 Hey, it's time for voice over body shop one more time believe it or not and George and I are just gonna talk about The last 13 years essentially little reminiscing Yeah, that of sharing some of the fun Show art, you know the YouTube thumbnails that Dan's been making all these years on his own Yeah, you guys may not know that he makes them all himself So we'll talk he'll be showing some highlights and how he does it And we have a very special announcement that everybody's gonna love I think you're gonna love our little our little fun new feature that we've built on the website And which we'll be demonstrating tonight. That's right around for that That's right And if you've got a question throw it in the chat room depending on where you are we're gonna answer We are you know, we're on Facebook around on YouTube. How long we run in tonight? Till we're done Hour and a half. No, she's only has an hour. So I haven't a hard out. I Can keep running the show if you got to walk out of here. Yeah Anyway, time for voiceover body shop one more time now Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials comm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the folks who bring you source connect the oh heroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training Voice actor comm your voice over website ready in minutes Voice over extra your daily resource for voice over success and by world voices the industry Association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, hi there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George with him and this is voice over body shop or VO B So Back in before Thanksgiving in the before no in the yeah, not the before times. Yeah, no sometime last year now It's in the aftertimes, right? What happened? Well, we were decided we were gonna take some time off. Mm-hmm, and We we prescribed it. Yes, we said, okay, the holidays are coming up. Everything is just a mess and let's Let's just take it easy for let's take a beat Let's maybe reframe the show. We were talking about a makeover right we wanted to talk about podcasting a little bit more casting yeah, and then The week where we would normally do the show came along. Mm-hmm, and I'm like I'm not into it right now After a bit of vacation and that sort of realizing they didn't mind missing the well each the the responsibility Right, I mean my Sunday mornings were very busy Yeah, because we would get up we'll watch the Sunday morning talk shows and I would sit there And I would put out the banners doing a lot of and and promoting the show and stuff and I Want to really enjoy my coffee on Sunday morning And you know and because it's just the way things were lined up. Yeah, I'm like, I've had enough Yeah, you know, I we've been doing this show since two that March 22nd 2011 holy cow, so we just passed that man 13 years. Yeah, so You know It was how did we get the thumbs up on screen? Is that a new facebook feature? Yes or new mac feature No, you must have sonoma. Oh, maybe no sonoma. Well, maybe snow. Who knows what's on I don't know. I turn on the computer and it's there in the morning and it works feature. You have to say something upbeat There you go. This is great It just turned out that I'm like The thought was is I was like ready to retire I was about to turn 67 There was lots of stuff going on if you read our message in in facebook About what was going on and and and there was a lot of surgery between now and then And yeah, I mean I had back surgery 10 days ago I would show you my scar but that would really be showing off Yeah, don't it's the last thing you want to see is my talk this on the air here. So But you know, I I can't lift things. Yeah, but I can walk standing up straight Yeah, which I have not done for for years. I mean everybody thought it was Yeah, and but now I'm like walking straight. I mean the next I was walking around the block the next day It's amazing what they did incredible. You know, I mean they had to take a big piece of my You know one of my my my vertebrae out. Yeah scrape off all the You know the arthritis that's in there for all those years of playing hockey and and and sitting like this The irony that being active all your life made you almost completely inactive, right? You know and because of that I couldn't I couldn't do anything. I played golf I want to learn how to play pickleball, although I'm really late to the party So you got to wait till it gets cool again. Yeah, yeah, maybe like 75 80 when you're in the retirement community I'm in a retirement. We're playing banana tennis Banana tennis. Oh, I thought we were doing pickleball. What are you? Uh, you know, yeah Trying to say something funny. Yeah, the the pickleball is what we used to play street hockey with Oh, yeah. So now they're like, well, why don't we just play tennis with it? And now every commercial you see people playing pick nobody's playing tennis anymore Actually, I have a funny story about that. So I was hanging out with some voice actors some young young voice actors And one of them told me that she was looking for an apartment But there's a pickleball court, but it had no The problem was is that it did have a pickleball court and the damn things are noisy. It's like And she's like So she was she was she literally said I'm running outside I'm so sorry for not having your name at the top of my mind right now I'm gonna look you up because this is it's a great story. But um She she ran out. She she went she's like, I'm gonna look at my apartment now I'm gonna they're like, okay. She's like, I'm gonna go in my I'm gonna go in there and shut the door and to see What I hear, you know, she's like, well, wouldn't you know it when I was in there? There was no pickleball going on so I came back another time prepared and she said I came back Put a microphone in the room brought her equipment set it up in the apartment Hit record Ran out to the pickleball court and started hitting the pickleball Just to see what it sound like and ran back upstairs I was like that is freaking genius Yeah, but that's what we do like when we evaluate people's home studios for Noise issues. We tell you to put up your mic right record the environment. What are we here? What are we gonna have to fix right? Yeah, what's hilarious? Why don't we go back and really talk about why we started this show? Yeah, some of the exciting things that led up to it that was Back in 2011 when the world was a very different place But george and I met at at a voice conference Because you were brought in as a replacement for somebody who had been deported So everybody knows who I'm talking about and You you had a slide presentation on powerpoint. Yep, that was It's just a little over the top a little bit to tmi right There was just too much information in this slide right and I was responsible for producing that room at that particular Conference and I'm watching these slides. I'm like, oh my god. He is going to go way over people's heads You could tell you you knew this was way off target right because We do the same thing we help people with home studios right even back and I started doing this about 2005 2006 And I run like a listen. This is way over over your head or over everybody's head Let's go through these slides and let's take a few out Yes, and we took about two-thirds of them out as I recall I said you do this they're going to be kissing your feet at the end of this Well, this this this slide right here. I'm going to show you guys if I can This was the first slide I was going to show everybody as this is what you should have in your studio. So No guarantees I can actually get this on the show, but I'm going to try but um, if I go to share and stop screen and share screen again and present It has to be within chrome doesn't it? Can you share other apps? I have no idea. I'll just share my whole screen. Okay. Let's just let it go Let's just let her rip chaos ensues Here we go This is what I was going to show to the students Who I didn't know I mean the first 10 voice actors. I probably set up. We're all promo people Right with ISDN right and all this crap. So I was like, this is what you need in your home studio dance dance like Oh my god. No In fact, I still use the slide as sort of a joke. Yeah, you know, like I'll show this as the first slide Like at the Atlanta I did the mic 10 p3, which is really kind of everything I know about recording You know within reason and the first thing I would show is this one, you know, and I'd just be like just kidding People sitting in the audience going Yeah, just a tad intimidating very intimidating we can cut out about five or six things that are on that in that picture Dan Dan Dan talked Dan talked me down real and he's here. Here's look at his. Oh, look at that There's heavy George. This is slide one of that thing and here was here's all the stuff we're going to talk about and It was uh, it was gonna go off the rails quickly and Dan and Dan reeled me back in and I'm so glad that you did Yes, and we became fast friends after that Couldn't I also remember you were you were promoting that that mobile system? Yeah, vo to go vo to go. Yeah, and I was pretty impressed with that. Yeah, and we stayed in touch and we did a couple of podcasts together And then we decided You know, let's do this as as an actual podcast, but let's see I can't remember why we decided to do it on camera. Oh, so we could demonstrate stuff right and No, it wasn't even that we decided to do it on camera from my perspective because I couldn't find a way to do live shows That didn't have a video Attached right. There was no Platform that I could find that was a we used u-stream right and there was nothing as easy as u-stream Because we had a paper viewer too, which was Yeah, there was nothing really as easy and straightforward as that to just go live And I was like, well, I guess we'll just have a static picture of you and me on camera Or just sitting like there and then that's it and I was like Well, we have a camera. Let's just be on camera. Right. That was That was a huge mistake because Being on camera live streaming video is a big pain in the tukas What's that? You gotta say that just a more flam A big pain that took us we have gone through more changes to how we produce this show. I mean, can you Let me see if I can remember all the the variations of how we've done our show We did we did started with u-stream So that was me at my home on my lap on a desktop computer with A very complicated mixer, which I didn't even need but I had for some reason you called it the medusa And then whatever webcam I had and then you on in buffalo me and me in Santa Monica you and buffalo And we would use u-stream and we would go live and we would actually we it was really complicated because we were taking calls from by skype Right, right. So we were Or was it some other way we you and me were on skype? Right, that's how everybody was seeing us. But then we were taking calls by Pots like landline phone. Maybe it was by I think it was by skype I must have had another phone system. I think I had a second computer. I know guys. I'm sorry I think I had another computer that was dedicated to skype duties Right, and then you inputted that all in right right and and and so we had that set up