 It's time for V.O.B.S. Tech Talk number 26 Wait, how do you do that with two hands? Those were gangs. Anybody know binary or there's a problem Yeah, with our special guest this week Byron Wagner who knows more about tech than anybody anywhere So we might refer to him every now and again if you've got a question for us throw it in the Facebook chat room So we can answer we got a bunch of questions, but we got video from NAM 2020 The National Association of Music Merchandisers, which sounds really boring, but it's everything but that it's if you're if you like gear Stay tuned to Tech Talk right now and V.O.B.S. right now From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the V.O. Universe, they bring it to you now George Whidham the engineer to the V.O. Stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional V.O. Studios of the biggest names in V.O. Today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you Create a professional sounding home V.O. Studio and each week They allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in V.O. Tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voice over body shop Tech Talk Voice over body shop Tech Talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials.com home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your V.O. Website isn't a pain in the butt Vio heroes.com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for V.O. success and Now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Greetings, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whitton and this is voice over body shop or V.O. BS Tech talk tech talk tech talk Can't afford a real reverb Just just go in my bathroom. I know the button on here somewhere that doesn't Try that Byron Wagner is our guest tonight. We'll be talking. We have a guest for tech talk. Yeah, absolutely Alright talking teching. Yeah, we have the right guy, right, but if you want to talk about V.O. Tech You got to remind you guys There's only a couple of people that really understand the concept of a home voiceover studio Live eat sleep drink breathe exactly you got a lot of recording engineers out there We won't mention any names that you know, they they they someone will say Hey, I want to build a voice over studio and they tend to tell them how to you know People are asking for the time and people tell them how to build a watch Yeah, a little too much. There's a choice. There is too much tech. Yes So we we need to tell you that you need to work with people that actually understand what you're doing Not what these guys are doing in these billion-dollar studios all over the place, right? So if you want to talk to guys that really know what it's supposed to sound like and how you make it sound that way Without spending gobs and gobs of minds and you know and you know all those things will save you Thousands you can work with George and the way you find him is over at I'm at George the Dot-tech and you see what I did there and did that little thing you all look and she just love that middle You learn often the African Bushman Exactly George the dot-tech or George the tech calm if you're just a verse to those creative Tl what are they called TDL's top-level domain TLDs top-level domains. Thanks. You know I made that up Fortunately, I think you're right on that But I'm all my tech stuffs over there You can check the menus for all different services and if you're just overwhelmed with options You can always go to the contacts part of the page and just let us know what you're looking to do And we'll let you know what services are gonna help you out, right? And Dan's also on the web and he's over at I'm over here. That's right. Yes home voice over studio.com. That's right. Check us out go in there I have my specimen collection copy. Click on that. Send me some of your audio for twenty five dollars I will make sure that your audio is sounding the way it's supposed to sound just follow the instructions audio only please audio Only no processing no editing. I want to hear what that room you have created Sounds like so we can if it needs to be changed We can there's certain things we can do but we'll talk about that so anyway Last weekend you got in your car and you drove to Anaheim and did you know probably parked far away Hi, all the way into the Anaheim convention. I got a dialed. I don't drive anywhere near the place I drive immediately at the Angel Stadium hop on a bus take the shuttle. Yeah, it's painless pretty much as it goes And you went to yeah, it's a NAMM show It's a it's a huge trade show for the music industry and of course all the vendors that sell gear that they sell to Musicians and people that want to be musicians are there and of course that includes a tremendous amount of audio equipment So go I try to go every year because it's not that far away now and this year my sponsor Because you have to get badges from somebody unless you're somebody and I'm still nobody apparently even though I was somebody and I know What happened media badges so now I have to beg a vendor so this year's sponsor for me Was studio bricks, so thanks so much for the badges appreciate it. My brother and I we didn't need to stick in We want to watch us. Don't you know who I am? Yeah, it doesn't work I walked in there with my brother. We shot some video and we saw five things that we made video of and well here it is Everybody it's George the tech here to cover some of the cool stuff We see an AM show I did not want to miss audience because these guys have a trick up their sleeve and here to tell us all about it Hey guys, how you doing man? This is our new product range and sub-brand that we've launched under the audio and umbrella and it's two interfaces It's a two channel interface and a four channel interface, so The primary focus on this is a feature called smart gain as it comes up on the screen perfectly in time So what this allows you to do is dial in your channels automatically, so It's ideal for people that Want to focus on the creative process or they might not necessarily have the experience what this allows you to do is quickly set Your gain levels and start working straight away. So this this has switchable phantom power a full 48 volts That can be assigned to channel one and two individually And it's all done over bus power and it is a hundred percent for your volts Some of these buttons on the unit also have dual functionality for example channel one and two and the volume button You can hold them down to mute them So if you're doing a podcast and you need to cough or you know, you need to quickly meet your microphone Yeah, yeah, it's all tactile and it's all there and you can just you can just do it straight away So we try to add some cool features like that that are actually useful channels one and two They can't they can be dialed in manually as well So you don't you're not forced to use the smart game mode