 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk Hmm. We got lots of cool stuff tonight 89 89. It's tech talk number 89. Yeah. Oh flash the 89 There it is Next time would be 90. I hear 2d graphics are all the rage right now. Really? Yeah. Oh, didn't you like our 89? Oh, no, well, there's 90. Oh, okay. Time machine. That's right Anyway, if you've got a question for us about your home voiceover studio or some audio question that has to do with voiceover Throw it in the chat room right now because we'll be happy to answer it We've got a couple people wrote in this week. So we have a couple of pre written questions. They go first in the queue That's the way to do it. But we got lots of stuff to cover. You've got stuff in your tech update Yeah, I will talk about a couple new audio interfaces and You know, uh, maybe a little bit about a mic I heard about that some people are liking A little bit about soundproofing and a little thing about audacity. We're gonna cover a lot of stuff All right, and I'm gonna talk about dropouts. Well, we'll both talk about dropouts. Yeah, and we're not talking high school Anyway, it's voiceover body shop tech talk right now Tech talk Brought to you by voiceover essentials.com the home of harlin hogan signature products Source elements the makers of source connect Voiceover heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites.com where your voice actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success And world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts dan and george Well, hello there i'm dan lennard and i'm george widdon and this is voiceover body shop or vio B s tech talk tech talk tech talk Where we talk tech and uh You know, it's been an interesting couple of weeks with the car accident finally getting my new car eventually And uh and while we're talking i'm probably in morocco. That's right when this is airing Yeah, yeah, i'm gonna be in morocco. I'm going to the canary islands Amazing spain and a couple of other cool places and but someone will be here at the house All the time with a fire hose With a taser Think about it All right, both my kids will be here. You don't want to deal with them Anyway, uh, we're here to talk about home voiceover studio technology Which is really shouldn't be so Technologically it should be simple and all you really want to be is a voice actor But there's so much stuff out there So much technology that makes it so much easier If you know how to use and there's also a lot more demands on the voice actor now technologically Thanks to a little thing called the pandemic. That's true. So there's a lot more expectations You got to know what you're doing, but it's not rocket science It's logical and it's simple and there's lots of tools to help you out So why don't we go into well first we have to tell people what we do Yes, we do which is We work with home voiceover studios. This is a a very very unique niche place Because everybody who's a voice actor has to have one it used to be used to you know here in la people would just go to their Uh, you know their agents office and there'd be a booth there and they would record there And or they would get hired for a gig that way and then they would go into somebody's studio But not anymore. You got to have a good home studio that sounds Right. There's no such thing as audition sound quality anymore. Is this good enough for auditions? Yeah, we still got I still if you're a name actor Yeah, you can get away with that. That's true like but if you're a work of Dave voice actor You're not you're not you know in the hundred thousand followers on instagram club, etc, etc You you have to provide the audio that the client is expecting you here on the finished Product right every time. So what does it take to get there to get your audio there? Well, we know how well we know how and that's what george and I do Because we've worked with thousands of people literally when we started it was hundreds Over the the 12 years that we've been doing this show 11 and a half well I would say between us. It's way over 5,000 at this point. Yeah most most likely way over Yeah, and the great thing about that is is we learn an awful lot. I mean if you if you're not learning you're not living So we've learned a tremendous amount about every different possible room And mic and all these different when you are iris. You're getting this condensed down filtered concentrated injected version Of knowledge that is uh, you know an accumulation of things that we've that we know works That's right. All right not experiments things that we know really works and we'll talk about some of them So if if you need to work with somebody who actually knows what they're doing as opposed to I have a voice over friend who Who uses pro tools and he uses all this stuff If you want to learn how to do it right you can work with one of us And if you want to work with george you go over to george d.tech I mean it's right there. There's a new website coming out in the next A couple of weeks. I've never listened to dan talk about his new website's coming any day. And it's that's how I feel right now I'm new website's coming Uh, but uh, it's still currently available to book on on demand services. Um, you can just do a sound check I mean, that's probably what almost everybody really actually needs the first time. Do I sound any good? Am I bookable? Um, but dan does a very similar thing over at home voiceover studio dot com And uh, now you go there the first thing you're gonna see is my specimen collection Where you can get Front and center because it's one of the most important things right and you can get my analysis of your audio And I will listen to it and within five seconds He knows how to whistle That's right. He knows what it's supposed to sound like. There's a way it's supposed to sound and that's what I do And I will give you a very thorough report an analysis on What it sounds like And is it on the mark or off the mark? And what are some minor changes you can make to get it sounding better because it's usually not something Major Unless of course they're talking through their laptop mic thinking that they're talking through their micro mode Which happens occasionally right right but anyway So that's what we do check us out. We're the guys Do you need to talk to when it comes to home voiceover studios? Everybody else says they're an expert We've been there done that So anyway, let's get into george's tech update because you got lots of stuff on there today Yeah, I mean some weeks. There's just nothing interesting new happening and right now there's several things coming along you know, I Product reviews I've been doing a lot less of those lately because honestly to be completely frank They ain't worth doing that much It's very time consuming There's really, you know, you're putting if you're trying to be a youtuber forget it. I'm not even interested But there are things that They just come across my they come across the bow and I just like um, and one of those is a a new interface that Can't remember who mentioned it first. It might have been Byron Wagner. He's a big fan of lewitt Um, and it's called the lewitt. They make the microphones right? lewitt connect six spelled the correct way c-o-n-e-e-e-c-t not to be confused with the one that starts with k made by tc um, and this is an interface that is Let's just put it this way It is not with the average voice actor probably needs but it is something for people that Want more flexibility and how they route audio um, the ability to do a little bit beyond just standard voice work and maybe Work real time do more live stuff Live stream and certainly podcasting podcasting for this. This is this is a really amazing tool for that because it's just It's a great amalgamation of parts hardware High gain mic pramp so you can use any mic with it um Great signal routing and it's made by lewitt which has a really good Pedigree for quality. Yeah, I would say their mics are really quiet. That's what they're known for. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and Anyway, it's called the lewitt connect So you may have assume may have already thrown it on screen, but she's got the website up right now Oh, no, she's got the website for The m game. Oh, there it is. Thank you That's what it looks like. It's kind of wild looking Um, go to the next photo in that little carousel sue That shows a little bit more of a feature of the unit itself. Yeah, that that is really what it looks like Yeah, look Somebody said, hey, you know what this thing's gonna be cool because I can put little figurines on all those little platforms. Yeah, yeah It's a crazy looking piece of industrial engineering But um, what makes it good is the quality of the parts and the preamps and the The signal routing not not to be outdone Meanwhile, there's the whole gamer side of everything and m audio now has m game So they are doing m audio m audio is taking their technology to the gamers So I know I'm still going a little off off course from voiceover But at the end of the day a lot of the things that gamers and everybody else needs Is really what we still actually need which is being able to have a loop back Being able to play back something things like that the m game Rgb dual can do all that stuff now. Here's the thing If you're a gamer, you're gonna go bananas for this thing Not being a gamer if you're it's it's a pomegranate if you're if you're a voice actor from theater of a certain age you're gonna be like This thing is insane But I'll tell you when I went through and looked at the m gamers m games feature set I was like holy cow and again the price the stoop There's like a $300 price point that they're nailing with these Products, I mean the m gamer dual is called dual because it will plug into two separate pcs or a mac and a pc Simultaneously. Oh, so if you have your like production system, yeah, and your communication system You have two completely independent systems that won't interfere with each other and they all route through the interface It's really really fascinating and they call it the rgb In true gamer style every single led on the interface is color changeable You can completely customize The lighting on the thing All right, I mean, you know If you know, you know, right some of you you're gonna be like going nuts for this thing I I can't vouch for the purity of its sound quality yet The money is not known for bad gear, but they're known really for very kind of budget stuff Yeah, so I'm curious to see. Yeah, what the what the noise floor of it and things like that There's precious little reviews on this thing because they're shoving into the gamer sphere So there's not a lot of like pro audio people none talking about it So that's what I'm talking about here. So if anybody's interested in getting one and is dares to buy one Uh and rents one for a while It wants to let us know what they think let us know Another thing that came up, it's interesting is the Oh, I just also wanted to say I mentioned that connect six connect six is not the tc Connect that's been around for many years. So don't get them confused. Okay um next up Vanguard microphones, we've had one in the studio at one time. We got a great. I have all their t-shirts All their shirts. So do I think Um They're a great very locally run microphone company small company Um, which is kind of nice because they don't try to make one of everything, right? And they've got uh, they're tube mic now We talk and I talk I will say personally against using tube a lot However, um, if you really are just kind of you've you've been using condenser mics for many years and you just want to dip your toe This is a probably a really great entry point and it owning a tube microphone It's way under the thousand dollar price point way under. I think it's in the seven hundred dollar price point Why would someone want to use and we're talking about a tube. We're not talking about a microphone that looks like a tube We're talking about It it literally has a an electrical tube. Yeah, you've got a couple over Dan has a whole collection of things with tubes in them over here Um, a tube a tube is a different way to power the microphones electronics and It actually in a weird way provides some decree of distortion It's not as clinically accurate or flat as a Fet or solid-state condenser. Um, so they tend to have a little more character. Anyway, uh, david k Scott scott romell's had one for years. Um, chris fries has one david k He just recently got one because his 67 Now he has a peluso p67 and he has an omen u67 also a nice one Which is a really really a nice expensive mic These vintage mics even these more modern takes on vintage mics They're a little persnickety And again, this is why i'm like saying to most people don't go tube Well, anyway, he got one in there and he sent me some files. He said how does this, you know Are we gonna have to retune everything does it sound a lot different from the u67? And i gotta say it stacked up really really nicely Against the a mic that costs 10 times as much So if you want something that has a little Color a little something different and you don't want to break the bank the vanguard v13 Might be a way to go. It's pretty impressive. Cool. Um, moving on to soundproofing Something we talk about an awful. Yeah, we talk a lot about acoustics and soundproofing One of my uh studio build project clients right now jessica taylor sent me a random email out of the blue And her studio is practically finished But she sent me an email about a thing that would go inside the walls of the studio that she's already finished But obviously somebody told her about homo soat homo soat is a product developed in canada That is essentially like a sound. It's a state. Generically called sound board And the problem was said homo soat To stops no to stop noise right densities density You need air and you need density, right? Homo soat is this middle ground material. It's nowhere near as dense as drywall It's not foam. It's not insulation. It's kind of like this middle ground And from all the research I've done on this stuff everybody says Pound for pound dollar for dollar another layer of drywall Which is considerably less expensive than a sheet of homo soat is a far better sound uh a sound a soundproofing product, right so Your mileage may vary. I know some companies are using homo soat as part of the construction of their product And it may in in proper use help But if you're looking to soundproof and all you do is put up a layer of homo soat You're not going to get out of that what you think you're going to get