because we were trying to be car talk We wanted to take calls. Well, I mean Dan's been in radio. I didn't know that the way these shows mostly work is it's 100 pre-recorded You know, I didn't realize that like what they do and the magic of how car talk is so seamless and so well run Is that it's all pre-taped right and they can edit it It's all and I can edit it. Oh, you're going to be calling at such and such a time And I thought like we were trying to get callers to call in at the right time It was a nightmare to do it was really hard Right, and then so pretty quickly. We realized live call ins wasn't going to be right and then we had pat fraily on Yeah, and and and and a few other people that we knew bob bergen was one of our bergen Pat was pat was number one Right, maybe bob was number two Yeah, and then there were a bunch of other people we started bringing on as guests. Yeah, but we but we that first we had tom kenney Yeah, tom kenney was a heck of a get yeah, I gotta think terra is strong for that one because terra invited me to this um It was like a fundraiser event for saving animals And she tom is a huge animal lover like terra and she invited me and she's like it's gonna be fun If you want to come tom's gonna be there. I'm like, oh, I'd love to get tom on our show Long story short. He uh, I gave him my card You know when he they were doing the they had to line up where people were having their stuff So, you know, and I said hi to him. I said gave my card And he was super kind and he was like sure I'll come on the show Not only did he come on the show he literally came into my house To be on the show in the flesh Right I mean that was and that's when we used to do the show where you and I would talk tech for the first half hour Yeah, we would no hour we would you and I did tech for a solid hour Yeah, and the guests had to just wait right and then we had two huge stars That did this tom kenney and june ferret for a for a yeah Very late in her life, but she was great. I mean she was pushing a book at the time And uh, you know, I had the opportunity to go hey rock watch me pull a rabbit out of my sleep And she was like but that trick never works. It was it was fantastic. She was the voice of rocking rocking squirrel but uh, and uh, yeah And then we then people wanted to be on the show So we got a lot of you know the top people in the business if you're looking for the tom kenney one By the way, that was before v obs. That was east west audio body shop. That's right So you're gonna have to dig a little deeper to find out right eventually the chat bot's gonna have everything from east west audio body Shopping it too. Oh good. It's gonna it's gonna have literally everything we've ever done It just takes more time to scrape it all but anyway, but you haven't told them about that yet But we'll get I know I know I'm getting ahead of myself. Yeah. It's that decaf. Oh, okay um Yeah, but it was it was fun and it was I mean nobody else was doing it and certainly nobody was doing it about voiceover No, there wasn't really there wasn't a talk show. I don't remember there specifically being a podcast There may have been a podcast out by that point. I don't really recall right Um, but there certainly wasn't like a talk show and there certainly wasn't like a show about just tech Right. We really thought we were gonna do a what two hours about tech I think that's what we initially thought. Yeah We realized that's just yeah, it's just too much. Yeah. Well, yeah, not only that And we were doing it on a sunday night. Yeah, we would do it live on a sunday night Yeah, and I remember the missus getting really upset because I was You know and then in a spare bedroom upstairs Oh where my studio was and jacob's room was right next to it And she got really upset because you're gonna keep jacob up and to keep him now when you consider he's now 27 years old It gives you an idea. Yeah, that was timeline 13 years ago. Um, yeah, so it caused tension Yes, some of the great, you know, we remember my my, uh Your nose and throat doctor. Yeah, Dr. Joe Bernstein That's when I literally learned about what an auto rhino laryngologist is right and how to say it. That's right You know, I don't know. I don't know if Joe's still practicing and that was quite a classic Yeah, I mean we were singing on there We the thing it was like the early days of television because there were no rules It was actually more like cable access. Well, yeah, it was it really was Um, but we were we were doing it by by by skype Right and and then we were capturing that Which was pretty new technology. Well, that was another classic moment, right? So there was an episode where Skype died died on my computer like in my studio. I couldn't get dan back on skype So I got dan on skype on my phone. I had it on my phone. So there's a whole 40 30 40 minute episode where I'm holding dan In my hand and talking to dan like this Right for the whole it it's just his voice coming out of the speaker getting picked up on my mic And that's how we did the show right because the show must go on the show must go on and it always did Yes, I mean, there were only a couple of times when It just it went totally kabloom. I mean it would it would break up like well, yeah, I can think of maybe one show One or two ever in our history where we just didn't go on the air that night, right? I mean, maybe I mean, we always got on the air. We went all the other that's right Even if it was late even if it was static or like freezing, right? There is actually a lost episode There is oh, there's a couple of those there's a lost episode and I'm gonna this is a I mean, you guys probably don't know we did a whole episode with you remember this guy Say the name and then I'll remember the episode We're talking like 500 shows mark growl Oh, yes. Oh, we did an entire we tried to do an entire live show from his studio. Right. We were we were touring people's studios We're over it at Dave and Dave and we are at voice tracks west. We were of waste tracks west. We were over it at The the sound box la. Yeah, Tim Friedlanders. Yep, and We were doing remotes. We were just we had no idea what the hell we didn't realize that the internet wasn't such a problem We didn't realize that you can't walk down the hallway on a smartphone and have it seamlessly stream audio from the catacombs of a giant building No, it was a total disaster. It was so bad that we literally didn't air that one, right? Maybe one of these days we should Glue it back together or recreate it really because mark is now, you know He's not retired, but he's not and he's not in california anymore. I know that much So we studio still there studio still there and kicking. Yeah, but that was that was an example of things where things went so poorly Right that we didn't even I mean because it was live if you were there that night watching it Really you saw well, you were the only ones that saw it right and it was a total mess, right? And we had this thing, you know, it's you know east west audio body shop every week. It's apollo 13 And then things stabilized a little bit for a while. Yeah Not for long. So then so then let me see the next iteration of the show after It really kind of went pretty much the same way until you moved here Right, right. We may have moved from u-stream to something else. I think that's when we moved to wire cast wire cast Wire cast was the sort of the pro version of u-stream, right? So we moved to wire cast and and then Everything's pretty much ran along and then dan moved Here, yeah, and that's where things got very interesting. Well one because you and I were always doing the show from opposite coasts Yeah, that was the east west, right? There was the one time when I just sort of showed up in your studio Yeah, I was out here for yeah. Yeah, fortunately my stepfather had passed away and they my mom lived in in orange And I came out and where I was like, yeah, leave them. It's it's working way. We see you. Yeah, he's in the chat and You know and then suddenly I just walked in I'm like hey, we're together Then there was the party we had at anganguises our third year anniversary show Where we had probably about 20 30 people in and that huge apartment of hers And we were demonstrating studio suit And yeah, that was great. That's another classic I'm realizing now a lot of these ones that we remember fondly were e-wabs episodes Yeah, they were because we had it was still we were fearless. Yeah, let's see if this works Yeah, yeah, it was a different era. Yeah So so but that even that episode even was before you moved out here That was when I decided to move out was me decided because larry hudson who I know is out They said, oh, you're gonna love it out here if you come and move out here So I I convinced the missus to come out. You had a lot of reasons to move out Yeah, I mean I mean my son said in animation school. Yeah, and uh, you know, and this is the center of my universe The business the weather well the the weather. Yeah, remember there was the one intro we had I said, okay go down on the beach and shovel some sand with my kid Yeah, right and then I had a wait for a snowstorm I went out into the driveway So it was you flipping sand and then me going Uh-huh shuffling shuffling snow. That was a great intro. Yeah. Yeah, and uh You know what we should do is put on on the website Just have an archive of like all the old stuff. Oh, yeah You know like the old intros the old intros kind of like mark garrow has a library of outtakes and stuff on his website By the way, those are classic. It's fix in the mix I think is their website fix in the mix.com and there's you have to go to the bloopers area Right. There's some gold on there man. Shatner You know, like, oh, yeah, that's that one's a legend. Like there's some really good stuff on there. Anyway, yeah Now one of the things that I would do Every sunday morning. Yeah, because we would shoot the show on on monday night like we're doing right now Is I had to create a banner for facebook and for the the promos that we would send out to our mailing list and in various other places, uh and There were a few that were my favorites, you know and how did I do them? I would like all right. I would just go and go You know google two guys Doing this or two guys playing baseball or two guy and I would And I'd look at all these pictures and I'm like Okay, we'll try this one and thankfully this is way before generative a i art right. No, this was me using key Keynote keynote and so you were using keynote all these years. Yeah to make those banners. Yes, that's awesome Because I knew how to do it. Yeah, exactly. It was easy. Well, let's look at some of those. Um, put that one This was this was fairly recent. I loved this one because I had a you have to find the right pictures To go with it You know like the pictures of us So I have to be looking this way and you had and I would go through Facebook and all the pictures that were taken because I don't remember I this one slipped by me I don't remember this one. Isn't that right on the roof shot? Yeah That's that's from let it be It's fantastic, you know, and you know, but there's things I had to fix You know, I'm like, okay, I have to put the sky here, but make it look like we're