 Guess what it's time for tech talk and we got lots of cool stuff to talk about this week in your ticket update We've got what we're gonna talk about the next mixer. You might want to buy Punch in recording and adobe audition. Where's that punch and roll? and also The ability to use your microphone correctly by putting it in the right place Which is important. We talk about Mike's Mike mistakes and a couple of great questions from our audience all coming up right now on voiceover body shop tech talk 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 VO universe. They bring it to you now George Widow the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO 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 VO 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 voice over essentials.com home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website Isn't a pain in the butt VO to go go.com Everything you need to be a successful voice over artist J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voice over extra your daily resource for VO success And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys And Now it's time for a tech talk here on voice over body shop and lots of cool stuff to talk about tonight I mean we've got we're gonna demonstrate something for you from an audition, which is really cool and Some other cool stuff. I also want to talk a little bit more about microphones We talked last time about Karen feeding of your microphone. Yeah this week Mistakes that people make with microphones Which would be fun to talk about and again if you have a tech question if you have a home voice over studio tech question remember we're the guys that know how to do this stuff and We're the guys that know how to answer this stuff and if we don't know the answer we asked the other one And if he doesn't know it then Google it Then we Google that's right and which we usually do anything it's stupid to hire one of us to Google things for you But trust me we know what the Google really good at Google. Yeah It's like no, and there's lots of stories that go with that. So what's up in your tech update this week? Oh boy Well, I guess the first thing that came to mind was a recent discovery that Adobe audition CC the creative cloud the one everybody's mostly using now the 2019's most recent update which is 12 when you think the versioning is so confusing they call it CC 2019 But in the verging thing it's verging thing it's called twelve point one the point one update Now has an actual built-in punch and rate punch in recording right which they lovingly call believe it or not punch and roll Which is funny because really it's only the voiceover industry that seems to call it punch and roll right? Whereas the recording industry calls it punch in or auto punch I mean since since the time of my otari for track recorder like punch in right So I mean I think that's kind of cool because what that tells me is that Adobe has been listening to the audio Recording are specifically the voice and narration and podcasting industry for you know feature updates I think that's pretty awesome. I'll also take credit for having someone from Adobe on the show right and telling them That's something that people want, but that's not sure. I'm sure that we'd have anything to do with it but anyway Adobe audition now has punch and roll recording and you don't have to there was a great Hack that somebody came up with they wrote a script and everything But now now it's actually baked into the system and it's it's it's crazy crazy easy I haven't really spent much time playing with it yet But let's see if we got that coming up on the screen. We certainly do So you get some audio up in an adobe audition. I'll see if playback comes up without creating an echo or a loop Let's see check check one two three four five six seven nine. There it is Okay, so if I wanted to punch in at some point in this so I want to punch in on one two three four five six seven eight nine ten I don't like the way I sort of stumbled over the end 79 ten seven eight nine ten. I'd rather have a nicer cleaner seven eight nine ten So I'm gonna find that point where the seven comes in And you gotta be really careful with your punch ends. They should be pretty darn accurate So you might want to zoom in a little bit But now you go down to the record button at the bottom and hold down control And now when you click on it this this menu now includes a punch and roll mode So when that's engaged and you've got to set it for a certain Pre-roll time you do that is preset and frankly I haven't even looked to see where that for that speck or that Preferences even located in here yet. Let's take a look together. Shall we yes? What would you look where would you look would you look at editing? Maybe would you look under appearance? No play back in recording perhaps. Absolutely. There it is at the bottom of playback and recording Under recording. There's a punch and roll pre-roll duration the The default is five seconds. That's rather long. Can't let's put it I'm gonna try this two for now. See if I can nail it in two Two seconds. Okay, and then you just use your hotkey shift space for record By the way, that's the same as I think pro tools Here we go check check one two three four five six seven eight nine ten Now I probably flubbed that but this is just to show you How punch and roll takes practice check check one two three four five six six seven eight nine ten So I over I doubled the six right basically this is to show that it works But it's also to show how not to do it if you're gonna punch in on something Don't pick something right in the center of a phrase or better You know do the whole phrase give yourself some space right if you're gonna do punch and roll Really on a short phrase like that start at the beginning right don't make it harder on yourself than it has to be You know, it's it's very difficult to squeeze in a punch in a spot like that And my my trick to that was always if you're gonna do a punch in or even an edit always do it on a consonant Okay, do it on if you do it and a hard constant be a T