out of it. It's not It's not really up to snuff. Yeah, I've tried the new idea city. Oh, did you I uploaded it? Yeah Downloaded it. I just threw it on my computer because they finally have a 3.2 point one Yes, which fixes A lot of bugs 3.0 3.2 point. Oh, it was it was pretty buggy But 3.2 point ones come it came came out. Did you mess around with the effects thing? No, yeah, I don't use a lot of those effects Everything sounds good the way it just goes in and goes on. It's soundproof in here. It's got quiet ventilation It's got all the good stuff. Well audacity 3.2 point one has a Real-time effects feature now, which is kind of funny because all of its competition has had all this for many many years They finally decided they would put it in it means that you can now have effects stacked or racked On a track and you can hear those while you're playing the audio So you can audition it as yes, you can hear it in real time, which for me as an engineer Thank you the most frustrating thing about Audacity and its macro technology, which as its macros are fine It's great that you can sequence in a bunch of different things, but you can't you can't listen to them in real time So with with the real-time effects you can insert, you know a little a little high-pass filter You could have a little two-to-one compressor if you need or you know a little eq And you can actually hear what they're doing while they're actually doing it You can audition them real time But these these are things that an engineer Would worry about somebody who is not physically doing The voice acting because if you're concentrating on the technology While you're recording. Yeah, when I say real time I let me qualify that please You are not listening to this processing in your headphones. Oh good. Okay It is not It's not true real time. It's not zero latency It's not like you're gonna hear this amazing Bass heavy sound and this bigger-than-life compressor. No, you're not going to be monitoring through it That's a that is a key thing to mention It is really just allowing you to hit play and immediately hear that little bit of processing and you can Tune it and tweak it things like that. So anyway, that's what's new in in audacity Um, I haven't personally put 3.2.1 through the ringer yet I'm still been kind of like cautious saying stick with 3.1.3 Um, because I know that one works great and stable So if you want to try out both you can you can actually keep an old version Just rename it, which is exactly what I just did on my computer. I renamed the old version I call it audacity audacity 3.1.3 And then I have the new one installed as well And you don't have to lose your old version You can keep keep the old one until you're feeling really confident about it. I'm actually pretty impressed They they changed the the interface a little bit You know, so things are a little bit easier to follow. We can actually show that I sue has a video Just two minutes long go for it's a demo of audacity from audacity Hi, my name is martin kerry and in this video I'm going to take you through the major new features we've introduced in audacity 3.2 For those who use audacity for audio production such as podcasters or voiceover artists We're proud to announce that audacity now supports real-time effects for vst Audio units lv2 and ladspa for those not familiar with the power of real-time effects Let me explain in previous versions if you applied an effect to a track It would alter the audio in a way that couldn't be modified later So if you were unhappy with the effect you applied and wanted to change it You'd need to keep on doing until it was removed and then reapply the effect again This limited audacity's effectiveness for larger projects containing multiple tracks Where it's only natural to need to tweak the effects throughout the production process But now with real-time effects you can make changes at any point to apply them Simply select this effects button which opens a sidebar that lets you specify the effects you want to use And if you want to add effects to a different track just select it and the sidebar will update accordingly Using this sidebar you can rearrange effects mute them or remove them at any point in your project And if you're new to the world of real-time effects Check out this option called get more effects Which will take you to our new online manual where we've provided links to some of the most popular free plugins All you'll need to do is install them and then they'll appear in this list In combination with non-destructive editing which we included in our last release Audacity is now a highly capable and powerful audio production tool Apart from real-time effects you'll notice we've also done some work to tidy up the interface too Many of the audio settings which were displayed in these drop-downs have been combined into one audio settings button And we've combined these four components for metering and volume settings into two smarter components that take up far less space And if you look closely you'll see another new feature that we're proud to introduce to audacity The ability to share your audio files for free using our new online service audio.com This feature allows you to quickly export and share your audio using a special link with these new capabilities Audacity can now be your one-stop solution for recording audio Polishing projects and sharing your work with others and we're only just getting started There are many more major improvements coming to audacity very soon And if you want to stay notified about what's coming next make sure to subscribe to this channel Thanks very much and take care And we're back for those here watching live. You didn't get to hear the audio, but those watching the If the edited version Thanks to Dan We'll hear the audio on that little on that little reel But you'll got to at least see the the new interface of audacity. So um lastly, um I know apple is announcing new stuff this month. Everybody's anticipating it and I don't care You don't care. Here's why The stuff they launched two years ago to me is still frigging fantastic. Yeah I mean an m1 Mac from two years ago, which is now when I'm running in my studio the 2020 late 2020 m1 MacBook Air And and that's what we have on dan's desk right here And then the the the mac mini m1 Are fantastic. They work. They are fantastic. I There are there are new things coming all the time the m2 is coming right etc, etc It's kind of like, you know Saying well, I I my car has 400 horsepower, but the new one's got 480 Who effing care like unless you are a total car Car guy who has to show up at cars and coffee with the newest fastest thing And to me, that's what these new computers are going to be. They're going to be incremental Grades from what came out last year. And so I'm really not I don't really don't care Then they're going to all have a new OS called ventura And that's going to be a new problem to deal with So because it's a new OS months to to get all the bugs all the bugs all the manufacturers have blah blah blah So honestly, if you're thinking about buying a new mac Unless you're going to be doing heavy-duty video production work and need the latest fastest everything Which most of you don't need We'll be quite happy with it's currently on the market and really you want to be On