actually there No, there was the one I did with the right brothers Some of them it's people have no idea how much work you put into it to make it look show the next one And then Jacob started drawing these characters of us. Yeah, and look how perfect that fit into those. Yeah It was a no brainer. I think we did it with yogi bear And other ones. Yeah. Yeah. What's the next one there? So, oh now One of the things that I I have a real propensity for and I this really came out of I think a trip that Marcy and I took to uh to eastern europe We were in Czechoslovakia went to the museum of communism Which if you're ever in prod go to the museum of communism, it's It's very revealing. It was actually quite interesting, but I had this thing for soviet propaganda art Yeah, because it's great stuff even though it's like Big brother is watching sure and this one was you know, two guys one guys holding like a Sickle or something like that and and then you had Lenin pointing like that and I'm like Let's see if this one works and that one worked really well I mean you are quite a history buff. So that oh well, absolutely that Yeah, by the way, there's a great documentary on netflix called Um turning point the bomb in the cold war. Oh, yeah, watch it if you guys don't understand what's going on in the world right now Watch that it's a great review of The the soviet union and how putin came to power and why we're in the mess. We're in town It's all just a little bit of history repeating Exactly shirley bassey Can't remember the name of the group that did that it's Oh propeller heads propeller heads. That's right. Boom. Listen to that one shirley bassey was the one who was saying gold finger That's right That she sounds great still. Yeah, no, she can still 60 years later. She's amazing. Yeah What was that next one the next it was like an airplane. Yeah airplane. Yes Heck yeah, yeah, I this it was the the 40th anniversary. It was your mic on Oh, can be. Yeah, we're you're on line one there. You could be interstitially Just one two one two pot it up On my channel one Oh, it's on robot mode. Okay. Never. Yeah, it's one of the it's one of the key pads on Yeah, don't yeah, and make sure you turn that off before I have to do anything for Did you turn it on on purpose? No, she was just playing with it. No, I was I didn't touch it I thought you were doing one first. Never mind Anyway, this is an airplane clearly. So, you know, it's like how do you how do you I had to find a picture now? You'll notice that's the same picture of me and which one in Brittany. Yeah, okay, which yeah, it is at the same angle But flipped right so Okay, so actually it's the same picture of you. Am I flipped it the other way? That's right. Nicely done. Is that striker? No, that's striker Striker and Leslie Nielsen. Yeah, yeah, you're you're the captain and auto the you're over Yeah, yeah, and auto the autopilot. I thought that was that would work now. This was for the The the interface shootout we had. Oh, yeah, I'm like, okay. I got this is still a good piece of Content. Yeah, those that want their audio interfaces. Yeah, I mean audio interfaces have changed a little bit You'll notice we haven't done one since because it's a big pain in the neck. Yeah, really We had I mean I had to record all this stuff and then we had to chop it all together You know, that's the thing we do the show live And it made things a lot easier because then we're just like, okay You know cut off the end and you know and then cut it into two shows And yeah doing the show live is a part of the secret sauce of how we can we could maintain doing this So you would think doing it live makes things harder. Well, it does make certain things harder I mean like I said, I was getting into the point of how we've changed the way We do the show and when Dan moved here, we had to rethink completely. Well, we have a studio to do. Yeah, we have a studio We have we have multiple look at this great set we have Yeah, of course, if we have multiple if we have a studio, we need multiple cameras right now We're gonna have multiple cameras. How are we gonna do that? We think that out. Well, we we had a first we had a pretty good mac book pro that we thought was good enough It's still sitting on the couch over there dead battery, you know, but was that before or after the mac pro? I think the mac pro was before the mac book pro Yeah, so we had a cheese grader mac book into the big tower mac right we had one of those right and it was a beast It was a 12 core Monster that we got on eBay and still wasn't enough. No because well, then we had well then we had the pc Well, which I really referred to as the beast We had to get the pc because it turned out that wire cast doesn't what we were using doesn't work on a back so unstable It was terrible. We had that was the read that was the main reason this show became Apollo 13 was because of wire cast We would have so many problems Every other show we would have to do troubleshooting to get things work. It was a nightmare, right? So then we're like, let's scrap it. So I was at nab I saw I think it was Kerr karnak Doing uh doing live appearances from nab and i'm like, well, you guys running than someone you guys using they're like, oh, it's v mix I'm like, oh v mix. Let's get v mix. So i'm gonna get on the whole v mix thing right and they're like it's windows only i'm like Okay, all right. Well, uh, let's get a custom built pc. So then we had a custom built pc Just to do v mix. Yeah, and that thrusted us back into pc world and sue had to learn The v mix interface with windows and it was it was quite a learning a learning curve and a half Right, but it was stable right v mix was way more stable And we did do the live show in v mix for a long time right and then then you discovered stream yard Well, we discovered stream yard because then we had the pandemic Oh, right. So all then we had to do the show remote. We did do the show remote. So at first it was remotely control I was trying to get sued a remote control the studio v mix computer And then listen to the show via I think it was skype Or was it zoom it was on zoom. Yeah, so sue was list trying that was the that's how she was trying to hear what dan and i were doing That was the ifb. So sue could hear us live even if we weren't on the air, right? It was so complicated and it did not work out well It was just a train wreck and a half. Yeah, so that's when we discovered stream yard, right? And then it changed everything right because Super easy like if anybody while while I have my gripes about stream yard It does weird things like why dan and I were jiggling up and down before and I don't I don't know But anyway, it's super easy. You're still doing it, but is it doing it now? Yeah It's a weird software. It's all based on the web It's on chrome But in terms of you want to get a live show out in the air with the least amount of Absolute headache and frustration. Yeah, it's probably stream yard It's and it's getting better all the time. It's got more features, but that's and that's yeah now five years four years running Yeah, stream yard. Yeah, so now you're all probably, you know, we're we're just shooting the poop here about This is the thing that's going on memory lane. It's it's the top of the hour here All right. Yeah, it's it's like 11 o'clock in new york. Holy cow in north carolina. Oh, that's right We've only been we've only been on for a half hour. That's right. Okay, so we it's uh I guess it's time for the big announcement Because you guys are like, what are you guys going to talk about? What is it? What is it? Well, you know, when we decided to stop doing the show We're thinking well, how do we How do we promote the stuff that we have? We've got So many hours of material. That's the thing. There is so much useful evergreen content Any question you would ever have about voiceover was probably answered on this show By all the guests we've had on all the you know, the coaches and producers and If you look at 13 nearly 13 years, all right Let's say an average of an hour per episode because they were splitting well There was an hour and a half originally for a really long time. It was a full hour and a half Right. Well, mostly because the guests would continue to talk and I'm like, okay. How do we get them to stop? Yeah, I mean well the shows were literally each monday nearly two hours, right Do you remember? I'll never forget it So so you add all that together and then when we split the show into tech talk I mean, it's got to be like Over a thousand hours of content. Maybe a lot if you include ewebs easy because we did over 300 shows as ewebs. Yeah, and then we did Like 250 shows with a guest. Yep, and we did 114 tech talks 140 you you do the math. Yeah, I mean it's how many hours it's an Sane amount of useful content, right? So then it was like, how do we make this usable and consumable and as going on as the show goes on And then give me my sunday mornings, right? So if you go on like google or if you go on youtube and you search for things You can get lucky and find like an episode where something was brought up or somebody was a guest But beyond that, you don't get much more useful information and then you got to comb through the episode Find what you're looking for. Well, I remember jack to goalie. I used to Kept a transcript of what we were doing the good old days. Yeah, we would actually have a live human doing show notes I'll bet you jack's watching too, but We really did and so we decided that There needs to be a better way to find stuff. I mean Even for my own personal use, right? I would be frustrated I would see things on facebook people talking about a certain topic I'm like, oh my gosh, we talked about this ad nauseam on our show. If I could only find What's the poignant thing that we said or the moment in the show where we said Anyway, we found a way and you found a way Because I don't understand any of this stuff. We found a way you kids in your AI and and we found a way and it looks and it looks something a little bit Like This right here This is our this is our new AI now it I'm already logged in So it's not letting me show the screen blank the way it would normally show it But you can see john's eye peering through This is now how we uh, you can find everything we've ever talked about on the show. This is our AI dan and george Yeah, and so we've built a chatbot This is now how you can access All these years of content everything that's ever been said on the show every guest Every topic and we talked about everything every question like you guys have ever asked everything that's been spoken on the show Thanks to let's face it Excuse me modern technology machine learning AI This is all findable now right and so we we use the service that allows us to Well, it's not a circuit secret because it literally sits on the bottom of the website What it is. Yeah powered by custom gpt.ai We use I found a thing called custom gpt.ai while I was sick in bed with co vid the first week of the year and we were able to use this tool set to scrape And get site maps and find as much useful information that dan and I have spoken online as possible Ingested into this thing and create this tool and it is all you have to do is ask it a