and not an F F sir hard I can do a check check one two three four five six Three four five six those are not hard one two three four five two, okay Pick it up at the two. Let's try that check check one two. So here's two two Check check one two. Okay. Let's try that shift space bar Three four five six seven eight nine ten now for some reason we didn't hear the play pre-roll that time I really don't have a good reason for that because I have it on you check check once three four So I think we found a bug mmm check check one two We do check check once three four five six seven eight nine ten So anyway, the point is it takes practice Because anything you got to get the timing right and you got to make sure that there's no lag in your system or latency because if there's a little bit of latency in the system if your Computer's hard drives a little bit slow or anything the timing of the punch in won't be perfect So, you know, this is this is why we tend to not be big on pushing punch and roll right in a traditional sense I know David who was just on last week's show. He talks about using punch and roll and it's own in a sort of unique audacity Specific method ready. We call He calls it a stair-step technique right because you're recording a new file underneath each one a new track, right? He has a special way to do it in audacity This time this technique you're working over the same track. This also does work in multi-track mode as well Oh, that I've not experimented with what I let you got to know what you're doing to do with multi-track mode You do have the ability to after the fact adjust the punch in point and all this here's the thing I mean if you have to go in and adjust your punch in points Why bother? Because the problem is now you have to fix if you have to go back and at any point of doing punch and roll is to Not have to go back and fix your edits. They they should be seamless So right and punch and roll really is for long format narration. I mean if I'm working on something I was working on something this morning and I I It was in another language and I had to edit these things in yeah, it's just re-record it copy it Paste it back in there. Yeah, take your time get it done right and make sure that the spacing is all right Yeah, but if you're if you're on a tight deadline you're trying to do an audiobook or a long format narration Something like that can be very very useful The other thing is you got to have control you have to have access to all your systems from the mic, right? And that for some of you maybe you're already set up that way many you many of you or not Many of you have just a simple booth with a mic and a headphone and really not much else now You got to bring all that into the booth. It's a little bit more complicated to set up So if you're really dedicated to long form narration and this is something you've been wanting to try to find a Way to speed it up give it a shot you could give it a try and see if it works for you Anyway punch in punch it in gear Had a pretty disappointing experience with personas is a r8 mixer We saw this thing at NAM a year or even two yet two NAMs ago. Yeah How long is that in dog ears? So we saw we saw this thing and I was like all this things cool It's got built-in recording to an SS an SD card, right? So you can have a backup recording and it's got some really neat features Bluetooth blah blah blah So I installed them in two different studios because at the time those two people clients happen to need mixers So I installed them within a few weeks of each other and though that was about over a year ago Right both of the personas a r8 mixers. I installed have both had technical issues like Catching on fire Okay in in a small Like the smallest whisper room that they make I Mean a small whisper room it was inside the whisper room and the club I'm not gonna say is there just since it's not embarrassing anybody, but he came in and he's texting me George There is smoke coming out of my mixer. What am I supposed to do? Like this is this is nuts Anyway, so one of them the the power supply blew out and there's parts in there that when they fail They fail with some Sturman drang or drama or something smoke. That's what happened So I felt very bad and had to get over there and I was like get your mic port pro and plug it into your mic Get back to work, you know But anyway, so that one failed in a more spectacular way The other one started creating these cloud rhythmic pop pop pop pop pop pop pop sounds out of the studio monitors Which are really loud really disconcerting and obnoxious And if you don't know what's going on as a voice actor that would probably freak you the heck out Somebody running a pulse jet some it was really freaking weird So I was able to figure out a way to get that sound out of the system temporarily, but I did replace it So the question maybe you may be thinking is what did you replace it with? No, I did not go buy two more personas a r8 mixer. Sorry Yeah, I'm not gonna rely on that one anymore so I decided to try another brand of mixer that Dan and I've used for a long time and They've got a very good proven track record as a company I figured I'd give a try to the Allen and Heath Zed I 10 right a cute name Zed I 10 But it's it's it's a very reasonably priced actually about half the price of the personas a r8 really Mixer it's a USB mixer. So it eliminates the need for the posterior scarlet and all that stuff and It's nice. It's clean the preamps work. It's Simple it sounds great, and it does what a voice actor needs it to do now. It's British and Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's made in China, of course I mean all of these these affordable pieces of gear are made in China But it's like a jaguar and ask if you do want a desktop mixer made in the UK SSL makes one. It's about yay big And it's about two grand and yes You may get an English made mixer for your desktop and it's beautiful little piece of gear But for the rest of you, that's probably crazy. Anyway, why do you even need a mixer and a stand a voice over studio? Really normally you don't know unless