twisted wave and twisted wave does not there's not a version of twisted wave yet For android, there's only one for ios and mac and windows and i work at ios, but it does work great Right, and it's very easy to use I think there's a wave pad For ios and android Don't Quote me on that, but if you want to look for an app called wave pad They might have an android version Um, but I can't a ch as I recall nch a ch No, and I think it's nch whatever Yeah, wave pad wave pad just type in wave pad. You'll find it I think they have an android version, but if you're giving us the the choice. Well, should I get an ipad? I would get I would go with the ipad Plus you get way better battery life You know a new ipad the battery is going to last for Days, yeah, we just bought a new ipad for for my son and he's very happy with it Yeah, it's a good product. It really is. Um, yeah, so I hope that works out for you. Let us know what you decide to do And how it works out for you Watching e-wabs episodes. There's all still there There's some actual useful content from way back when more than just for a good laugh Just don't watch episode number one. Well, actually go back and watch episode if you want to laugh Hi, let's from jeff here. Go for it. Hey jeff our very own jeff holman says I've got my shag rug picked out For my van. I mean for my on-camera audition space To reduce the boominess of the hardwood floors of his room What a carpet pad help out the cause as well And should I look for a particular material for the carpet pad or a certain thickness? Seems to be overthinking it just a little bit the details jeff is all about the details Hey, who's on who's on hbo? You or me or jeff? Good point. Sorry boom jeff So I I would say the carpet pad won't make a big difference. What it'll make a difference for is comfort Right. You can audition barefoot. Exactly. It will be a lot nicer standing on that rug on a carpet pad What thickness you need go with go with the thickest that feels weird comfortable to you if you go too thick It feels weird, right? It feels squishy and I don't know strange But I I mean if it was me and I'm Not needing to literally do a tap dance on camera for an audition I would want to have a comfortable thing to stand and like to see that Yeah, and if my feet aren't in frame Because you're doing on-camera auditions and I'm not going to worry about what's on the floor I want it to be as comfortable as possible. Probably don't want to be wearing shoes if I don't have to I would go with a nice thick carpet pad and a nice plush rug But I I don't know if one carpet pad over another will unless it's auditioning for a Nike commercial or something in which case Carpet might not be the best thing to have or a basketball commercial, right exactly Maybe well, you're tall enough. I'm guessing you're not doing a basketball act. Um, anyway So let us know how that works out. Jeff. I know you've been slowly putting together your your ultimate on-camera Um, audition space. So yeah looking forward to seeing how it comes out when it's all done Okay patricia andrea on youtube um Maybe this was from a former conversation we had but uh Cinco mic d2. Have you had a chance to try it more? Well, I haven't tried it personally at all but I definitely heard the mic Yeah, a lot of times. I have two people send in samples all the time When you think when you think of that mic, what do you think of? It sounds like A mic it sounds fine, right? Right. It sounds kind of like I always think of it as sounding like Fine, right. It's not a 416 like this one. It doesn't sound like a 416 Right, it looks like a 416 when it definitely doesn't sound like one It's a very if I recall a flat sounding mic, right? Now when we say flat, what the heck are we talking about? It's really kind of how much it it it um boosts tees and k's and The articulation in your voice right a metal or over emphasizes the low end or de-emphasizes the low end Right, right. So coloration. Yeah, and the d2 From what I can what I've gleaned is it has very little color And it's very honest. It's very flat. Which is fine. It's not a bad thing Um, you know, I think I think it's not a bad choice I would want to try it in context with maybe a large diaphragm condenser like a road nt1 or an audio technica 2035 or you know something like that a vanguard v4 Um or this mojave mv5 or the m yeah the mojave m is it the m50 50 think it's a 50. Yeah For 500 range. How does it sound? That's from the two 2035 audio technica to this That's kind of the range you want to look at spending no more than 500 dollars honestly Um, unless you're buying a 416 or something like that, but this this probably is not your first mic. No, right? This is your more of an aspirational mic Honestly, there are a lot of great sounding mics that sound right up where this one does for a lot less money The d2 does not sound like this But what a d2 does because a shotgun mic is it will not pick up as much Sort of house noise right random outside not quite as hypercardioid as this one Mm-hmm. Yeah, but maybe slightly wider, but it's not bad. I mean for the money I you know what I prefer the audio technica at 875 r I just pulled it out of my box of mics the other day and did a little video with it I keep forgetting how damn good that mic sounds. It's well. It's designed to be a video mic like that I've used it in 75 dollars. Yeah, it works great. I like the sound of that mic better than the synco Honestly, if I had the two side by side, I would probably go with the 875 r from audio technica All right. All right from bill heppern. This is being an interesting one because this is last week dan and george That would be you and me brought up the Why reaper for