question It is awesome. And here's a few things if you guys have done anything with AI type tools You're probably quite accustomed to the fact that they hallucinate. Yes This has been it makes up stuff This has been a rather controversial part of any chat bot chat gpt type tool set, right? What's so cool about this chat bot system is it doesn't hallucinate If what you're searching for is not definitively Locatable, it's not gonna make it up the language model. It doesn't make it up So for example, I typed in the question a little bit earlier Um, are there any episodes where sue meleno? Was seen on camera. Well, that may have happened at some point, but however Because probably we never said her name sue meleno, right or something like that The the database of everything we've ever said doesn't know where that is. So it says Sorry, we don't have an answer. We recommend getting help from dan george or go to the website or You know, we'll help you somehow, you know, right? So it won't make up an answer But it it comes up with all kinds of good stuff, right and the better your question The better the answer, right like you can throw at it tons of details And it will formulate some pretty useful stuff So I if you guys have some good questions in the chat, I will start throwing them in there And you guys can search it and see what it comes up with and see So give me some good questions while dan thinks of something useful to say Well, I mean we it's easy to find this because we put it on all of our websites It's on of course v obs dot tv Yes, it's a very top if you look at you look right above us if you're watching on our on our website It says you can't say yeah The chatbot thing you click on that it'll take you to the chat It literally says the best shop talk in voiceover is now in chatbot form and then right below in yellow It says introducing ai dan and george chatbot click here to learn more So the way it works if you click on that if you click on that it's going to take you to Yes, it's going to take you to a paywall So um at the moment it's priced at 20 bucks We think maybe that's a little bit steep. An introductory price of 10 dollars We're going to drop it down to 10 bucks a month and So what happens is once you log into this thing you got to put in your credit card info But what it's going to do is it's going to it's going to give you 14 days two weeks to hammer on this thing And play around with it and see if it's actually useful for you and what you're doing and what you're learning And if it is then it will start building your card. You guys know how free trial subscription stuff works It works like Pretty much all the other cancel at any time, but why would you want to right? So so we're gonna we're gonna adjust the price maybe we'll take a break later and i'll fix the price and um And you guys can start playing around with it, but we we are really proud of this It's it's the way to get information. We never thought possible and every question that you could possibly have about voiceover I mean performance covered, you know improv every tech question. We've ever covered You know By the way, we'd like to have your questions because George and I would still like to do what we do best Which is answer your questions Yeah, well just we're actually kind of working on a question from Justin because Justin Ramos Answer said uh, dan. Can you tell us about your daily vo routine compared to when you first started? As compared to now, you know like checking emails auditioning checking pdps And then a question for me from elder rotto gtt. What is what have you what have you done about your routines? Holy cow. That's a whole show. It is one question Well, I can I can do you want to get to we want to get to that one right? Sure. Yeah What's my routine like? Well, let's see I get up at 7 20 every morning Then stay in bed till about 8 20. Yeah, I'm retired and I I'm collecting my social security I don't have to answer to anybody except Except the mrs. Yeah. Yeah, and uh And and michka and sometimes jake mishka is the dog Uh And uh, but I will come out here after breakfast because this is a separate studio This is grot. This was the great thing about this place when we bought it. It was a recording studio the first you know when we when we first bought the place and so we George and I worked it to reconvert it into a voiceover studio And the television studio Which is why we look so darn good on here. We got lights. We got Everything is you know, of course, there was all the cable that was in here Which is now sitting in a closet. It's enough to support, you know, a tank hanging from um But you know, I I'll go check my my email, uh, but when I first started it was yeah It was a lot of going to the pdps Uh and looking for auditions and firing those out And was there a point where you just decided I don't need to deal with the pdps anymore? Yeah about four or five years ago. Well when one of them Really went south with how they were managing things. I remember actually going to their office and saying you can't do this As were a lot of other people. Yep, and I came home and I immediately took myself off of that one I was on the other one that had a numerical name to it We're not saying the name is because we don't want to come up in a i-search right exactly anybody It's been watching our show or they know it's dipped a toe in the voiceover business Now's we're talking about and I built my business on on those Right, you know, the one was very good before they decided to change their management plan Uh And they changed their priorities. They they really that's what it was Suddenly we were no longer their customers. We were their commodity. Yeah, and I didn't like that very much, uh, but I built a good solid clientele from that Uh, and I had a couple of big contracts with uh, a couple of companies that were constantly sending these stuff and then And then I started doing stuff like I became president of a local board Which I'll never recommend, uh because What did they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Yeah You know and and and no no good deed goes unpunished. There's a lot of that Uh, and I became very philanthropic and started doing that that started to take away from my time from doing voiceover Then for some reason we started doing this about a couple of years later And that took up time But we were doing the show to promote the fact That we were consulting with people on home voiceover studios and a lot of people were getting into the business And they needed assistance with that. I spent about 50 percent of my time doing voiceover 50 percent of my time Helping people with their home studios and 50 percent of my time taking care of my dogs 50 percent of your time being a dad that's right 50 percent of your dad being a time being a husband Right, right, so Now now I get to do all that stuff actually Um, and today, you know, it's it's pretty easy because my clients send me stuff They've been doing it for years and I count on you right and you're a trusted voice Right and and people keep sending me stuff through my specimen collection cup on my my web page and it's you know It's a nice leisurely life out here in southern california where the sun is shining except for this winter uh and uh You know, I You know, it's not bad and because it's so relaxing I I don't need the stress of trying to put this together every week Right, you know getting a guest and and you know that sort of thing. So Not that I didn't like doing it. I just got tired of doing that when there are other things in my life I needed to be doing yeah like looking after my family and You know make up for all the time that you know, perhaps I was Maybe not paying as much attention to them as I needed sure because this is a place great place to come out and hide Yes, yes more than anything. I never you all know what i'm talking about I never had that place to hide in my house growing with my daughter growing up And uh my daughter my daughter when she was able to When she was at the age of being able to run and walk Was disruptive, uh, I don't know if and she would always run and walk onto the show I don't recall she would love to stick her head on the show Do you ever remember hearing her banging on the door to my office? Oh, absolutely very loudly Like I mean like a kick drum boom boom boom boom, you know like a monster So my kid was very disruptive So I mean things have not in terms of my business and what I do things really have not changed Uh, I still don't do voiceover as crazy and stupid as that sounds the more I say it to myself I never I never dipped my toe in the voiceover business Um I still run my business full-time. There was a distracted moment where I just decided to join another company From 2013 we won't mention any 2017. I joined another company because I was you know I was tired of running my own business because it's freaking exhausting sometimes. It is stressful And um, so that was a little distraction But since then, you know, that was before I joined that company. I was Alderata recording services I met my buddy Graham Spicer who helped me do a remake of my company a rebrand. We moved we changed to vio studio tech Graham and I joined this company. We worked there together for four years Then we both were asked to leave and we did and we went off to do new things And that's when I started george the tech. I had to come up with a new brand I had to come up with everything literally in one night And that's what I did sometimes inspiration hits I was you got to go for it I was kicked out the plane and I built another plane from spare parts that I had still strapped on to me as I plummeted to earth Managed to not crash into the ground And then fixed the plane and the plane's gotten a little better now with our latest iteration of george the dot tech The new website which launched a year ago now Is been quite a journey and quite quite a process, but it's the first time we built something from scratch From the ground up and it's been a huge amount of work a huge amount of work. It's probably I spend Not so much now, but for at least six months to eight months It was probably a quarter of my time was like just keep Getting the website where do you see it now and and improving it and and now it's coming up with services that meet more People's needs and then building a team That's especially since the new site came out quite a quite a list of people you got working with you It's been a huge part of our a huge priority is was to to have more More people that have more specialties Not only when my just one person I just didn't want to continue trying to pretend that I'm an expert at everything Right. I'm just I'm not an expert at everything. I'm not an expert at studio one I'm not expert at logic. I'm not an expert at pro tools I can get around in these things. I'm okay in reaper, which is why we tell people not to use of those things It makes it a lot easier You know, some people end up getting training from somebody who's an expert at one thing, you know Like there's a guy for studio one. There's there's schools that still teach pro tools to brand new voice actors Don't understand that at all But even simple kids I don't want to learn everything new