monoray That's the os you want to be on like if you've been thinking about upgrading the monoray like you've been waiting because we keep telling you not to Now is a pretty good time if your system is you know that all your software and everything's compatible Now is a safe time to go to monoray. It's pretty well Fully baked and it won't have too many more updates. So anyway, there you have it All right, dan. Yeah, let's talk drop out drop Drop out. Yeah, no a drop out I I get a lot of emails from people and they're sending me their audio. Okay. I'm getting all these thumps And now sometimes it could be well, it's your you're exhaling when you're talking And you get a thump out of your nose. Oh, and the little thump. Yeah, yeah But no we're talking about digital thumps and digital dropouts and what those usually are is A lot of different things and they can be caused by different things, but it's the recording of the audio Not keeping up With the stream of audio and when that happens you will get and it's easy to see you'll one You'll hear it because it'll thump And sometimes it'll be thump thump thump thump thump And sometimes it might be one here one there, but whenever it happens people like what's causing that? And it could be a number of things It's usually not an analog problem. It is generally never an analog problem It is a it's not something that you're if you're listening to your mic While recording you're not gonna hear you're not gonna hear it's something that's on the hard drive And that's one of the reasons you might get it like it used to be a real big problem when everyone was using mechanical hard drive Which was everybody until four or five years ago, right until they came out with SSDs, but solid state drive Uh, you guys know flash drives. Yeah, and Those generally you wouldn't think that you would get dropouts from that Uh, but if originally still creep up though, huh? Yeah, they a lot And and I've been troubleshooting a lot of them the last couple of weeks Now is there any one platform or system or hardware or anything that's doing it more than anything else? PCs and windows I was leading you down the primrose. You knew where I was going with that I had one yesterday someone who was a good client of mine. She's like I've been doing this and all of a sudden I'm getting it and and she had changed interfaces and changed mics. That's the worst when you know They've changed a million and I'm right and I'm like You know, there's a really simple answer to this what what computer are you on using a pc? And when did the problem start? Did she say it started like a week ago a month ago or it's been happening? It's been happening off and on for a while. Okay, so I'm like Get it. I know you don't want it. You don't want to hear this but get a mac And then she writes back. Yeah, my husband's been telling me that I'm like, well great minds think a light Got herself in a mac book air Problem solved. She got over the learning curve. Okay I imagine she's actually had a mac or used a mac before but yeah, but that solved the problem. It's PCs are a real problem because they're not really designed for recording audio The max have a core audio system to them Which is it's much more integrated into how the computer works. Yeah. Yeah, and that's why you can do It's literally it's core. It's literally the core of the design of the apple. It's it's about capturing audio and video Reliably right and having everything work together. It's It just is I've never had a dropout with a mac windows 11 Hasn't changed that, you know windows 10 is basically windows windows 11 is basically windows 10 under kind of on the inside just with a new Mac kind of os a little bit looking You know interface to it, but it's still just windows The problem is is that PCs because they're they're modular and the way they're put together and you can mix and match You know cards and you know and the soda drives and all this other there's a lot going on Inside your computer. Do you know what an irq is? What do you know what an irq is? It's it's an interrupt an interrupt request something something. I actually remembered that I'm impressed with myself. I accused they're they actually still exist They just don't see them in the way that we used to but they can still create conflicts The way the sound drivers and windows environments work They don't multitask very well, right if you have to do zoom while you're using adobe audition or audacity Chances are you're gonna have conflicts of drivers and on and on and on right, but there's another thing that can cause Yeah, and that is using a long daisy change usb cable. That's right I somebody was having usb cable. She had the wires running underneath the floor And then there was one hub. She had plugged it into one hub It went through the floor and then went to another hub before it went into the computer And I'm like, all right, let's try one long line Yeah fix the problem. I have one in my bag. It's like a 20-something foot usb Right, and I used it on uncle Roy's to run the this camera. You're you that that camera over there From his stage down and over to our board like it was a 20-something long cable But it was the right kind of extension. It was an active cable. Yeah, and usbc They say you can't run them too long. I know someone's running a 50 footer and it works fine with With a junction, but if you have a specialized junction for usbc You can generally run along. Yeah, you're playing with fire extending usb That's that's why all the manufacturers other than saving money. That's why they all conclude a little three foot long Cable in the box. Yes, that's why because they want to guarantee that it works And the first time there's anything like this goes wrong with dropouts. What do they tell you? Are you using the factory cable? No Yeah, so watch out for that. Yes, so don't use don't get dropouts Use a mac Don't daisy chain your usb cables. Yeah If you if you and if you're like, well my mac is outside because the fan noise is too loud, but I have a scarlet Which do I extend extend the xlr mic cable and put the scarlet near the mac or the pc whatever it is Mac or pc put that out there and for whatever reason that makes sounds strange to you But extending an xlr mic cable Usually no problems go usually no problems at all. All right. Well, we're gonna take a quick break here and After that we will get to your questions And if you have questions you still have plenty of time to throw them in the chat room So jeff holman can write them down for us and we can read them and then answer them Which is what we do sounds pretty simple machine like a machine. I know anyway We'll be right back on voiceover body shops. So don't go away This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv Headphones for voiceover. Why not get the headphones made for voiceover? That's why I use harlin hogan's signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 from voiceover essentials dot com Harlins cans are incredibly strong and lightweight at only 8.4 ounces The combination straight coiled audio cable stretches from 5 to 10 feet It comes with two gold plated mini plugs and a studio standard quarter inch screw-on adapter And includes the new mini jack on the left headphone for easy cord replacement The studio monitoring headphones are