voiceover? And when it's not the most intuitive And wondered why not just twisted wave. Well, here's my two cents Everybody's got an opinion And when it comes to reaper clearly there is many schools of thought Uh, I'm pretty new to the vo business But I chose reaper because I wanted something more than audacity the price was right at 60 bucks I didn't have to pay a subscription I had three months free trial, which is nice and like at booth junkie Who we don't mention a whole lot except when he's on the show had great videos on how to simplify it for vo I figured as the first da that made it a good choice These were my decision criteria and it might be different strokes for different folks Well, you gotta the thing is twisted wave has free trial Audition has a free trial audacity is free Uh, some other ones are free osan audio. I mean there's a lot of different packages out there He's clearly reacting to a some rant. I did about reaper No, I think I I had the rant two weeks ago about reaper I'm like, why are you using reaper? Everybody's saying I'm using reaper. Why we just had a two-part class That I was taught by steve cunningham who knows reaper really well And I watched those two four hours of content and I was like Wow Your head is full. I was my eyes are always like this is a lot So the way I look at reaper is it's like a You you you made stuff with legos Yeah, I tried Twisted wave is like a die cast metal car right you pull out of the box you play with it All right, it looks beautiful. It's shiny. It's made well and it works. It does. What is it's time to do play? Yeah Reaper is a box the box of legos It has a picture of a spaceship You can't try to build this space. It has an excellent metaphor frigging pieces Okay, that's reaper Yeah, different strokes for different folks like I on either one will get down the road One will take a tremendous amount of time and preparation and maybe that's for you part of the fun For many actors that is not part of the fun. They don't want to have fun. They just want to hit record and record their voice They will break out in hives when they see the amount of prep Now, I mean reaper can work with no prep But it will never feel as efficient and easy to use as twisted wave without doing the necessary steps to Change its configuration customize it And give it the the tool sets the buttons and all the keyboard shortcuts Necessary to make it work as efficiently as twisted wave. So yeah, that's fine. Use what works for you But believe me We work with actors day in day out and actors on the whole do not Want to learn and go through the learning curve to learn Reaper whether it would benefit them in the long term or not. So yeah, all right Uh patricia andrea says, uh, I have a former autometry booth I sent a video to dan got it for 500 bucks. I remember that wow what a deal added home theater curtains inside I did the specimen cup and dan said it sounds great because It does well those things are built at a different clap. They're on a different level from all the right The iso booth brands that we talk about the studio breaks whisper room Vocal booth they are built like Well industrial right and the thing is is if you can get one for 500 bucks You know and find a way to get it into your house and get it into the house. These are these are booths that are made for for Audiologists right for doing ear tests, you know, I had a did an ear test of last year and I'm over to Yeah, yeah and the the uh, they said, oh your hearing's fine. I'm like, don't tell my wife Anyway, but yeah, I went any time you can get a hold of one of those booths like from you know Some institution that's getting rid of a bunch of them They're very heavy And the thing is that they don't need a whole lot of acoustical treatment in them. I found that fact It's like they're integrated into the design general. Yeah. Yeah, they have like a metal mesh Yeah, and then behind that is probably like a rock wool or some kind of an insulation and yeah So they're they're amazing for granite Because it's really heavy You get the one from tony hoover here. Okay Um, I've heard good things about the sure pga 181 mic But the self noise is rather high. Yep, someone suggested using downward expansion to reduce it What the heck is downward expansion anyway? Well, first of all, don't buy the wrong mic and use plugins to fix it Okay, so if the mic is already too noisy, why aren't you looking at the other 200 mics that aren't There are many many many microphones that don't require a downward expander to be usable Okay, so that's your first clue. It may not be the right choice That being said, what's a downward expander like jumbo shrimp? Right Now downward expander is a processing tool We call it a dynamics tool that as you're the volume of the sound going into the Mic or into the recording as it drops below a certain point. We call that a threshold Then the level drops off on a ramp like a slope That's what an expander and you can adjust the slope. You can adjust the slope and where the threshold is Exactly. So if you set that threshold too high It's going to start cutting off like the f and football You'll get football Because the the the f sound is too weak and it doesn't go above the threshold and you get football Yeah, I think that's what they play in luxembourg is football with the ball you get Is that now if you set the threshold too low, then it doesn't do its job and you still get noise So and it'll fade in like yeah, and sometimes with breaths it goes The breaths have these weird little It's difficult to get these things to work smoothly and sound really. It's what we call a noise gate Yeah, and sometimes they end up sounding like a noise gate and a