if you don't want to It's a new pre-am design So it's not the audience pre-am design, but it's very similar in terms of the way it sounds It offers 50 ADB of diet of gain range Which you know is really really good for the price point which I'll get to but it in terms of character It's very similar to audience is clean. It's it's very honest and very accurate One of the really really cool features of this particularly interesting for your audience is we have loop back So loop back is built into pay vivo for and a and what that essentially allows you to do is Record your computer's audio at the same time as your microphone for example So again using podcasting example if you had someone phoning in on a Skype call And you wanted to record their Skype call and record your microphone at the same time So you can edit it and and get better Producing abilities then you can do that and it's it's all really really simple So in terms of functionality for for the price point it really is a very fully featured interface But that's not to forget that it is It is a very good interface on on its own for home recording dynamic range is a hundred and thirteen DB is a Km converters this exact same converters found in our sonno interface, which you know is four times the price Yep, so this will be available towards the end of February but price points are one two nine map So very affordable and one nine nine map Yeah, and yeah, we're really excited about them Price points amazing can't wait to test in the real world. Yeah. Yeah, good. Cool. Excellent. Congratulations. Thank you very much George the tech here in am 2020 looking for the top five things in am and we've got one on the list for sure with vanguard Vanguard's got a new microphone the v13. It's pretty cool with tubes But what if you don't want to have the big power supply in the tubes and you still want that sound? What do we got Derek? Well, we got the vanguard before it's like the little baby brother of the v13 Yeah, actually use the same exact capsule same voicing three micron super sensitive diaphragm It's a custom voicing. It's the only one like it in the world. It's our it's our little baby So we've got three patterns on this cardioid Which you'll probably be the one you use figure eight if you want more proximity an omni if you want less figure It's also great for a dual interview You got one on the back one on the front right here in the middle We were able to ditch the tube the power supply and the transformer which reduces our cost a lot But still tune the circuit to sound a lot like the v13 way easier to travel way Does come with the aluminum case comes with a shock mount. Yeah, also comes with the mic sleeves So you don't have to take it down every time just cover it up. I call it the mic condom You probably save storage. That's a good idea. Yeah When are these going to be available? These are out now. These are out now and the best part is this 340 or 399 399 that's pretty darn good 13 that's very affordable and if you're looking to upgrade from a USB mic and Get something that is kind of do wonders for your voice. I think this will do a great I recommended a lot of mics in this basic price range But this is one of the few with three patterns where they can have a lot more control The roll-off is very very helpful. Yeah being able to cut the bottom end out is the most helpful thing a voice actor can do Pretty impressive. Well, thanks Derek. Thanks for telling us all about it. See you at the next booth Hi, I'm Chris new with blusso microphone lab here at the 2020 NAM I'm going to show you guys one of our newest bikes here. This is the blusso ps1 This is a large diaphragm stage condenser microphone. It's got a one inch centered edge germinated capsule This is a very durable mic Very roadworthy and stage-worthy. It's got a large diaphragm capsule. It's got an 18 DV pad It's got a high and low end roll-offs It's internally shock-mounted the capsule is mounted on a steel post Post is in two silicone discs inside eliminates the handling noise very heavy-duty robust body The interior of the head grill has a wind foam on the inside. Take care of the pops comparison to our other models this micro runs probably closest to our version of the 414 has the The edge terminated capsule and the circuit design is very similar to that of the of the 414 But in a handheld stage body ready for the road. What's the it's got that roll-off? What is the top roll-off start? well roll-off set 125 high roll-off start today This 414's voicing is similar to which AKG because they've made so many over the years like How would you characteristic is voicing? This 414 microphone has a brass capsule similar to the very early 414's perhaps in the line about the EV version So it has the brass capsule has mechanical switches for patterns Two stages of pad two stages of roll-off. It's got a transformer to output We gave it an extended stem on the base for easier mounting quick setup And we did a really heavy-duty body build on this heavy-duty head grill This mic is also really road worthy and Sounds fantastic frequency response on this one is very flat all the way across the board. It's a fantastic microphone Certainly are great to be here Hey, guess what? I'm at NAMM show and I'm checking out Al Sound's new headphones. These are planar magnetic driver noise canceling Bluetooth headphones and tell me a little quick about where can we find these things you can find them February 1st on www.au-sounds.com Get your very own planar magnetic Over your headphones active noise cancellation 28 hour battery life only $2.99 And they plug in so you can plug them into your DAC or your instrument for no no latency And I mean I have a ton of headphones these things sound so incredibly detailed and normally headphones like this are way more expensive And they're really comfortable. So oh man NAMM show it cost me so much damn money because now I gotta buy another pair of headphones But I think I'm gonna have to these things are pretty awesome We're trying to show you five great things from NAM and absolutely I can't miss Mo Javi microphones And the guy I've known actually a long time I met at the Donna Funtane voice over lab when they contributed Microphones to help us launch that studio at SAG foundation Dusty Wakeman. How you doing? Nice to see you George Good to see you too I'm glad to hear that the studio and foundation is still going on and doing well. That's great What you helped to contribute in your way is it's doing what it was designed to do So that's great. We built it and now it's now it's happening thousands of voice actors and Fledgling actors have come through that studio. That's wonderful. Yeah, great to hear. What is happening at Mo Javi? I mean you guys you've got the high end and the low end and everything in the middle So well these months are all designed by David Royer who's famous for the ribbon