optimized for voice work now even better the harlin hogan signature series voiceover headphones 2.0 And for a limited time when you buy the headphones, you'll also get a free autograph copy of harlin's best-selling book vo tales and techniques of a voiceover actor second edition It's full of stories from the trenches and insights about making the most of your voiceover career Go on over to voiceover essentials right now and order yours Well, it's time to talk about Source elements source elements. I get to take part this time. Absolutely creators of source connect A tool set that has really carried productions through the pandemic Um in a way that You know, it really allowed the production workflow the way studios like to work to continue essentially Um, you know when they all went home when all the producers went home They couldn't go into the Warner brothers and all those big studios They had they wanted to keep the shows going everybody wants to keep working everybody wants to keep feeding their families You know, oh, yeah, so guess what they didn't have ISDM They didn't have a way to connect remotely to their talent anymore reliably Source connect was there It's it was it's time It was it's time only been telling people for like 15 years You really need to have this Because that's what's going to allow you to become a successful voice actor Yeah, because you can record remotely Yeah, it came into its own for sure and it there are there we know there are a lot of competing products We know there's a lot being used on chrome Um, and there's others out there trying to to to get into this business The thing is they've just been here for so long and have penetrated the market and so many studios Have it in their workflow. So anyway, if you want to get started Head over to source dash elements calm and sign up and get your account started You can get a 15 day free trial and get accustomed to it. And if you need any help We've got great tech people. They have great tech people themselves. And if you have more advanced needs No, they're they're they're around the world literally around the world at all time zones And if you have a more complex issue with tech, obviously I'm here to help too and we can make that happen for you. So anyway, thank you source elements Let's get on with the rest of the show Hey there, I'm david h. Lawrence the 17th and with my company vio heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent We guide voiceover actors along their journey And you may be watching v obs here, uh, and not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching You may not even have started yet And we actually specialize in helping you do just that. So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on v obs and going I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know, but I really want to do this I'd really like to help you Please go to vio heroes comm slash start That's vio heroes comm slash start and you can take our getting started in voiceover class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again vio heroes comm slash start That's vio heroes comm slash start Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else All right, we're back here at voiceover body shop tech talk And uh, if you've got a question for us if you're like totally intrigued And and and have a problem or don't really understand something about voiceover technology Now would be a really great time to type in one of the chat rooms whether you're on facebook live or youtube Live or wherever it is you're watching this Uh, you can put it in the chat room there and we will get that question in just scant moments Absolutely, but people have written in because we told you if you write in your questions if you write to us at so the guys at v obs dot tv Uh, and you write your question It will get to the front of the queue. So if you're watching the show, you know Your question's gonna come up first. That's right. So tim this was the first one for tonight tim mckinne asks He says my mic has an hpf high pass filter switch Uh setting my digital audio workstation has multiple hpf opportunities Is there a difference is a hardware switch on the mic better than a software hpf? Later in the chain is one cleaner than the other. Oh, that's an interesting question. It sort of depends on the mic Because some high pass filters are not the same as other high pass filters on any one particular mic. That's right Yeah, and uh, so what's better? Whether it sounds good. Yeah, whatever sounds good. It is good. My philosophy is always fix everything in post And if you if you record something and there is a low frequency rumble or noise down there You can control it on the back end More precisely and not without having to you know The thing is is when you put something on the front end, it's there forever. Right now with that said if you've got A really loud low frequency rumble under 80 hertz Yeah, the high pass filter when it just makes a good wave All the way through your five or if you're looking at a spectrogram. It's this big sort of red line across uh Yeah, you can It's a process If you've got a high pass filter on the mic Try that first Now some mics have a high pass filter that might actually take away some of the sensitivity of the entire mic Yeah, or they take away too much of the low end right and it'll affect the fidelity Yeah, uh, the really good ones don't necessarily do that They just cut off everything below 80 hertz the human voice doesn't really exist below 80 hertz Unless you're you know, you were don Lafontaine or Or uh, who was that uh ravens croft? Yeah, that's name. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah That way that guy guy whose voice would rumble you from 20 paces. Yeah Yeah, and the u 87 is a peculiar one in its high pass filter starts very high I guys don't quote me I think it's 150 hertz that it that it starts at So so women can use that that may not work really well for many of you Whereas like the the vanguard v4, which is a mic. I know very well, and I like it its high passes in 80 hertz Um, sure the ksm 32's they have two different high pass filter modes Interestingly, they have a steeper one and a more shallow one. So What's the right one to use whatever one sounds best? Um, and then you said your your interface has one same exact thing More than likely it's an on off switch. So you're just gonna have to try them and see what you find sounds better You know, but I I think the one place where a real-time one is really helpful Is in the case of doing like a source connect if you're doing a live session. Yeah, you've got to cut it out If you don't want to send that studio who's listened to you through $10,000 studio monitor speakers uh standing 40 hertz rumble You know, they're gonna be really uh, I mean Honestly, they should know what to do. They should be at they should have a high pass filter At the ready, but still it's like you want to connect and sound relatively clean, you know, so that's a place where it's really nice to have Absolutely, so yeah a high pass filter is You know because I have found no matter where you are if you are in a place of residence There's something 80 hertz and below Yes, especially in a multi-unit building Especially people living on the top floors of high rises where the compressors