noise gate is even worse because that actually just shuts the audio off completely Which you don't want so that's what an expander is and it's part of Dynamics processors like compressors and limiters is in that same umbrella of of audio processing tools All right Jumped away from the questions here. Uh, oh, yeah, so did I start about that from j. Horace black Hey, j. Horace black j nice to hear from you currently have a 2012 mac mini ssd hd 16 gigabyte saran I did five years ago and went to the next one. Yeah, and then went to the next one after that Yeah, um you too needing to update my hardware new mac mini or 32 gigabyte memory mp mb or macbook pro macbook pro Could I get away with the macbook pro 14 inch in docking station? Of course. Yeah, I'm in cyber security Program, so need 32 gigabytes of ram to run virtual windows for class Uh, I could just get max studio to However, uh 14 megabyte macbook pro could serve both needs and right now with my discounts. I can get An m2 macbook pro 32 gigabyte memory for 1850 and do that Question answer j. Yeah 1850 dollars for a macbook pro with 32 gigs of memory If you stole it, yeah, I would get that would get that yeah Because that will do everything that's going to do everything the mac mini will do right That's going to pretty much do everything a mac studio will do right Yeah, that's that's a no-brainer. I think that's the the thing that people don't understand about max The operating system is an operating system and whether you're using a mac mini or a macbook pro or a macbook air Yeah, or a mac studio which takes up half your room. Um It's still the same operating system. It's a matter of processing power If you're just doing voiceover You don't need That much stuff, but as j is saying well, I also use it in security. He's using it for two different jobs Right. So, you know, will it work for the other thing? Most likely will it work for voiceover? Heck yeah, no problem Even the most basic basic mac mini for 599 bucks Will be beautiful for a voiceover setup, right? You'll have no problem. It's really all you need It's just for you power users like j. You're going to need some more complicated more Capable not complicated but more capable Systems, right you and I both use well, I we're both an m1 the m1 m1 mac mini You know, is it worth it to go to the m2 chip? I don't know. I think that apparently from what I hear the performance is maybe 30 percent more But that's like or that's like to me. That's a going from a tesla to a tesla model Dual motor like you can get that cheap one. It goes only zero to 60 and only goes zero to 60 in seven seconds Oh, I want to go from zero to 60 in five seconds. Oh, well, you're gonna like how freaking fast you need to go Right, especially if you're recording starts thursday I know I know All right, john or work your turn Now what have we used to physically isolate an air conditioner compressor? How about maybe springs? It's more of a low rumble and I'm dealing with more than just motor noise Turning it off is not always an option. Yeah, we know We live in the valley like dan does. Yeah turning it off is not an option. There's an air conditioner in here Maybe perhaps it's time for A new air conditioner. Yeah, my compressor was really loud So I went out and I called somebody I said and it died the compressor died. I mean it was probably 15 years old And I ordered a new one got a one that was not expensive. The guy came out and installed it that day Sue go to the go to the wide camera for a second and I'm gonna I'm gonna point the camera at our new At our air conditioner. So here we go. I'm gonna swing this around Is it is it gonna reach that far? I think you're going the wrong way. Oh geez It goes pretty slow too. I don't know. I don't know if it's gonna go this far, but let's find out It does 360 and then go up there. You can see my my antique radio collection And then go up and then over a little bit more I think on that the end of its little of its little neck Oh, there it is. It's in the corner of the frame. All right, go up a little more I think sue went back to the shot. There we go Yeah, she's still there There it is So my bow speaker and all the other garbage see that thing on the wall there that white that white box that's on the wall right there Yeah, we're at the edge of the yeah, that's as far as I can go. Yeah, that's the air conditioner in this room It's running right now And it is really quiet. You can't hear it. That's called a mini split duckless air conditioner Fabulous This is the way to go in a studio and when these are running on low or or quiet mode You can actually record in the same room as the air conditioner. It's incredible I know that's probably not what you're asking because you may may not want to spend $3,000 to get one of these right now spend $3,000 for now Which was that put in installed in everything was 27. That's not bad. No, it's not bad. No, well You have to look at where your noise is coming from you see you can come back to that. Well, very good Cool Um, you have to look at where your noise is actually coming from in your system But there's a very good chance that your noise is coming from More than just the motor like you said so the condenser unit that makes noise the blower unit that makes noise And then the air physically traveling through the ducts Also make noise and that tends to be what makes the rumbling right the low frequency So putting things on springs will not help that right because that's just the air traveling down your duct work The only way you're going to stop that is to reduce the speed of the airflow Or and or Increasing the volume or or the size of your ducts so the air isn't going as fast, right? Those