Royer ribbon mics, right? These are the condenser mics sure sure which he's been making for decades started in his garage Hand-making him under the Mo Javi name right about 10 miles from here in Fullerton. Yeah, and the you know It starts with the MA-50. This is our transformer list Right $600 microphone great for voiceover work. Yeah, a really popular microphone great sounding mic very uncolored Uncolored yeah very transparent got you and then we move to the 201 set and the 301 set These both have Jensen transformers in them Okay, so they're a little beefier and the 201 Fed is cardioid only and it's also very popular for voiceover work That's the 301 Fed. It's a little more versatile. It's got three patterns of the patterns All right pattern and it has a high-pass filter and an attenuator. Oh, that's helpful Yeah, so you can really use it for a lot of different things right right, right? It's fun. I love to have voice actors with multi-pattern mics Get out of the usual cardioid and try out the figure right great. Yeah, it's great It's different really pattern and if you've got glass next to a you know microphone Right it's the glass reflection out. It's it's actually pretty useful, right? Yeah Yeah, well the we move to the tube mics the 200 and the 300 right the 200 is cardioid only the 300s multi-pattern And the other related the pattern selector for this one is on the power supply and it's continuously variable, right? You can really dial it in wow, that's pretty amazing You can hypo cardioid or super car anywhere in between got you okay, so we started here around 800 ish 600 and this was 3,000 so everything in between right very nice most of them are below 1500 except for this one That's our first really high and they're designed and made right here in the area Yep in Burbank beautiful downtown Burbank and all of these are currently available. They're all on the market They're all out there. We water vintage king guitar center all the usual suspects sounds good Well, it's great catch up with you again you too man And if we can do anything to help with the foundation, you know don't hesitate to call I'll let him know being involved. I'll let them know Thanks, everybody by George the tech here at NAM show see you at the next booth Hey everybody, it's George the tech here at NAM 2020 in Anaheim I promised you five amazing things from NAM, and this is definitely gonna be on that list This is studio bricks. How you doing Miguel? Hi yours. How are you feeling? Well, you've got the a beautiful chrome paint job version of the the studio bricks This is the studio bricks one plus. Yes. This is the three by five. Tell me why this booth works so well for voiceover in this size This is you know, we do have the the studio bricks one and one plus and we have a new one It's a little bit like with whether it's the one plus XXL. Oh, really three by six Oh nice. Yes. So because some people need a little bit more space for you know, like performing inside They want that extra amount of space. Yeah, is the extension on the side of the door. So it's sort of like the same width Yeah, both sides of the door. Yeah, yeah, you are right. Okay. What are some of the unique features of the studio bricks? So as you know a studio bricks doesn't Have any kind of boot with one single wall. We do have like only double wall or triple wall Yeah, as you can see here double wall, right? That is the double wall You have like MDF barn is MDF here and also the foam MDF here That's like an inch and a half gap. So the basic model has this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah It's looks out around like 45 decibels and the triple wall It's looks out about around like 48 to 50 decibels. Yeah, let's go inside and hear what this sounds like when we go in here So as you can see here and you can hear here, you know, if we close the door and seal the door You know, we are getting really really quiet Yeah, that extra seal mechanism makes a considerable difference. Yeah, the difference is pretty pretty big, right? Yeah, it really is we do have in well in this in this case We do have the studio bricks one plus voice over addition It's coming with the microphone arm and also the you know, the tray arm More acoustic panels on the floor level the integrated desk and the bass drop You know, it makes a lot of difference that this can be removed and you can you can put a display on that Yeah, you can put included with it, right? Yes, of course And then and then in this case also we do have that window is an extra window. Oh, yeah Yeah, you can add an extra window and you can assemble and dismantle it as many times you want We don't have any screw. We don't have any nail any kind of glue. We don't use any kind of glue So you can is, you know, you're snap the pieces together Dismantle them and you can you know, do that as many times as you want. Usually these come shipped from Spain, right? Yeah, but there's something going on with the US. Yeah, so Yes, good news because In March, we're gonna have a bunch of them here in the United States So the thing is going to be that the price the shipping price is gonna go down And that is a good news because you know, people can save around like four hundred to five hundred dollars shipping price goes down and shipping speed Yes, because we are gonna store them there in you know in New York state So that is gonna be, you know, a big difference So and it's gonna be our first pilot and then if it goes well, we are gonna You know go ahead and keep going do that With the Steve mix one one plus voice over edition and no voice over edition. So in white color. Well, congratulations That is a big deal. Thank you very much. Okay And we're back. Hey, it's like you had a good time We're gonna talk about some of that stuff and Answer some questions that were sent into us this week. Oh good. We get to actually be useful Yeah, actually some of them might have been left over from last week from our audio tail Okay, round table. Oh good. So the some interesting questions and the Byron can join in and we'll talk about what you saw at NAMM And if you've got a question throw it in the Facebook chat room right now No, not not half an hour from now because then we won't get to it till next week. That's right All right, so we'll be right back here on voice over body shop tech talk This is Arianna Ratner and you're listening to voice over body shop VOBS dot TV Hey, it's time to talk about voice over essentials comm and unlike Congress voice over essentials keeps their word and They're amazingly successful January 2020 sale on their voice-optimized headphones positively ends at midnight January 31st central standard time only on voice over essentials combo free shipping in the continental us By the way for current users of version one and two voice over essentials now has replacement leather ear pads Available and the replacement audio