and I don't want to convince people that they need to learn these crazy new things So my job is to be the advocate for the voice actor Always really has been finding the right tools things that are easy reliable And efficient that's really my thing and and that's what I still do at as george the tech right just trying to stay relevant and I guess the only thing that's really really new other than the chatbot experiment is um I've just decided that while I was at vio Atlanta, it would be a good time to launch a new membership So we actually have a membership program now now. I've offered this for years, but only to Under the radar. Yeah, not like online just you know a client of mine. It's really busy. I'm like, you know, I you're hiring me a lot Let's work something out. So I do have a number of vip clients. So I see on a regular basis or help them Well, now it really it's open to everybody now So if you're interested in getting like a more of a flat rate type support You can do that. Um on george the tech you'll see a menu item for memberships and See what you think see if there's something there. It's useful to you. We have bimonthly meetings where we Just talk tech. It's ask me anything You can get access to sound checks Which is your specimen collection cup? and Unlimited access to the chatbot which we're going to demonstrate here in a little bit actually I have a question for our great for the vbs chatbot I also forgot that I became president of world voices. Oh, you forgot that little thing. Uh, yeah That's also taking up a lot of time right now. Yeah, my my term is up in october, uh, but You know, we I decided to take the organization and It the times have changed and what we originally came up with I don't think it's really as relevant today as it was back in 2012 when we started it. Yeah, and uh, so we're really marketing our Our our searchable directory of our professional members voiceover dot biz. Yeah, uh, and we're promoting it to the people who hire us And they are hiring people from there So if you join wovo as a professional member if you qualify you can be on there and that's like You know, is it a pay-to-play? Well, it's 99 a year to be a member of the organization But we got other stuff. We've got our demo player. It's a very minimal cost. Yeah Uh, you know for a professional organization. Absolutely. I pay more than that for every other organization I'm a part of yeah, and and then we've got uh and wovo con Which is which is going to be a more like faff con this year In Chicago, but now it's going to be a bunch of you know at faff con. Yeah in a nutshell explain the faff con faff con is an Unconference, uh, where it's not where you're bringing lots of big speakers to attract people It's members helping members essentially, uh, and and expert, you know people who everybody's got some sort of expertise in something Uh, and their voice over some people are really good at accounting Some people are really good at marketing. Some people happen to be fairly good at home studio stuff You know until they they don't know and then they ask you and me about it Uh, and then or somebody else who's going to give them some long complicated answer and uh But we have you know, we've got videos on stuff. We have you know distinguished speaker series. We've got webinars Uh, you know that sort of thing, but the faff con model was people would get together on the first night and And say what do you want to talk about and everybody would write it down and everybody would Look at the cards and go. I want to talk about that and you'd put a sticker on it So the ones that have the most votes was it limited to a hundred hundred people back then. Yeah We're going to probably keep this to 150. Yeah And uh, so imagine a hundred people and one like, you know conference room Sitting there with post-it note type things, you know writing down what their topic is right and then It's more of a discussion than it is presentation. Some people come with you know, sort of Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of people that are coaches, you know, they kind of have a spiel right like I did But it's non-commercial. Yeah, it's not like we're we're pushing people, you know by this guy's book And by this, you know, which is by the way something that I have a big problem with in our business right now If you've only been doing it for a year, you're not qualified to teach other people how to do it, you know I I spent You know 12 years in broadcasting and and have a degree in broadcasting. I know how all that stuff is Everybody else is just guessing now. They're getting online and going trying to create a tv show or a podcast That's what I used to do is it was the public service programming on saturday and sunday morning You know intro body outro boom puts on big real estate Put it on there on sunday morning hit the button and watch sunday morning tv while that thing's running for half an hour And then wait got to go to the next one. You know that sort of thing That was that was my life for for a few years. Uh, but Where was I going with that? What were we talking about? It's not that's what happens when It's not important, but I do I do have a question for the chat box. Oh good So here we go. I'm gonna and the question is shoe show me the chat box, weren't you? So this question came in from Justin I think it was from Justin. Sorry. Who was the one that said here's a question for the chat christed chris chris walsh Okay, so here's this question All right, we're gonna paste this into the chat box together kids and watch what happens real time So go to the chat bot paste and the question is For the chat bot search on which episode did mark cashman explain what to say to clients if they want to know What they are paying for What did he say? Look at that Let's see. Let's see what we get so Mark cashman discussed what to say to clients if they want to know what they are paying for in v obs episode 236 he mentioned that when giving clients a quote It's important to itemize the three things they are buying Before then just one this approach helps clients understand the value of what they are purchasing and clarifies the breakdown of services provided boom Gold come on guys I mean that's pretty useful right and then right below that It says where did this answer come from and then so there's the video there's references to the actual episode When that was mentioned now, it's interesting. It shows four sources So I don't know how it derives which mark was on the show a bunch of times So yeah, it does show multiple times when he was on the show But it says that this is uh, this was the best answer to that question. So Guys, you have no idea how complex this is. I I watched I watched the A highlight reel of the invidia keynote Invidia is the biggest company that you probably don't know about unless your cards unless you're a gaming nerd You don't know, but they are I think the second or third biggest Most biggest company in the world like right up there with microsoft and apple and um They are the ones that build the processors the servers the chips all this stuff that make stuff like this work It's unbelievably complex that it just seems like a search engine But what it's doing is it's searching through in our case of this particular Chatbot the library. It's called the language model is built of Uh Just shy of 10 million characters And so it's searching through all that Figuring out what's the most relevant way to come back to you with your from your query with something useful That really makes sense and then formulating a very well written response But what again what sets this apart from just your generic chat gpt By the way, I have a chat gpt account from open ai and it's pretty freaking cool. I I make a lot of chatbots But this one is absolutely has guardrails It will not it will not hallucinate if it can't find the answer that's relevant to your question And it's not within the database. It will simply say I don't have an answer for you We find your search a little bit. Yeah, just come up with a bit different question because It's not going to make stuff up kids. Yeah, and that's a really big deal about this So how do you like that? Yeah, there's one maybe we can throw some more in there later if anybody just comes up with Are there any questions for me and dan? That's the question While we asked for them there should be some in here While you're doing that we of course we have to thank Jeff Jeff holman who would jeff holman. Yeah, who's probably out there watching going. Well, good. I participate because you know, we're just This is a shoot in the breeze episode. Yeah, it's a very loose Yeah, but he would he would monitor our chat room. Yes and shout out shout out to jeff holman Hollywood jeff holman. Yeah, yeah, hollywood holman. Yeah And you know, I can't remember his imdb. It's probably still hidden on our oh got a question on on Screen now. Yeah, thanks. Thanks jeff. That was yeah, you were you were it was a real help You loyally helped us Almost from the beginning of pandemic. Yeah. Yeah when we really needed it. Yeah, so thanks jeff So we had another question here. Yeah, this one came from Lena del robo, which is actually a new name to me. Um, hey guys, you're the best and I've really enjoyed your shows. Thank you Congratulations and thanks for everything. What are your thoughts on the earthworks icon mic? It does it does need. No, it says needs no interface. I found it on sweetwater. Okay, so that must be the earthworth icon Usb mic. Yeah, so they made two versions the usb and the xlr I don't know how any I don't have any personal experience with that model, but I do have its brother Okay called the ethos Oh, I remember you're talking about the earthworks ethos right and I have nothing but Great things to say about the ethos. It's been fantastic I have not used the usb variation of the icon. So I don't know I don't have anything specific to say about it. I would I'm sure there's some good youtube on the us Remember specifically the usb version because they make, you know, when you have a usb mic It's gonna have different quirks, right and we had different behaviors than an xlr mic Right, it may not have quite the game that you'll have with an interface or stuff like that But is it yeah, I mean is the self noise going to be as clear? Is there going to be more noise? A lot of times these usb mics they kind of cut corners on Certain components to to physically put them in the mic and there's just they're not always the most clear sounding There are some good usb mics I mean, you know, we know the sennheiser makes one sennheiser makes a new one for digital digitally Yeah, it's and the road nt1 fifth gen fifth, which is an amazing mic in a fabulous price point To probably the best usb mics going they have a common thread between them is that they have zero Nobs button switches or jacks. It's all software driven. It's just a usb cable, right? So everything happens in the computer. There's no headphone jack But they are really good sounding usb mics, but I yeah the If you're really looking at ethos, um, I mean if you're really looking at earthworks check out the ethos Super impressive mic that can easily do voiceover work as well as Podcasting