are the two things that are going to fix that rumble. Yeah A new air conditioner. Yeah, it's it's going to be quite a quite a process to the ductless systems are just so quiet you know the higher-pressed ones are Ridiculous quiet the Mitsubishi is really crazy quiet. Yeah, and you can get up to four zones So you can get one condenser outside And that can run up to four different zones and it's way more efficient energy wise way way way I think he's asking How can I what? What filters can I use to to not do that and have it not do that? No, I mean I can set up processing that will get rid of that noise for you if that's what you want to do You know hit me up. We have a processing preset service. It's called audio processing presets I can probably come up with a filter that will reduce it or Eliminate it completely. If that's what you want to do on a budget. That's fine, too. Let us know All righty, we got through them all wow and gave good answers whether they were the right answers at least they sounded good It's the most important thing Anyway, if you have a question for us and perhaps we're out of time for getting more questions in here though Uh, all you got to do is write to us at you're ready to the guys at v obs dot tv And that will get you first in the queue So if you have a problem during the week or you suddenly it's like what about this? Well, it's top of mind. Yeah, send the email send a mail email to the guys at v obs dot tv And you will be first in the queue as they say in europe And in canada interestingly enough and probably in mexico only I think it's a different word I've picked it up now. I like to say it. Okay, uh, that's why I used it And uh, we're we're happy to answer those questions and of course That's why we're here george and I are professional home studio consultants and engineers and It's what we do. It's what we've been doing for a thing man for a long time and other people are like, yeah, I've been doing this a while I'm real old school. I learned, you know from the the analog radio days how to do this stuff and progressed into digital so it was like, okay, and I mean you were an analog too about this stuff for a long time Yeah And the other thing is is that we've been working with so many people and so many studios When we first started out doing this we were like, okay, we know what we're doing Take a thousand studios later and chances are we've learned something. Yeah, we've heard prop We've heard a single scenario at this point and every type of noise at this point. That's right Yeah, so well that's gonna do it for this segment of the program We'll be right back after these important messages to tell you a little bit about what's coming up So don't go away. We'll be right back here on voiceover body shop tech talk This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying den and george on the voiceover body shop Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra.com Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio voice auditioning home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one stop daily resource for voiceover success sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports It's all here at voiceover extra.com. That's voice over x t r a dot com All right, let's take a slightly different angle on this If you want to qualify as a professional in the voiceover business Especially from world voices of which I am president We have very specific parameters that qualify you as a professional Certain amount of paid jobs and a certain amount of time But one of the most important things is you have to have a web footprint. What does that mean? It means you got to have a website If you're a voice actor, if you don't have a website, they're never going to find you Dave Walsh was telling us last week You got to have a website so people can find you. What do you need on your website? You need your name Your demos and how to contact you You know, if you want to have some fancy website because show people how artistic you are or something like that Go for it. It's going to take a long time to do that. So what's an easier way? New website from voice actor websites dot com. It's called voice actor dot com where they have templated websites So you go in there you can start for free and get yourself online really fast And in about half an hour 45 minutes, you can choose from a number of templates and the Joe Davis who runs this company says we got new templates. They're fabulous. You can Customize the templates put your picture where you want put your demos where you want put your bio where you want Not that anybody really is going to read your bio. It's like, okay Where's this person from more importantly? What does this person sound like and how You know, how much contrast do they do in their reads and stuff like that? It's templated websites from voice actor websites dot voice actor dot com. I got to get used to that voice actor dot com and Start for free and be as little as 20 a month to have a great website that you have complete control over Go to voice actor dot com We are the world voices organization also known as woevo We're the not-for-profit industry association of freelance voice talent voice over is a complex entrepreneurial business Woevo is there to promote the professional nature of voice work to the public to those already established in their voice over practice And to those who want to pursue voice over as a career membership benefits include a supportive and creative community A profile and demos on voiceover.biz our searchable directory of vetted professional voice talent our exclusive demo player for your personal website Our mentoring program business resources