cords for version two. That's over at voice over essentials dot com Go over to voice over essentials comm and get your Harlan Hogan voice optimized headphones right now for 20 bucks off Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat Were you this is virgin radio? Well, okay? We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies cuz I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values a leader for California and a voice for America It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone, but it's so much more. It's a the files are ready Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice check out this song. It's the end of the road for Rick When hope is lost the I8 from BMW Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish Hey, it's J. Michael Collins. Bet you think I'm gonna try and sell you a demo now I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's J. Michael at JMC voice over dot com Now if Daniel stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show Hey, everybody. It's time to talk about source elements You know who they are the creators of source connect that tool that you don't have what you don't have it You should have it. It's that tool. It allows you to connect your studio to other studios Around the world so they can record you from your booth It's a tool you should have because even if you're not being asked for it now You might be asked for it tomorrow or in a month or in a year You want to have it ready to go and know how to use it It's really the heir apparent to ISD and technology and it is definitely what the pros are using You can go ahead and sign up for a 15-day free trial of source connect over at source elements calm Get it up and running get your iLock account in order. There's a little video on there I'll teach you how to do it by yours truly and it'll help you get up and running so you can understand how it all works Then that day that you get the gig you can activate the license. It's a no-brainer. Give it a try Thanks for your support source elements and we'll see you right after this break Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great And we're back on voiceover body shop. Mm-hmm looks like You know you took the best of the best. What was your favorite of all the stuff that you saw? Well? Yeah, I tried to I mean one day. It's just not enough. I'm not even close Um, I do days usually isn't enough. Yeah, right. I was very cool to see that audience did something new I mean really try to do something really new with the auto level setting thing Seems like a feature that is a long time coming for voiceover. I mean it just We have autofocus on cameras. Why the heck don't we have auto gain like not and you know We think of auto gain can sometimes get a really bad rap because we think of the automatic level control on cameras, right? Called AGC automatic gain control. Those are notoriously really bad Historically the you know something loud happens the level drops way down and they eventually get loud again Not this this this you hold down the button or a tap it I have to get a real demo to tell you and it will listen to you and then based on the performance that you give during the sound check Yeah, it will set the game. I don't know what the buffer is. I maybe it's it I honestly don't know any of the technicals yet because I haven't tried it people don't get level setting right They don't understand this takes the mist. It's just this just take it's it is the ultimate lazy fix for that problem Hit a button read some copy. Okay, you're done, you know, so it's I think that's cool Again, there's headphones. I tried on I'm a headphone junkie a bit. I'm totally happy with these Harlan Hogan headphones I've been using them sort of interchangeably with my Audio Technica ATH 40s, which are $100 headphones So these new ones from all sounds are a different category. They use a different kind of driver They're what much more complicated and usually way more expensive now $300 we're talking pricey, but remember those headphones I talked about like a month or so ago called the Nora tone or Nora sounds Yeah, those are going back. I can't deal with the way those things are designed They have little in-ear fingers that press into your ears inside the ear cups So it's almost like the worst of both worlds Instead of the best of I think to me anyway, because I don't like I'm not an in-ear monitor person. I can't I Don't really like them. I even had the custom molded ones at one point even those irritated me. It just don't like it So anyway, those are going back those were over $300 by the way And these are probably gonna take their place and I love that they're Ultraversatile their Bluetooth and noise canceling and they're hardwired like you can plug a cord in and go wired So I love a super versatile headphone throw at my backpack travel use it on the plane Then use it to evaluate audio edit on you know, whatever this this hopefully will be that headphone for me when I eventually get them They're here in Sherman Oaks. Who knows maybe we can get them to come over Sounds a you sounds you went to Nam. What did you like there? um I always Like the weird little guys with the not even a 10-foot booth and the table like on the wall We're doing stuff and you go are you kidding me, right? Yeah, because the big booths You know, you're gonna read about it the next day and the trades anyway They're spending hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars of stuff So I like the guy that has you know made the trek from lower Slabovia to be there and has the DSP algorithm That you know adds Wonderfulness to everything and you go and then you and you wow this is what was your name again? And yeah, and actually slightly askew from Nam when I ran into the guys that were doing positron the automatic Proofing for audiobook narrators. Oh positron. Yeah, it's I they were at. Oh, well, we'll talk about it later But they were at a pack the audio publishing association. Yeah, that makes sense And it was two guys and they had this, you know, these three magic beans They would trade you for a cow and and it actually worked and it's amazing And they've been so so I like the guys that are doing the very risky very groundbreakingly cool stuff, right? And a lot of times they're not there the next year. They just right because they've broken the ground That's right fallen into it Or needed to eat. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I like going to some shows. Nam is too overwhelming for me You've seen me crumble in a corner when we've gone there But you know, it's to me microphones or microphones and all that stuff is stuff You know, and does it make a difference which is really one of the things I wanted to talk about today And that is that all of the stuff in Nam Which stands for National Association of Music Merchandisers, right? I got it right this year It took me a while to get down. Yeah is that it's all designed for music not one of those people Really considered voiceover when they were designing any one of those products Now I would always prompt the vendor, you know and say this is in the context of voiceover And he would always automatically shipped in the der spiel about the line that the high impedance line input for base and how great these work on drum overheads And I would you know, if they did that I edit it out of the video But they almost always do their brain their program that obviously yeah, I mean it's people who tune into our show You know, especially for tech talk. Yeah, they need to understand that all of this stuff was never intended for doing the type of work that we do in voiceover right that it is We're borrowing this this technology and we're adapting it to our needs But our needs are nowhere near as sophisticated as that So I guess I got on a real ramble this week on a number of forums where people are like Well, I got to get one of these and I talk about this all the time. I know and Yeah, my patience is a little low right now, but I apologize on both of our You see us in a forum or something else and I mean little snarky It's not going to change the way you read copy. You're still gonna sound like you I was talking to somebody this week and they're like, well I know you say just take your mic and plug it into the into the 2i2 But I have a dbx 386 because I like the way it makes my voice sound real warm And I but for crying out loud do you talk to people through a dbx 386 when you're having a conversation with them? I'm sure she probably does but it just drives me bananas that it's like I gotta get this competitive edge How about going to a voiceover coach? Yeah, you know I I'm not gonna name anybody, but I Poor fellow a couple of times in the last few months, you know who who's done the rounds, right? And he's he's literally going almost in circles when I mean that I mean he's worked with me He's worked with probably worked with Dan. Yeah, he's worked with Tim tippets. He's worked with Uncle Roy. Yeah, he's worked with I think Larry Hudson for Audio Tech a learning Audition yeah, so he's gathered this huge basket of stuff, right and he bought this mic and he bought that mic and he Bought the Apollo you have this guy's phone number. Yeah. Oh boy. I do and I feel terrible for him because He's launching into this career He has a background in acting but he's getting way laid by the technology and it's costing a huge amount of frustration You guys and he's got conflict he's got conflicting information none of it's necessarily wrong But and I you know half the time it's almost like counseling where I tell him, you know, I know you have yeah I feel like I a lot of better like it's just like it's not Though I use cars for analogies I use camera and photography for analogies because people seem to get those more than sound, but I'm like it's not the car Man, it's the driver Okay, you and the Porsche now you're thinking you need the Lamborghini or you need the Ferrari No, learn to drive the Porsche that Porsche is fine. Stop trying. You know, it's there's a lot of that going on it's also this matter of God, I was going somewhere with this and it just came out of my head because I gotta find a leak on the floor Yeah, I've got a lot going on in my head right now But anyway keep it simple where we want you guys to get to a Professional result and not let that get in the way of your acting because it's 95% of that and 5% of the tech stuff in Terms of your the whole scran scheme of things right your thoughts. Mr. Wagner. I Once once I'll make I think I can do this in 42 seconds Okay, I was attending a rehearsal of a band that I was producing and they were in a barn and they had a bunch of amps and so And they said oh, let's record the rehearsal and said okay, fine They had a little TAC four-track and they had kind of this random assortment of microphones That had either fallen out of the back of a truck or been left over from one of their gigs Yeah, some were high-impedance and I you know did it together and I put together a little mix and so on and They came afterwards and they said this sounds great. How did you do this? And it was I mean seriously was a hodgepodge of mics and the answer as well I just I know a little bit about acoustics I know how I you know place microphones to get what you want. Yeah, and leave out what you don't want Yeah, and they were astonished because it wasn't a studio with high, you know expensive stuff I have a very similar story. I'll keep it exactly 42 seconds starting now And go I recorded my friend's big band in a studio in Philadelphia, but we didn't have access to the control room Wow access to the to the live so I get it so I brought in my eight track Hard disk sit well basically PC with an eight channel preamp Yeah, I had eight microphones and eight channels and eight tracks to record 17 piece big band Right and I set it up the way I had the best way I could you know I set it up and my mic set up whatever long story short You know they heard the mix and then the guy who ran the studio for the school The you know, he's like wait, where did she record this and said I record it in your studio He's like no no no that that that room is not a good room He's like no there's no way you recorded that and there's like yeah, I did You know like he's like he couldn't believe it that it was recorded in there and it's just I'm not we're not saying this to like Show off, but we're trying to say that you can take a minimum amount of gear and a minimum amount of stuff And when it's put in the right places and set up the right way Get a huge reason like a great sounding result, which was the point that I was actually that yeah Got derailed up my train of thought my bad. Yeah The thing is is you can have all this gear and you can see in the forums that there's all this great stuff Yeah, and you buy this stuff, but if you don't know what it does how it does it why it does it and More importantly how to use it What good is it to you and having the equipment isn't what makes it good It's knowing how to use it and and why you would use it, which I think is Possibly, you know, it's great to see all this gear. It's eye candy. It's ear candy. It's fun It's fun and if you're geeky about it, but literally very like the geek hobby from the voiceover, right? Like if you if you like both that's great But don't let this have fun hobby of geekiness get in the way of the acting of the voice It is technically possible to go to B&H and buy the most incredible camera just not automatic exposure No, right, but or even online on Saturday But by the most incredibly well-engineered camera with auto exposure and shutter priority all this amazing stuff And take horrible photographs However, how many times have you met a successful professional photographer