are and stuff My acupuncturist is on the top floor of her building and I go in there and I'm lying down Isn't it crazy like if you're in the wrong spot of a big building I had a client who had a double wall whisper room in in a commercial building Right, he wanted to get away from the family. You have a place to go work Ta-da bought this very expensive whisper room and it was in the precisely wrong place in the building the HVAC system Standing waves just built up in that room. It was and what was worse is once you went in the whisper room That frequency was like a natural resonant frequency of this whisper So you shut the door and it was even worse It was insane. Yeah, so Watch out for that and by the way one last thing a high-pass filter is also known as a low cut filter So if you're going away, well, what's the low cut? It's it's a different way of saying the same thing a high-pass meaning that frequencies above 80 hertz Or whatever it's said at passing through pass through anything below And seeing as is the human voice generally isn't below 80 hertz no matter which one you're using It's not going to affect your voice. That's a pretty safe bet Yeah, I know now there's a very popular mic the the caddy 100 s has a high-pass filter on it I tried it. Yeah, it really sort of threw off the sensitivity of the mic and changed its characteristics Yeah, I think that one some of them had an issue where you turn it on it would get a little noisier. Yes And uh, yeah, so you got to be why you got to watch out some mics have more than one frequency that you can choose so We could talk about it for a while as you can see but at the end of the day If you're not sure send the sample to Dan or I so we can hear What sound you know send us three samples. This is one High-pass wish only the one on my interface only now. This is one with my doll. What sounds better. Yeah, exactly Yep, all right. Once again, if you got a question Still lots of time you can throw it in the chat room. I'm sure you're all like totally mesmerized by our expertise here Anyway, you get the one from Renee here. All right from Renee. It's a long one Hi, there. I was wondering if you could help me. I'm currently rerecording my commercial and audiobook demo reels And I keep running into the same issue Sibilance Um, my well that sounded pretty terrible actually. I did a good job. Um, my rig Uh, uh consists of audacity 2.4.2 Um l m m s 1.2.2 What is that? You were waiting for me to know what that was. I I am I'm I don't know what that is I know what the next thing is a toner q nine usb mic Okay, so a budget usb mic not not even a budget usb mic This is I think when we get to the bottom of this question That's where the issue is to carry on Um, some sony headphones, uh, some moving blankets and a closet. Here's the breakdown I can record pretty clean audio that only requires a small amount of editing Due to the acoustic treatment of the space. Good. Good on you Um, however, my levels are on the lower side with regards to volume to avoid my sound getting clipped So in other words, you're you're recording with lower levels to keep from peaking, I guess, right? Um, when I process or eq and compress the audio to even out the sound the playback is good sound wise But the crispness causes heavy sibilance. Um, I've tried a handful of different tax and tricks But I end up with uh, either better volume with sibilance Or high quality audio that's dawn near impossible to hear Um, are there any other hacks or tricks I can try to prevent this from affecting my recordings and demos Any help you can give me is greatly appreciated. Well, I'm going to start from the reverse. Okay I'm going to start from here From the headphones. All right She mentions using sony headphones. Now, I don't know that particular ones that she was using But they're not the the quote the the quintessential mdr 7506's but I can tell you that those are Those headphones expose sibilance very well Like meaning they kind of exaggerated has been my experience So when you get a louder cleaner a much louder signal You're literally monitoring yourself Much much louder. So anything that you don't like is going to be louder, right? So that's might be it could be that simple as to why the sibilance is so Noticable when you record with really good levels, right? But why are we getting the sibilance in the first place? That's the question. Well, the problem I see is with the microphone she's using which is a a Tonor q9 usb microphone now When I hear these things and I see these when people, you know email me, yeah, I do what you always do I google it I mean, I'd heard of this mic before but I got a double check the names come up. It is a cheap usb microphone for $69 oh well under a hundred bucks. Well under a hundred bucks. Okay. All right. It's yeah, not only is it budget. It's It's not even good for podcasting. Okay. It's and that and it They sell it with With a reticulated arm. Oh, it's one of those packages. You get the arm. You get the mic and the mic is green Yeah, the mic is terrible and the reason you're getting sibilance is essentially and this is from my own brain I think it's the over modulation of a high frequency And and so you get the distortion and it sounds very very sibilant and there are lots of people say Oh, my voice is really sibilant So if you're talking to someone And they say their voice is very sibilant and they're in the same room with you Yeah, here he is That's pretty unusual. Yeah, so it's generally It can be the mic if the mic is doesn't have the frequency response if it can handle things over like 10 000 hertz Yeah, you know 10k Chances are That's where it's causing the sibilance. So if she went to a better microphone Like say I wrote nt1 or an nt1a or one of the audio technica mics, you know the 2035 or better Something over 150 dollars Along with a good interface everybody's like, well, I don't want to have to deal with an interface I want a usb mic Like well, you have to have a good usb mic and a good usb mic I mean a really good one generally is the same cost as getting a regular pretty much good studio condenser mic With an interface. Yeah So I would say that that's generally what's going to solve the problem It's going to you know, it's going to stop the sibilance. It's going to stop You know, not sounding the way it should. Yeah, I mean that that that capsule of the microphone might have a natural resonance Or those would that create those extremely strong s's right, right exactly and also usb mics Another thing that's frustrating about them is is there fiddly to adjust the settings Yeah, you have to do it through you either have to do it through a computer interface or or through the the uh, the os Yeah, either through or there's a tiny little You know, there might be knobs on the mic. There might be some funky little multifunction Button knob thing it always feels fiddly because you're going like this Is that it how how's that sound, you know, yeah It's like controls on a microphone sucking on any kind of directed live session on zoom anything because as soon as they say adjust your gain That's what they hear, you know, so if you have a physical box Where you can adjust everything just a little bit so much better for a professional session Yeah, you really do need to have an interface, you know