and broadcast stuff. Yeah Then again The the the bottom line on all of this is if it picks up your voice and it's a fairly good microphone It probably doesn't matter Whatever mic you have is the mic you have it's this space around you that It's it's always it's the acoustics And a lot of you talk the more the acoustics come into play I've been enjoying watching dan tonight because dan has been Been like backing way off and all this stuff and talking and it still sounds like he's right in front of the microphone Right, isn't that amazing? This is this is the harlan hogan Vo1a by the way That's the classic right there. Yeah, and the reason for that is this rooms acoustics are very well done Right, they're very there's this whole wall behind us that's behind this green screen is one ginormous acoustic panel We're actually it's called the studio Hey, let's show it. This is a good time to talk about studio suit for for a minute a minute because it's long gone, but there it is This is what's behind the green screen everybody. You've ever been one wondering what's back here But it works dude. So what is studio suit while we're talking about studio suit was something I found in a warehouse in buffalo Uh, somebody thought it was They were tense and this guy had bought an entire truck loaded these things from some government surplus thing wasn't wasn't it um Quonset hut insulation it was it was insulation for a quonset hut Like they would put these up in the in the in the Arctic out in the in the field Right promoter had these huge rolls of this stuff right and they would right roll it out Yeah, and and and so this guy I knew who owned this where this army navy store Was like oh i'm gonna use this people can soundproof their studios with it because that's the stuff you talk about laying It's not soundproofing. It's sound Dampening material. Yeah, it's dampening. Yeah, and it's it we put it in people's closets It was it was it you didn't need a bass trap. It just sucked sound into it And you know and I can talk right into it and it Doesn't bounce anywhere. It's incredibly absorptive. In fact, yeah that one episode we were talking about where dan is assembling A booth out of pbc is actually using the studio suit Yeah, but hang it from pbc pipe and it worked exceptionally well, but it had a couple of little minor issues Some of them had a little bit of a mildew problem Right it they took a two or three bottles of febriest to really get it smelling because they they were outside They were out in this palette outside for 10 years So they smelled like a Boy Scout 10 And that is a very that is a very um divisive odor. I don't know why for me Mildew smell doesn't bother me because it's like nostalgic. It reminds me being in my parents basement Well, that's what I was gonna say. It's like weird Barbie. It says smells of basement weird Yes, exactly Oh, yeah, no, I that smell was very nostalgic. It didn't bother me, but for many for other folks Uh, yeah, maybe not the best choice in an enclosed room, but um, they were and the other problem was was it was in these Massive things. Oh, there's a 40 foot roll and I had to cut them into eight foot sections Manageable and that was not which is why I stopped at doing it But the people who have it and it's all still in a warehouse in Buffalo, no, I Maybe I don't know who knows where it is. I don't know if rob what rob did with it But you know that was studios came in these big 10 foot long green cigars of canvas green canvas bags And uh, it's essentially loose yellow fiberglass in a canvas wrapper, right? And it and it works really well works really well, and I still have Piece I think I got a couple pieces sitting in the in this in the in my voice booth over here Yeah, there might be some still around or there's someone on the store over here. Oh, no, that's that's not that's one of the panels I made that's something you made. Yeah. All right. There was another question two had on the screen a minute ago Let's see if we can grab to that one She's scrolling scrolling Dang it. I had it on screen and you guys Oh patrice, uh, hi patrice. How would you prepare your voice for audiobook narration? And since you don't do that anymore, you know Yeah, I gave that up about 10 years ago. I mean, there's a lot of you guys out there doing audiobooks While you while you come up with an answer. I'll search for it on our chat bot. Yeah, you know To me audiobooks were always high effort low reward uh, but um, how do you prepare how do you prepare your voice for that? You warm up. I come out cod here in the morning and go La la la la la la la la la la la la la. I I do scales I you know, you go Oh Do the vocal exercises to really loosen up your voice Uh, but doing a long session of audiobook. I mean, when you read an entire chapter And you know long-form narration is physically exhausting can be you know I mean it was I mean when I have to talk all day. Yeah, that's not not being a voice actor I get physically tired and I can feel it in my throat. I feel how tired I am. Yeah I Was in really good shape back in those days and I and I could do you if you're in good physical condition and I was working with a trainer back then and I was able to But the door swung open and a fake Newton entered as Groucho Merck's one said But you know I You have to be in good physical condition Really need to do voiceover because there's so many people that try to read a sentence and take a breath every five seconds You know right you should be able to read an entire Sentence without taking a breath look think about how much editing time you save just by doing that But what did the chatbot come up with? It came up with a bullet list of stuff Okay, which is you know chatbots are really good at making lists and by the way I have been using my own personal George the tech bot You know my AI George for like a month and a half answering you guys's questions on Facebook and Reddit I don't know how much you if you've seen answers for me that are Remarkably well-written and verbose. Yeah possibly broken down into eight to ten bullet points Yeah, it's probably my chatbot. I've been using it a lot, but the answer Is it's eight points warm up your voice and there's you know, there's more details for each one of these But warm up your voice just like Dan said stay hydrated. Thank you for the reminder. I forgot cuz I I don't stay hydrated I it's I don't drink it all I mean, I gotta I don't know how you do water intake But practice reading out loud if this is something new for you Understand the material you're reading but pretty important helps really does help work on your breathing proper breathing technique very Crucial, I'm just repeating what Dan said see like how look how relevant this is all up here Create a comfortable recording environment Extremely important for audiobooks when you're gonna be there for hours and hours recording Rest your voice How long would you go between breaks? How long did you know before you're like I gotta take a break? More than two hours. Yeah, I mean I could do a chapter in an hour and I would stop you would take a break I take a break have a drink, you know and go back and go back at it Okay, although generally what I back in the back of the day, I would record and I would edit the chapter You like to do it as you go. Yeah, I that would be my tendency. Yeah, I would be so like It would be so in my head when I just recorded, right? I would just be thinking I gotta edit it. I gotta edit. I gotta edit it I can't I can't let it go. That would be me. I would edit it. I'm the same way, you know, are you coming for lunch? Yeah, I'll be there in a couple minutes Yeah Yeah, and the very last one which may be the most important bullet point of all is seek feedback and training Listen to people get advice from professionals. Don't think you know everything just because you have a chat pot Doesn't mean you're right. You have all the answers and get help because or ask us Get help get help. Yeah Great question. Yeah so and Cripes we've been doing this all these years The thing is is the more you do it the year all the years that you and I have spent building home voiceover studios very specifically I mean, did we know everything when we started? No, I mean Little George Carlin joke. How do you start a path? You got to hold the grass down yourself at first. That's a great line Carlin had a bunch of them. Yeah But we learned you know the more experience nobody has as much experience at home studios as you and I do This has been an absolute obsession for a very long time. Yeah, and you know, everybody else is like, oh, here's how you be an engineer You don't have to be an engineer. Yeah, I learned pro tools. That's the industry standard Which industry are you talking about? Yeah, let's talk about which industry we're talking about it You know, you're not a recording engineer You're a voice actor your job is to capture your voice in the proper acoustical environment with the right levels and now levels Now AI is controlling that stuff. Well AI and 32-bit float, which is a topic I've been what I have been teasing that I'm gonna do a webinar or a video on 32-bit float for a very long time and it's time so I'm gonna be doing that soon because it it's The question keeps coming up more and more often and I've got two perfect devices to test I've got the Rode NT 1 5th gen yeah with the 32-bit float USB 80 converter magic sauce, right and I have a zoom UAC 232 I think it's called. Yeah, which is sort of like their scarlet 2i2. Yeah It's an audio interface with no game knobs. Oh It has zero game the evo 4 is like that too. Well, it will set a lot as a smart level That's a whole nother thing. So smart level setting This is becoming more of a thing especially now the new scarlet 2i2 4th generation came out it has auto level and Safe modes. Hmm. I'm still dubious on the safe mode I was watching all these YouTube videos trying to get a better explanation. Basically a limiter That's what I don't understand I don't know if it's a limiter where it when you get to clipping like zero It brings the level down for just a for a moment and then back Mm-hmm, or if it drops it down and then leaves it down right if it was me The way I would want that feature to be is if you do get to clipping That it would drop the level by I don't know. Let's say 60 be Like that and then for the duration of the entire rest of the project It would be six down because then if you're editing the audio, you know the precise moment Where the gain changed right now you can just make your adjustment and post right You just take the first half and drop it down by six. Boom. You're done. So I don't I don't know I I the jury's still out on that now speaking of the scarlet You notice I didn't mention the scarlet solo do not get the scarlet solo fourth generation because because Channel one. Yeah is the guitar Channel two is the is the mic like they flipped it on us and now so if you're just to mess with you So irritating now, I mean a lot of like zoom type programs just automatically hear both channels and it's a piece of cake But your DAW isn't gonna work that way So if you're just used to plugging in a mic to channel one hitting record, you're gonna get Zero on your track unless you