that leaves it on automatic? Good not too much not too often Yeah, yeah, so yeah, all right We got a question. Should we dive into the question should dive in some of these questions do We sort of already answered this one Bob Liedem asks thoughts on Mike preamps. Don't use an external preamp Rarely ever needed. I mean, it's it's one of those like You'd use this. You just don't need it. I mean ten years ago Yeah, I would say for sure some of the interfaces Man they and they've gotten so good now the interface the preamps that are built into the scarlet at all Like the thing we show you just saw the evo. Yeah, you know tremendous technology into design goes into this There's so much packed into these chips. They're so smartly designed. They're clean. They're low noise. They're low distortion They're you know, really, I mean, there's a simple answer if you want Take the microphone that you want to use take the preamp that you'd like to test Make a recording. Yeah, you're the same thing without using the separate preamp Do it all the time to play them back for someone who's very knowledgeable and very discerning and don't tell them Which one is which right and see what blind does called the blind AB test. Yeah, exactly So I love blind AB tests really. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing how many times I'll go into somebody's studio And you and I love going in there and plugging everything. I love unplugging Yeah, and it's like a cable. Yeah, and you plug it in and you're like, okay, record and they go back and they go Do that sounds better. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, it's amazing some of those preamps Especially something like a DBX 386 may actually be causing more problems than it's trying to solve Yeah, I think the 386 is a to is that a tube one if it's got tubes and it costs less than a couple grand It's usually not very well made. Let's let me get late on that secret because melting stuff with tube is Difficult to do right it takes a lot of parts takes a big power supply And if it's small and fits in, you know, you're fits in the palm of your hand and has tubes in it It's probably not made very well and probably not helping you take it out of the circuit. Keep it clean No distortion Those all that stuff tubes transformers all those things that can be built into your preamp or whatever add Color and another word for color is Distortion The other word for colors distortion, yeah So we don't want to add distortion let the producers whatever else they're doing with your voice at it later For the production. So yeah, and that's the most important thing is that we're not doing this for the end user Which is coming out of someone's television speaker or the radio. We're sending it to the people who know how to do this stuff Yeah, hopefully so yeah, well, that's a whole yeah sometimes There was there was the time I was in the studio and then it was outside. There was a jackhammer. She's on we'll get rid of that in post One by one Every time it is the ground if you'd like to understand the very simple reasoning for why you want to have as uncolored and Unchanged and pristine audio as possible. It's very simple. Don't ask fire. Oh, no, he knows It is exceptionally difficult To remove Bad eq or reverberation It's there forever that you think sounded good because you were anticipating What might sound good to the very end user at the end of the chain and usually you're going to be wrong Compression and you're taking choices away from the person who is trying to make your stuff sound as good as possible In other words you don't hire you Yeah, or you don't produce you either that's true. That's you're the producer about brain surgery No, let's not a mirror is not a mirror for exactly Question from to Bob off tab Ahmed awesome best name yet Yeah, does keeping a smartphone inside the booth or close to the mic really impact recording? I'll let Byron start that one a long time The simple answer was it used to be when analog cell phones were three watts or Less for a small one there could be a huge impact from the radio frequency emanations Now they're digital so they're worse except the power is much lower So the answer is these days It shouldn't be much of a problem if you want to test it take your phone turn it on silent and Have someone call your phone while it's in the booth because that's going to be the most specifically Discreet thing you can do the ringing signaling Means that you're getting a lot of stuff back and forth to set up a call or to make the phone ring and then again Just listen and see if there's any bleeding electronically from the radio frequency output of your phone because that's typically that the worst case is When you've got your phone in your pocket set to silent and you get a bunch of crap on your recording because your phones Been ringing meaning it's been talking to the cell phone tower right generally It's not going to be picked up by a microphone that might be picked up by depends on how good the shielding in the microphone Well, that's if you've got a good microphone. It's not a problem. I agree magnetic interference is Part of can be a problem. Yeah, if you hear that clicking it's often a clicky you hear as a click Right there data packets. Yeah, and when the phone is receiving a call It doesn't like ramp up the power for a minute or something because the cell site needs to know how far away you are Yeah, and it cranks your power up or down to match so that it can reuse the frequencies and other cells and to keep it as low as possible Yeah, super crazy stuff. So the simple answer is is maybe Maybe hope that helps too, but I mean I have a lot of people that do use a cell phone in the booth for for you Know taking their direction. They'll use their earbud in one ear or even a Bluetooth I've never heard of Bluetooth interfering with a microphone Extremely extremely low power consumption. Have you ever and it's a gig? It's a high frequency No, I'll tell you what used to be the worst culprit were cordless phones. Oh, yeah Oh, like a 900 megahertz type thing. Yeah, mm-hmm So it's rarely gonna be a problem, but test it just like Byron said, you know, you'll find out for yourself All right. Here's one from Andreas Somville. Cool. These are new names. Yeah, I love this great new names We had a lot of people who were watching you know, it's great Our audio master's round table last week says is there really a big difference between the acoustic panels from Amazon and Ally Express or is that Ali express? Yeah. What is better a plywood booth or a blanket for it? I think those are two different. Yeah, I'm gonna separate those two questions. Go for it I well the problem is I don't know what exactly products She's referring to can I can I vamp while you're thinking about that? Yeah, here's one of the biggest problems with acoustic foam the Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed Foam is typically made of one of two ingredients melamine, which is effectively in as in non flammable and Foam that's made out of petroleum products And if you know anything at all about fire or rapid oxidation the more surface area you have available To rapidly oxidize as in burn and the more fuel you have and the more oxygen you have That burns really good. You want to scare the heck out of yourself a Christmas tree? Oh better take some take some cotton swab material take cotton balls Wham, yeah, they let up because that because they're so oxygenated Yeah, so a lot of acoustic foam that's sold by very well many people very cheaply is urethane foam It's not melamine foam and urethane is the petroleum product and it's very flammable It's also illegal in public spaces, but it is legal in a lot of places in a private residence Yeah, so if you want to die in a private residence as opposed to a public space then there you got a choice And so that's one reason to avoid the foams. Yeah Yeah, I mean we're gonna assume you're you're comparing foam to foam and definitely Whether foam is foam is foam when you're comparing like a big brand name like oral ex to the knockoffs of which there are many Are those gonna be compared differently? Yeah, I would say so some of the foam that you'll find out there is really spongy It doesn't feel all that different from like a kitchen sponge or and other foams are far more dense and hold their shape a Lot more and those more dense hold their shape foams are gonna be better at controlling sound There's there's a very interesting consumer product. Yeah, it's made from melamine foam if you want to see what it feels like It's the mr. Clean magic eraser Because which works great works great So if you get enough of those to line your booth with not gonna die from fire I haven't done the math yet Yeah, okay, but you can also just grab one and clean a pot with it. You can or your shower super versatile these Amazing, I don't know. It's amazing Yeah, I would I think I would avoid it Ali express ship from China foam right now unless there's Somebody independently test them in the U. S. And unless it's from the wall. I was gonna say if it's coming from You know, you may not Have you ever opened a package from China and you open it and you get a waft of whatever Whatever the odor was in that particular Smoking or and you get that Usually appreciate enjoy it sometimes I'll put it in a brandy sniffed From the north end of the factory yes Then there's the plywood booths versus a blanket before it okay Well, they okay, so the reason you use plywood is you're trying to Did the best reason to use plywood if there is a reason which there aren't that many But if there is one it's to try to keep some sound from getting into the microphone from the outside plywood does that okay Not really great Think of things that are made of plywood that you play music with such as a an acoustic guitar Think about how well it transmits sound when you strum it plywood can be quite resonant so plywood is not that great if you're gonna make something out of wood use MDF Which is made out of it's basically recycled wood right wood chips molded and glued into boards It's because it it's basically it's very dense and it doesn't resonate very much That's like a furniture like a key furniture chipboard or there's a medium density stuff That's more dense That's what whisper rooms and the walls of the the studio bricks you saw earlier made of the same stuff But the reason to not do that is when you're not trying to make soundproofing and you're just trying to make an acoustically Decent sounding space and that's when the blanket fort is the winner bang for the buck How it works how it sounds how you can make one big enough to stand in You can't make an enclosure cheaper than moving blankets and PVC pipe That sounds reasonably to really good In fact so good that my friend Rick as you guys saw made literally made a whole product out of exactly that and is selling it Because it works so dang good, and it's simple But the confusion is there are two different problems. Yeah, I So this is right when somebody is what makes a good studio The first answer is if you have leaf blowers or snow blowers and jackhammers outside Ideally, you don't want that on your recording. That's isolation. All right, which has nothing to do with the ambient Sound of the room that you're in. Yeah, so the blanket fort is extremely effective at dealing with that Yeah, and is worthless at keeping out outside noises Right, whereas the plywood may be good within a certain frequency range to keep out a certain set of noises And it bounces and sounds like a box unless you do the both together right something absorbent on top of something It's isolating. Yeah, also important to mention Yes, I think a lot of people forget this one in the acoustical equation the louder you talk The more the acoustics of the area you are recording in come into play Yeah, so if you're talking and projecting towards the mic like everybody does when they're talking conversationally Which is what they're projecting towards the mic when they're talking conversationally like that If you're talking at a normal pace and in a normal volume the acoustics of the room did not become quite as critical Not as bad. Yeah, it's when you start doing those animation Yeah, right and the thing is is if you're doing animation you step away from the mic and yell Because when someone is yelling really loud on a video game, they're not next to your ear either. Oh god. I hope not Gork, what are you doing here? Yeah, anyway, yeah, no problem in most modern spaces is yeah You walk into a room and what's the cheapest way you can make a space you have drywall and you put paint on it Right and you have a ceiling that's got maybe plaster on top of drywall So you're standing in an echo chamber and what's even better is it has? Square dimensions or rectangular dimensions with lots of great parallel surfaces Some of which you can't even get rid of like the floor and the ceiling with a lot of work Yeah, so you're standing and getting flutter echo and it sounds horrible So you really need to do some work to solve that problem Here when it's funny when we make studios like we'll like we'll build the frame We'll do the whole thing make the whole shell then we'll line the whole thing with insulation The client will come into the room and then go Wow. This is amazing. It's super super dead, right? Oh, it's just open studs with insulation because you haven't put Right so that's it going well. It sounds incredible in here Right then we come back in and put it in its drywall and they're like This is Well, no, it's because now we got to put the sound insulation in here. They're like what why did we just do all that work? Yeah, no, it's it's sound soundproofing and isolation and and then absorbing