a good digital and the thing is is a good digital interface Doesn't cost a lot. No, no, they're very expensive ones. Yeah What's the difference between say a good interface and a cheaper interface? Generally, it's the preamp and how much white how much gain it has right and then how How many bells and whistles right and do you need all the bells and whistles? All you need is to take your voice the analog sound that your microphone is capturing Goes through the wire into the interface as an analog sound And then it changes into the ones and zeros that your computer understands you know along with With the preamplifier inside the digitized through the analog to digital converter, right Right, so get yourself a better mic and a good interface and that will solve that problem And if you can't afford those That's what credit cards are for Yeah, I mean it they good quality audio is affordable right it is now for sure all right Patricia Andrea Watching us on youtube says i'm in jacksonville florida and having a hard time finding voiceover coaches. Could you recommend one virtually? I could virtually recommend one. I can virtually say This person or you could virtually go to this person There's a lot of good coaches out there. Um We've had them on this show callous um type coach v obs You'll see you'll see all all the coaches coach. We better ever interviewed on youtube I mean, yeah, I've worked in and we've worked how to work virtually in the last two years anyway Yeah, so I I mean i'll put in an i'll put in a plug from my pal rick waserman. He's very good He does a lot remotely. Yeah my coach, uh, dave walsh who we've had on the show many times He's he's got a great system and way of teaching uh, how to do You know your your true your true voice and and really becoming showing you how to become the spot And and sound like you know what you're talking about. Yeah, and I don't mean I don't want to come off as being, you know la hollywood boy, but Smaller markets. It's going to be a little harder to find a great coach, right? You might get lucky there might be a great voice actor who's coaching in your town It's just far less likely that that's going to be the case. So Really, it's better off. You do search farther afield. I think so anyway, there's some good coaches in new york Yeah, and there's great coaches here in la and there's good ones in dallas, right and there's good ones in miami, right? They're they're definitely around but you know, it's going to be harder in smaller markets So, yeah rick waserman's bookable vo.com. That's where he coaches and and mark cash and mark cashman Cashman commercials.com and dave walsh voiceover coaching. I think Yeah, I mean gosh, I I mean i'm serious type in go to youtube Type v o b s space coach And you'll find every every episode we've ever done with a coach because we put the coach and then You know, we say that they're a coach in the in the name. So you should be able to find one Show, yeah, uh rich green. This is a george rich. Uh, if you could have only one plugin in your stack What would it be? Only one plugin one. Well, I can cheat and then tell you one plugin that does everything all right Do tell waves ships Omni channel I've heard you mentioned that one before It is literally like it's called omni channel because it's the one to rule them all right So you have that one plugin You get everything you get a you get a full channel strip. You get your preamp compression eq expander Parametric equal, you know all the all the bells and whistles are in one plugin Okay, so that's kind of like a sort of a desert island plugin Which I kind of feel like it's cheating because it's really a lot of plugin There's a lot of different things in one plugin. So I don't know if that's what you were asking If that's what you mean, but um, if I had literally one effect that I could use on anything It would probably be Some kind of dynamics processing Um Yeah, I don't know TDR nova is one that's nice because it's free Have you played around with that one? I don't TDR nova. I don't play with this stuff. I don't need it Everything sounds great coming out of my voice and into the mic. You heard of your first folks, but you know No, I wish but the TDR nova Is a one that a lot of people like because it is free and it has the compressor And a couple of bands of eq and it'll let you do ds-ing which Still is an issue for some folks with no matter what microphone they have so, uh I don't know. There's a few I I tend to find that usually whatever system you whatever DAW you're using Has effects in it that you have complete control over. Yeah, I mean I was going to ask you what platform because you know Reapers got a whole ton of swedome Twisted wave has all the audio units plugins made by apple Adobe audition has an incredible arrangement of Included plugins right so I mean pretty much every one of them even audacity the little audacity plugins are pretty A hit or miss but but the apple ones work great. Yeah, au the au plugins are really good Yeah, and then I even plugins. They're just generally a standard. Well, it's your your DAW will generally say well, this is what we use Oh, it'll it'll just recognize. Yeah twisted wave has it audacity recognizes it adobe audition Yeah, of course adobe audition has it has time in a good one tools. Yeah, whenever he's audition I never even I never honestly load an au and an apple audio unit plugin Because it's already there like everything's in there everything is everything you need. Yeah, j-horus black Yay, j. We can always count on j to give us a good question. Absolutely says. Hey, jarjan dan That would be you and me. I need new earpads for my harlin hogan h2cans Can we use any replacements that are listed online or is there a certain type that will fit them? harlin has them and He will replace them Yeah, you definitely first start with harlin if you liked the ones that were there Start there. Right. If you want to try something different I'm using aftermarket earpads on these headphones The earcup shape on these audio technicas is really similar I haven't tried these with harlins, but I feel like I feel like 95% sure these would fit They're on my gear recommendation recommendations page. I can't remember what they're called. Sorry Um, these headphones have been through the mill. I mean look at the headband Even these are replacement and they're getting torn up But they're so thick and comfortable. I really really and they have that velvet Coating I find them to be really comfortable. So I'm sorry for not remembering the name But check my gear recommendations area. Um, but yeah, ask ask harlin If you're if you like the memory foam Leather pads that their his stuff comes with and just go right to the source. Absolutely, you know And finally john o'rourke asks I have an audience id 14 And now have a new vocal booth or veos a vo booth in my studio I want to record in the booth But edit and mix in the bigger original studio sure both is within the bigger studio. Yeah, where should the id 14 Be oh, I feel like it should be in the booth But then what would be the best way to control the audio for playback? The computer is in a rack in a bigger studio I do have a mackey mixer an amp I can use They are not part of the current voiceover setup I should be probably both out of answer for