go into the settings switch the inputs now I know that sounds easy, but trust me It's a pain in the neck when it's not the default, right? And so I really don't recommend the solo the two oh two i2 fine The four i4 has much more complicated software if you geeking out on making mix minuses and all this crap go for it Yeah, it's fun to be a geek. I mean if you want to play with stuff Yeah, you don't need it for doing voiceover catch it clean up front and and yeah, yeah We've only been saying that for 13 years and Sure, let's grab some more questions John oh Rourke of all the home studios who each have worked on What ones were your favorites and why can you remember anything that you've worked on that just stands out? Oh, let's see. What's the one that flashes to your brain and me you live? Oh some of the ones, you know when you would go into These big expensive houses You know I'm suddenly in this mansion up in you know the Encino you're in the gated part of the gated part Right exact gated of the gated community. Yeah, you have to go in there and like I'm here, you know Okay, you go in there and you're suddenly in this very very nice closet Yeah, and you see the kind of clothes people wear and yeah that sort of thing and I've done that many times And you realize they have a they have a perfect booth already right because they have this huge closet, right? There's clothing on maybe all four sides, right a big one, right? And you put them like in there It's the one I mean we I've done so many. It's the ones that look impossible and You just do make a couple of little adjustments And it sounds good the way it is because as you always say if it sounds good, it is good Yeah, I mean I won't mention any names, but you know There are a lot of places where I've you know, they're a challenge I go into a place and I sniff as I like to say all right What does it sound like over here? Okay. All right, if you place yourself here, this is the sweet spot put the mic like this And you know, I just you know rinse and repeat and it I always get it right because You know, I don't want to I don't want to over complicate it. I'll show people how to how to edit properly But you know, there's just not one that was a favorite. I love doing all of them You know, yeah, someone was a real pain in the ass which which was very rare It was just a little Looney Tunes. It's pretty rare. Yeah, I mean we're working with regular. We're working with people, right? You know, yeah, and and you know, and of course there were a lot more people trying to get into it Who had no experience at recording, right? So, right, you know, that's the fun part for me was you know Quickly setting up but then explaining the business to them. Yep, like I mean you I like, you know, I'm always making this joke That's the that's the extra special sauce of having one of us there physically with you or working with you Right. There's so many other things that just flow out Because we're just been in here. We've been in these environments so many times and we find little things to improve or tweak exactly little tips you know, yeah, and you know trying to deal with background noise and You know, and I always said well you live where you choose to live You're next to a construction site. You know, you're so well that that that reminds me okay that one time Okay, actually, let me show you. I'll show you my favorite studio before we go on My favorite studio to this day is still is still this that one I've been in that one speaking of the impossible studio, right? Yeah Look at this thing. It's a freaking glass fish tank, right? How can that possibly? How can that possibly work the glass is all parallel. There's no slanty glass, right? The room is basically a square, right, you know, so it's glass glass glass square Big huge countertop and there's a glass window on the opposite side also perfectly parallel, right? So every rule is broken in this space Why is the glass slanted though in most studios? There's not for acoustical reasons too. Well, there's two reasons What one is no glare so you can see that's that's the bigger one like yeah in radio studios It was like, you know, okay three two one Try looking through the door of your studio bricks or really any door glass door It has double layers of glass and all you see is yourself, right? All you see is reflection. So that's one huge reason why the non parallel glass is the norm It can help in a small booth too because the sound now reflects downward, you know instead of right back at the mic You know, but it's not necessary and and this is an example of that Why does it work? Well, it works because mic placement is critical We we have the acoustics all focused on one location where the mic is The entire ceiling of the booth is one gigantic bass trap, right? So there is no resonances or anything the whole thing and every Square inch that isn't glass or wood has acoustical paneling on it. So It's I put that drape in there thinking well We're gonna need to drape because it's gonna reflect right. No, he never closes the drape So this this one is a real favorite of mine It's got stain glass at it because that window was already on the outside of the house We're like, what are we gonna do with that glass window? Well, we should frame it out So, you know, this one's a favorite, but there you go. You can see where the two mics are located He's he's facing right into a huge is a beautiful studio panel, you know, so and that one's still That's Howard Parker still in use Today and so yeah, that's that one's that always comes straight to mind when the question comes up Yeah, it's always fun to see how people have already set up, you know, and then it's like, you know You know one you're talking into the side of the mic Or you're talking on the wrong side of the mic. Yeah, let's demonstrate it every week Yeah, let's just rate that Everybody needs to hear the wrong side of the mic Talk into the logo or if you got a road into the gold dot not across it The gold dot kids the gold dot, you know, something just came to mind Yeah, one of my favorite shows that we did well, actually I ended up doing it was the one I did from Hershey The the russian talk show, you know where I you know, I'm like is anybody here a floor director and a tv I do that totally cable access. Yeah, and and and we we did it. It was all with analog cameras And I had a one of those switches just like these switchers old sony haney cams with your rca cables plugged into a radio shack Right tv switcher like I want to watch the I want to watch it vhs click Right. That was the switch, right, you know, there was the genlock was a little late But you know, it was a little flunky, but it was fun. It was you know, I'm like, hey I'm here at faff con here. Let's talk to this person and oh god. That was a lot of fun You know, again, it was there were no rules. It didn't matter. Yeah, we just went for I think I think people need to start living Their lives that way. It's like, yeah, there are rules, you know, you stop at a stop sign and you know things, you know kill other people and but There are rules to this Live streaming and doing a show just go with very few as as we've been doing for the last hour in 15 minutes here Exactly exactly. But maybe you know, do we have any more questions or uh, yeah, I know there's more in there All right. Well, let's answer a few more I'm changing the price on the chatbot. Okay. Good. By the end. This is the other thing Well, we're doing this show. He's on the internet going. Oh, okay. I gotta have something for tech talk That's why the laptop is always right in front of me. It's like Wait a second. I hear somebody at the door They're problem product price changed. Excellent. It's $10. It's $10 a month. Come here You know, we've also had several dogs that have been in the studio. We had Ari all those years in Tink Now we have Mishka Mishka Mishka likes to lick microphones Like the mic and why not? Like the mic can lick the mic Oh Okay, so has a question from somebody from Greg Hernandez What's your favorite part of v obs? Is it the interviews? Or the tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk Yeah, no, I I mean it was it was fun meeting some really cool people. Absolutely. I mean we I mean Fred Melamed in here people who are, you know, fairly big stars Debbie Dairyberry was always a pleasure to talk to And some of the cool people that we've met And it was interesting, you know when they would come and they would be in my house And they'd come here and they'd sit here and I get to look up their nostrils and everything. It was it was kind of cool but You and I just shoot in the poop here about yeah all this stuff because I mean clearly we've had some The highlights are pretty obvious and we've talked about them a lot like june ferret coming into the studio Yeah, he was passed on by now and just her live interaction with dan and just She was amazing. We um, gosh, I mean You know and then we had some great coaches on too. I mean so many great coaches, you know Dave wall she was always fun to have on and mark cashman And uh, and john bailey. I mean it's We've had some friends of the shows over the year john taylor john taylor. Where is john? He's out and he's out in um palm springs. Oh, he's in palm springs. Yeah, he's loving his life in palm spring good for him Um, john john search for any episode with john taylor. Yeah, he will laugh Um, but john bailey became another friend of the show. Yeah, just if we're like dang it so and so he got booked Yeah, called john. See if john bailey do it and he would write back who canceled Did we bring him in John bailey is fantastic guests. Yeah, if you go to the chatbot That's the picture of john in the middle of the the guy in the middle is john He doesn't look anything like that now. Yeah Yeah, and you know and scott parkin Yeah, we had some fun times with scott parkin because he would always bring a bottle of rum Oh, yeah, who who who were the who were the uh, the guests we had that that would bring booze It was it was scott. Yeah, and it was Compost productions. Oh, oh, um, yeah, uh Oh, no I'm gonna have to use the chatbot I'm gonna have to use the bill homes bill home. Sorry bill It came it was in back in the back of my mind. Sorry bill bill homes Those two guys would show up to the studio usually with shots Yes, and so within the first hour We were getting a little bit schnocker and getting pretty pretty pretty loose on the mic. Yeah. Yeah, that those those were fun shows and uh You know It was just fun if it wasn't fun, we wouldn't do it Yeah, you know and and but it became more It still was fun, but there was still more the labor of it. Yeah of the grind of it Well, and but the but you're not shoveling snow. No, it's not and it's not mining coal. No, it's not Although there is a certain pleasure to shoveling snow. Like I'm proud of this driveway as it starts snowing again But uh Well, we didn't have the snow we had the snow but it was for us. It was the leaves Should we wait till all the leaves fall out of the trees before we start cleaning up the leaves? Right Yeah, and then there were the tip of my tips of the week Which were well planned out productions. We got we got to do packages Oh, yeah, just be our talking