echo and reverb Are problems that fight against each other and we have to control them both in a studio It's it's quite a process, but you can do it It's and I would say bang for the buck moving blankets are the cheapest most effective thing If you shop wisely, they may not stink when you take them out of the bag So now he tells us some of them do some of them don't so do your research But you can get super duper cheap you double up on a couple of those couple of layers, you know over it over it You know I'll mention Harbor freight Harbor freight now. They're they're always on sale. You double those up triple those up They are just as good as is oralex. Yeah now I will say where they don't work. Well is when you have them inside apply with box. So once you have a box Just putting a couple layers of blankets in there will absorb some of the frequency ranges But not all of them. It'll take out the mid to the high and the bottom end is still there, right? So you have this really resonant muddy Horrible sound as a result. So now you got add more stuff. Guess what those are base traps and they're sometimes made of foam sometimes They're made of Rockshole that they're made of money, but they're made of money They can there's one of the harder things to DIY in this business Absolutely, that's what it takes to get rid of that boxy plywood box sound. All right. Yeah. Hey Byron He's joining us for seven o'clock already. Well, it just it just rolls by All right. Hey, if you've got a question for us Write to us at the guys at vobs.TV and we'll get it here on tech talk and make sure that you get it Your studio, right? Anyway, we'll be right back and wrap things up right after these As a voice talent you have to have a website But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do they break or don't look right on mobile devices They're not built for marketing and SEO. They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voice actor websites.com like our name implies voice actor websites.com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change and our upfront pricing means you know Exactly what your costs are ahead of time. You can get your voice over website going for as little as $700 So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voice actor websites.com where your VO website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? audio book Narration ACX audible rights holders and success as a narrator. That's what you want, right? How about a free class on how to make that happen even better? How about three free classes on how to become a successful and happy audio book narrator? It's about to happen and all you need to do is let us know you're interested Go to ACX masterclass.com to jump on the alert list for the upcoming 2020 training that they're offering absolutely free. That's ACX masterclass.com The first class is Friday, January 17th, and they'll continue for the next week to be able to watch these classes Just let us know you're interested visit ACX masterclass.com. That's ACX masterclass.com You're watching VOBS.TV. I don't know why it's crazy what they do here I think I want to go somewhere else and have a cheese sandwich and we're back. Oh, man Great question. Yeah Yeah, I Fasten I mean tech talk people you guys obviously like the tech talk and we're happy to have you here for tech talk and but we need your questions so write to us at the guys at VOBS.TV and We'll actually talk to you on the show. You're the fuel for the show Yeah, well, I will tell you we're gonna use the question So you can actually watch the show and hear your name read off with your question. That is brilliant. You're fuels. Oh You fuels Anyway, uh, it's a sucker. Yeah next week. We'll have another great guest Can't wait to see who it's gonna be. I'm coming back. Oh, I Have a feeling I know who it is Who are our donors of the week? Oh Michelle Blanker Sarah Borges Phillip superior Trey Mosley Shelly Avellino Brian Page Patty Gibbons and Diana birds all all right You've heard those names before cuz they subscribe. That's right Which you can do on our website if you want to give even a buck a month What helps it makes you feel good it helps us and then something really great like a super man Eureka you just saved me years of research and billions of dollars and sent us a little bit one time Send us a nice one-time donation right if you like a wise investment. Yeah Hey show us your booths Like Johnny this is Johnny George's booth not bad. Yeah, this is brand new but no bar and Wagner booths But you know, it's almost as nice the screens aren't quite as big But you know looking good man Yeah, yeah, send them to us at the guys at VOBS dot TV make sure you send them in Landscape not portrait. This isn't tiktok. This is not Twitter tiktok will be out soon the tiktok version That's right. Hey you want to be in our studio watch the show live You could you certainly could I if you're gonna be around we do this every other every other week And if you're gonna be in town See there's actually somebody here Jeff. That's Jeff Holden who's learning how to be our social medias are here and You can you can come in here and watch the show live It makes it it makes the show better because somebody actually laughs at what we're saying Which you can hear that we can actually hear that what I just heard I'm sure it's somebody trying to get old. No, I do it then. Yeah And it's right to us at the guys at VOBS dot TV. Tell us when you're going to be in the greater Los Angeles area This is the greater part of Los Angeles here at the Valley And Shear square footage and you can sit on this massive couch that we have here and And enjoy the show live and see how we do it. It looks like it's met It's alchemy how we get it all done, but it's not and squeeze it into this little box. It's amazing It's hard as yes We need to thank our sponsors like Harlan Hogan's voiceover essentials calm voice over extra source elements Vio heroes calm voice actor websites.com and J. Michael Collins demos and of course the Dan and Marcy Leonard Foundation for the betterment of live webcasting and podcasting and recorded live casting and podcast easy for you It's I was gonna run a breath sooner or later Also, Sue Merlino for a fantastic job tonight Doing what it takes to make the show a mic for you to say something. Hey microphone All that work for that precious Is she gonna put clothes on next time? Not if we have anything to say about it. All right Anyway, that's gonna do it for us tonight Thank you for joining us, you know Your audio is very very important, but the idea is not to sound great. It's to not sound bad It's easy to sound good And if you need help George and I are here to help you and we're here every week Talking about this stuff. So join us here on voiceover body shop. I'm Dan Leonard. I'm George Whidham And this is voiceover body shop or Vio See you next week