and our video library our annual woevo con conference a fun and Educational weekend with other members with the chance to learn and network webinars and great speakers and weekly social chats with other members around the world If your world is voice over make woevo part of it world voices organization We speak for those who speak for a living This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs.tv Yeah, and we're enjoying it too We always do it's more fun in the studio. It really is I mean, it's it's a lot more fun. It's more comfortable. It's more challenging Because we have a lot more stuff to set up Multiple cameras a bunch of mics, you know, so there's there's more to do but it's still fun We we still love setting up the studio because it's it's what we do That's right And we've been doing it a long time and we do it better than everybody else Um, they can't even compare boy. I'm really egotistical tonight. I'm not sure what's going on. You're gonna tear Yeah, maybe that's what it is So anyway next week on this very show you'll still be watching this because We're taking memorial day off Hard to get a guest in here for memorial day. Yeah, and i'm traveling to pennsylvania On uh by the time you see this i'm already in pennsylvania Spending a couple weeks with my parents And my daughter elijah is flying up from georgia Spend a week with us over memorial weekend. So that's going to be really really nice And i'll be recovering from neck surgeries. So oh man, we hope it goes smoothly. I have no doubt We've got the best best doctors This guy's great. So calio. Yeah, although there there was the the uh, the cardiologist I went to last week who said all right, who's doing the surgery and I told him maria was goes. Oh, he got his license back Not a good thing for a cardiologist to say maybe it's like, let me see if this guy has a heart attack He was just yanking my chain Anyway in three weeks time. Well two weeks because this is next week, uh our good friend deba when uh Person really is going to come on and talk about all sorts of stuff Sounds good. Uh, yeah, and uh, so i'm looking forward to that and then in the coming weeks We got a great improv teacher tim powers is going to join us. Oh really? Okay, and Someone from the uk hopefully Okay, but we may have to that might be a little tough because it's going to be very early in the morning Time shifting might be required It it might have to pre-tape that Maybe because I had a fun time talking to him at woeville con a couple weeks All right, we'll figure that one out. All right. Well first off, uh, we uh, need to thank the people who Donate to us and you can donate to us too. Just go to our website and there's a little button that says Donate now. I think it still works A money still keeps coming in all right I think it's all these people that forgot how to unsubscribe. Okay. Well, we got to thank money guys like robert leadham steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tom pinto Shelly avaleno greg thomas a doctor voice ant land productions martha con 949 designs christopher eprison sarah Borgias philips appear brian page patty gibbons rob rider shawna pennington baird don griffith Tray moseley hyena bursall and sandra manwheeler. Thank you guys for helping us out Making the show technically perfect, which it was tonight Boom drop the bottle. No, don't do that. Um, and you hear those names all the time because well, they subscribe You can subscribe for like as little as a buck or if there was something that was particularly amazing Or just a great guest and you just want to give us a little thank you You can make a one-time donation to the show. Thank you. We absolutely and remember that george and I Home studios is what we do. It's our bag right so you can go over to home voiceover studio dot com If you want to work work with me or over to george's place of business, which is george the dot tech Which is really a team of people not just about me anymore and As a fan of the show You can always get 10 off whether we're doing webinars one-on-ones anything just put in v obs fan 10 percent outstanding We need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voice over essentials voice over extra source elements Vio heroes dot com voice actor dot com and world voices dot org Voices dot world dash voices dot org the industry association of freelance voice talent So go on over and join and next year you can go to wovo con which Was fabulous this year. We just had a great time. I'll go next year. I promise not a thousand people More under a hundred under a hundred. Yeah, maybe maybe 120. Yeah But you get to see all your friends and make new friends and more one-on-one time Right, you'll make friends for a lifetime when you go to these things. That's pretty important Of course, jeff holman kicking butt in the chat room tonight. Thanks jeff while starring on tv and movies and all that other stuff Hollywood holman. Yeah, that's what he went. That's what he calls himself Uh, thanks, uh, thanks to jeff for doing that and sumer lino Sitting there in her house going Thank you, su we really didn't have to deal with any of our bs tonight. That's right. I had to listen to it That's right. And of course lee pinney simply for being lee pinney Well kids, this isn't an easy business It there's you got competition. You've got tech tech. You've got to have talent But it's most important at least to george and I That you know your audio is right, but we've discovered that really if it sounds good. It is good. I'm dan lennard And i'm george woodham and this is voiceover body shop or vo bs tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. See you after memorial day guys. Have a good week