for hours pre-recorded packages. Yeah, and those are those are still on the internet. Those are on I think those are still on the v obs website and you know, you can type in tip of the week And it'll give you all the different tips of the week that I made Chris anthony lands down. Thank you for speaking up the voice of barbie. We had barbie. Of course we had barbie Thanks, chris Yes, we had the voice of barbie. Yeah Yeah I mean come on. I mean, where else can you the funny thing was is people would I would recognize me places. I'm sure it happened to you too. I'm walking down the street in pebble beach or in Carmel by the sea people don't recognize me because I'm usually wearing a helmet And I'm on a bike going 15 20 months I'm walking down the street. My my son had just graduated from from Middlebury College in in Ventura and Not in Ventura up in up in the Monterey Bay upper Monterey and So we went into Carmel by the sea which is a beautiful little town. Absolutely And this guy's standing on the corner. I'm walking by there with my mom and he goes Why don't you Dan Leonard? I'm like Yes, I watch the show Like my mother was very impressed You know, uh, it happened in a subway a couple of times, you know, people see the mustache and they were like Oh, you're you're the guy that has that show on voiceover So clearly we were we were doing pretty well and then people would send me mustache stuff There was so much mustache stuff What? I was trying to get her attention without getting distracting you but it didn't work And no, well you're going like this, I mean No, I just want to make sure soon. There's two had to go at some point. Oh, okay. Yeah at some point Well, we'll we'll finish up in five minutes here five or ten. Yeah Oh, yeah, we have best wishes from people we do I gotta let me scout. All right. You let that hey, bonny That's my cousin bonny in pennsylvania She's just a little older than me and she was my one of my best pals growing up. Hey, bonny. Thanks for saying that Trey mr. Trey Who has his own podcast on all right good to see a fellas says tray Alicia Hurley says where can we find new tech talk like all the new gadgets george talks about Well, I guess moving forward. I guess my other show now the pro audio suite It's probably the place to go because that's where i'm releasing new content and you know, so yeah check that out It's a very different vibe Definitely more geeky But yeah, it's called the pro audio suite and we release stuff every week. So that's one place to go Paul seger, uh, thanks for everything you too. Thanks for saying that. Thanks paul Yeah, oh man, justin ramah says yes. Thank you jack I watched all of you abs and thanks to him. I was able to take notes easier So he's thanking jack to gallia for doing all the thanks jack manually written show notes right Which is things that just don't i'm gonna be happen anymore because of ai Joan covino says thanks for sharing your expertise humor and insight over the years. Thanks. Joan Yeah, we recognize a lot of names, but that one. I didn't remember Umberto Umberto franco in uh in portugal. It's 3 a.m. And he's watching live from portugal you rock. Umberto You do I mean all the also. I know that he works like pacific time hours because that's where all the clients are But thanks umberto. He's an interesting guy because I he's so great. Yeah, it's like well You know you speak port because he's in portugal. He's portuguese. He's portuguese and I once said oh You could you could do stuff in brazil. He goes that don't speak portuguese in brazil That's some that's some other language. Well, that's like saying that you speak spanish But you're from mexico versus from spain. I mean, you know, these are very different dialects But yeah, you can understand it, right? Bill heparin says thank you. I've immensely valued listening to the two of you over the past 18 months And as I've started my and as I've started my vo journey so much learning So much more to learn hashtag thankful. All right. Thank you Eddie mr. All caps Eddie sure hate to see you two masters go. Thanks for everything. Thanks, eddie. Yeah, you are great support of the show And sue too Thank you too, sue By the way, the desk that sue's sitting at is thanks to eddie. Yeah, eddie found this desk at costco He's like he had one. He's like I got to get one for the show He says you guys want to get one. He's like, I want to get you this desk We couldn't say no. I couldn't say no And he brought this freaking super cool electric lift desk in the studio five Roughly five years ago and it's been here ever since things Thanks, eddie. It's moved around a little bit. But you know Thanks, eddie. You're awesome Larry Hudson are old buddy. Larry. I'm over here all by myself lasting and laughing hysterically out loud You guys have created an amazing legacy of greatness. Yeah, man, that means a lot larry Larry lives up in the mountains up in rightwood. Yeah, he's It's a 10 foot the snow up there I mean, they really get an hour from here and suddenly there's you know, all that snow Yeah, man. Yeah, we love larry larry. By the way larry again I was mentioning her larry was the one that told me you got him about the gallivore You're gonna love it here. Yeah, that was that larry that larry Um, diana costello merit. Oh, wow. We go back. Oh, jeez. Good times. Love y'all. Nice buffalo gal. Yeah I remember hanging out with her at um Fafcon, yeah, it's probably via lantern or fafcon that kind of thing We we miss you. I we haven't talked in a long time. Did she have the temporary tattoos? I don't know I feel like she had temporary tattoos and we were sticking on everybody and laughing our Oh, that might have that might have been going on at one of those conferences, but Speaking of stickers not to get you know, not to get oh But there's a sticker on the back of that mic I want to mute it for a second while you while you take it out of there But there's a very special sticker on the back of dan's mic That I know will be very hard to show on frame, but We had this tradition In woevo there's uh This guy Pat Sweeney Who was a you know big fan of our show uh One of those people he was like my grandmother every he had a different relationship with everybody and everybody loved him because He was just a super duper guy and you know went and he he passed on and So we had this thing, you know, he used to say I'm gonna You you're gonna give you gave somebody a golden nugget and would give him a slap on the back And we came up with these stickers and say a pat on the back And and that's that's his testament and uh Boy, we miss you God, he was such a we miss you pat. Yeah, there's so many great people. I don't want to get into a list of People we've lost because I can't hold it together. I'm not a professional um, but uh There have been quite a few we've lost over the years that have been our clients and friends of the show And all this stuff and pat I'll never forget you and i'm glad you have that sticker on your mic because it'll always remember Always give out give out advice and I know you're like looking at pat but pat's on the back of the mic. Oh, I know Kids that's the back of the that's at the back of the wrong side here, aren't I okay? There we go Now i'm in the right side. Okay. You go anyway. That's where the back of the mic sounds like well It's nine o'clock here in california. Love you. Lee Lee By the way, and leave any whatever we say for lee penny for being lee penny Lee was a very early on supporter of our show as well coming into the studio Helping us with some tech stuff early on Um big time support of our show. Thanks lee for being there all these years. Um god. It's been a blast. It's been a blast Yeah, so I guess that's gonna wrap it up. It's gonna wrap it up if you want to eternally I know i'm getting a little friclimbed Talk amongst yourselves. We'll have some coffee and we'll talk It's been a great time and uh, we're going to be continuing to do things just in different formats in different ways But if you want to keep tapping into our knowledge v obs dot tv and you'll access our our chat bot our chat bot there for now $10 for $10 a month 14 days free trial play with it Test it and if it works well and by the way dan You're going to be giving this chat bot to some supporters of our show Yes, and to woevo members woevo members So if you are a woevo member world voices member in good standing You're going to get access to the chat bot for free. Yep And everybody who are making repeat subscription Support of our show who are sending us money like like on pbs send him your dollars people would send us money and it It helped with the equipment and all those things and we were And people did it for years and years and we really appreciate it We're going to we're going to find a way to give you guys access to the chat bot too. Yeah, so use it Enjoy it share it tell people about it and uh, we want to keep Helping people for years to come. Yeah, so I I guess that'll put a wrap on it. They'll do it man and do a Always a pleasure. Fortunately. We live in the same town. We can still have lunch Of course, but but we have to go to chicago to woevo con. Oh, because that's the only That's how it works the only time you see people from la's when you go to a conference Somewhere else in our city. Yeah, you try to get together with people in la. It's almost impossible I gotta cancel. I can't come See everybody knows that, you know, it's it's it's very hard to make friends here Yeah, everybody has to it's it's a discipline. It is, you know You know making friends and keeping friends and being friends and and being friends means giving And you know and and I think everybody needs to learn that and and do that some people are better at it than others And but when you have friends That makes the world a much nicer place, absolutely man You know, thank you and it's always been a pleasure working with you doing this show You know the thought that we'd be doing it for 13 years. I know it's two. Thanks for hanging in with it So long. I mean you've been our longest continuous You know director technical director and you know gosh Seven years you've taken off so much stress off our shoulders. I'm doing this Yeah, no, I mean sue is susan incredibly versatile Person she has so many skills Sue, what's your email address? Can I can I plug your email? It's my last name. I'll put it up really Marlino sue at gmail.com.com Right if you need her for anything production Podcasting live streaming setting up your studio setting up your lighting properly. Yeah, she knows that stuff. She's brilliant Yes, but you know, I we're still in business. You've got George the tech. I've still the home studio master and You know, you can send your stuff into my specimen collection box and v obs fan 10 off coupon code I think it still works on my website. Oh good. If it doesn't tell me I'll fix it But exactly it should still work and send off. Yeah, and uh, you know, it's what we love to do is teach people how to do it right because If somebody sounds bad, it makes everybody sound bad, but if it sounds good, it is good By the way, I'm dan lennard and I'm george widdum and this has been voiceover body shop or v o b s Thanks everybody. You've been wonderful. Thanks everybody