this. Yeah. Well, my answer is you know I've just It comes with experience because I've been doing this so long I know by looking at a script and knowing how I'm how loud I'm going to be Where to set the level initially and all my stuff is yeah, you're not in there twiddling with I don't want to be doing yeah, if if I'm doing a lot of uh, you know, if it's a You know, if it's if I'm doing a video game or something like that Or I have to be loud in some places, you know, hey get out of your car You know, like man, I'm gonna see your driver's license registration if I've got to change You know my volume a little bit I can do it physically with the mic if I'm going to yell I can turn away from the mic because we don't yell into people's ears Yeah, I mean when you yell in a voiceover booth, you're not really truly yelling unless you're doing a video game death Thing that's a different. Yeah, exactly. But like most a lot of stuff. You're not really yelling You're not really whispering, you know But yeah, I I I agree. I you know, I always tell people don't Set it and forget it once you know a range where the game should be you probably have one or two Well, I would say two or three met the most yelling go to settings and conversational yelling and you know If you have it in there just sit don't like that or if you're going to do something loud And something soft record the soft stuff first and then do the loud stuff So I'm going to do the opposite idea Okay, which is because these are both valid If you really do feel like you want to have that gain knob at your fingertips You don't have to have your studio monitors plugged into The uh, audience directly Or if you do You don't have to use the audience own volume knob to control that so You've got a mixer you could run the outputs of the of the audience through your mixer And now use that as your levels for your speakers. You can get a really simple little passive Volume control box that you can stick by your speakers and have a control of its own, right So there are a couple of ways that you could actually hand work around that And the really the really dirty way is you just plug your speakers with a y a y adapter Right into your computer headphone jack And just use built-in sound for playback Right You might get some buzz you might get some ground loops, you know, it's it's not a great That's the best thing just keep it clean and straight and there's little things in between Is possible and that's usually it makes the best audio. Yeah, jeff holman gets the last question All right, which is pretty simple. Uh, what's your favorite travel mic for using in hotel rooms? My tried and true it just happens to be lying Right here My old epigee mic That's the original right the original and it still works great. Oh, it's it's a little tarnished, you know, it's been It's been really used on the road. It's look at that sucker, man the thing The thing is, you know, it's been through it It has and I booked work off of it and I have recorded work with it There you go. And it's and you know, what's nice about this? It has an actual just an actual physical Game dial But gotta love it. The mrs. Does not like seeing this go into my suitcase. Oh, you have to sneak it in there Yeah, it's it's not coming with me to maraca. Good for you, man I'm taking three weeks off to not do any of that Anyway, thanks for your questions guys and uh, you can write to us anytime at Again so the guys at v obs dot tv And ask, you know, write your questions to us if it just suddenly cursed you in the middle of the week Oh, I gotta ask Dan and george's question That's the way but you can always Watch and ask if you're watching the show live That's gonna do it for us. We'll be right back after these incredibly important messages to wrap everything up and we'll be right back This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of our body shop In these modern times Every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish Don't try it yourself go with the pros voice actor websites dot com Where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? 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That's voice over Xtra dot com Yeah, hi, this is carlos ellis rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voice over body shop Hey, there. Hey, we're back We took a moment to enjoy a cookie called a dorbis And if you can find these they're really good. It might be tough though. These are made in iran Go figure Anyway, my girlfriend brought them back one of her trips and uh, and I wanted to say before we go Hashtag hashtag masa amini ma h s a am i And if you want to know what that means just put it into the net And start looking at what's going on over there. My girlfriend is still in iran and um We wanted to come back safe, but she's there with her mother as well. So she's looking after her family, but um, we hope that things resolve there and uh, we want freedom and peace For the people of iran Absolutely And the people in ukraine and everywhere else when ukraine and things are going crazy, of course Yes, absolutely. Anyway, uh, but we like to thank our donors of the week We sure do like robert ledum steven chandler kasey clack jonathan grant tommy pinto. Yes, sir. Shelly. Shelly avilino gregg thomas a doctor voice antland productions martha con 949 designs jonathan grants. See you did it too Yeah I'm going to remind me to erase that christopher epperson sarah borges phillips superior Brian page patty gibbons rob rider shana pennington baird don griffith tremos lee diana bertsall and sandra manwell See, I'm like it. I'm like, you know, ron burgundy. You put it on the prompter. I'm gonna read it That's right Oh my god. I love that show. All right. Well if you want to work with one of us Hey, it's real simple. If you want to work with george, you go over to George uh, george the dot dot tech george the dot tech and if you want to work with me A voiceover studio dot com or you'll find my specimen collection cup which continues to be filled up Yeah, anyway by the time you see this I have a webinar coming the well, it would say I guess tomorrow 26 yeah, so 20 the webinars on the 25th I got my ask me anything on clubhouse on the 26th Um, and the old vbs fan 10 will get you 10 off anything you book through the website All right, and we need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and world voices dot org the industry association of freelance voice talent which you should all join I'll be watching for your names because I know who all of you are Anyway, uh, that's gonna do it for us this week We're gonna be off for a couple of weeks because I have to go to morocco. Oh, man And the canary islands to go visit our good friend ramesh Which I am really looking forward to but I'm also looking forward to morocco and madrid and barcelona And all these yes being that that's that is definitely can't wait to go to spain spain's a cool place. Alrighty. Well, look Not an easy business voiceover, but technologically We're here to help you out And you'll send us your audio and we're gonna tell you if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan lettered. I'm george winham. And this is voiceover body shop or vio bs tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk See you in a couple weeks guys. Thanks jeff. Thanks, sue