you're mixing more than one source Yeah If you've got an outboard piece of gear in both of these clients cases they happen to have believe it or not They still have a Zephyr So actually one of them has a Zephyr the other one has a traditional phone hybrid box A phone patch So don't use those, you know when they have something that works. It's hard to Migrate away, but anyway that gives them a way to send the audio out and then bring it back in the other thing I'm always trying to figure out how to do is I want to leave the speakers turned on for playback But I don't want the microphone to come out of the speakers And with both of these mixers all I basically do as a workaround is use an aux send right for the speakers Same idea we use here in the studio as well, and that creates a special mix just for the speakers Which works most of the time except now because why V mix I'm gonna start calling V mix wire cast By the way because now we're having problems and we don't know why so guess what But we've been having issues with that playback issue lady, but anyway, it's been it's so far so good I've got my fingers crossed if you see me here again in a year complaining about the ZI 10 I'll tell you about the next mixer to replace it with but I hope that's not the case I'm a little life-slash tech hack now you know you're you're You like having your tech in the car because you're constantly I'm in the car a lot and I'm in the phone I'm in the car a lot, you know, and you know hands-free is okay, but Yeah, I mean maybe if you've got a really good luxury vehicles They've probably figured out a way to get that hands-free Bluetooth mic to sound really good and Eliminate all the background noise. No, they got someone with a with a pole, and they're One of those really expensive guys are Turnin a little bit. There's a boom mic In my Subaru the Bluetooth mic sucks says my mom and anybody else I've ever had it's hot too in the car So I get with love. Yes. I gave up on it and I got a little Bluetooth headset. This one's called M-POW 20 bucks on Amazon Okay, so these have been around forever sometimes they call them trucker headsets Because the truckers use them because their trucks are so dang loud right um, but the thing I really like about this is and I haven't tried this on Apple, but on my Google phone this button summons the assistant So when it's on my head if I punched if I just tap this button It brings up the assistant and I can tell it what I need to do call mom text girlfriend Send send do a reminders I do a ton of reminders in the car Remind me when I get to the studio remember when I get home to X, you know I do a lot of those this does that all really really really well and the battery lasts forever I mean, I bought this thing charged it had it for maybe a month or so. I haven't charged it yet That's how long the battery lasts on this thing. It's amazing So if you're looking for a way to drive more safely get a little more done while you're driving and not be Dorking around on your phone, which is so easy to do You know, I can ask Spotify to play music. I'm not using Spotify to listen to podcasts There's a few that are not on there So the transition is not that great, you know, I still missing a few things But to be able to just ask Spotify to play a show is kind of handy So it's working out pretty well good to know so 20 bucks about 20 bucks for an MPAL There's probably others but this one I know for a fact works with the assistant feature Summoning the assistant by pressing the button. I think that's it's been really helpful. Oh, very cool What what some are you using in your car to communicate? Are you do you have the steering wheel button that you can press and it will do the same thing? It's got a steering wheel button. It's like very easy. Yeah, it's all by feel. It's almost like Braille Chris I can not see somebody having a braille car It's kind of a weird if they ever mandate Braille controls for the driver of a car. I don't know. We've really lost it It's absolutely. No, I mean, I've got my iPhone. I've got it You know, there's I've got a heavy magnet on it. Yeah, that you know makes it easy to remove, right? I played the music through Bluetooth like listening to radio paradise Yeah, it's like I cash that stuff and it's like I got music for as long as I want it Yeah, and and then the phone. It's a good Bluetooth phone except when I'm talking to my mom Right, like who can't hear very well anyway. Let's try it It is amazing that the technology is really hasn't completely caught up yet Where we can get a really good sounding Bluetooth in a car, right? It's not in my experience. Yeah, unless you're talking to somebody else who is also on a good If I'm talking to somebody who has a good audio setup on the other end. Yeah, and then it's then it's wonderful Yeah, I really like that. So, you know, I just use my iPhone in the car Cool, and then and it knows my phone numbers There's a voice assistant on the steering wheel like is there a button for the voice and then it triggers it on your car mom Does it try to hear? Yeah. Yes, it does. Oh, cool. Yeah, mine doesn't do that. I have two listings for mom Oh crap now, which one? Yeah, then you're like home or work. Absolutely. Well, my mom doesn't have a job. So take home. That's right Hey, if you've got a question for us now, it'd be a great time to throw it in the chat room We've got a couple of questions from our audience that were mailed in any time You have a question like in the middle of the week and you're like, I wonder what Dan and Jordz would say about this Right to us at the guys at VOBS dot TV and you could get your question answered Right here on this very show Which will be thrilled to give you that's we always love that that's right Did you talk about the mic mistakes now look at look at to that after the talk about mic mistakes right after the break Hey, everybody, this is the time in the show We're get to thank our wonderful sponsor source elements the creators of source connect Which is the premium way to connect your studio to other studios around the world with low latency and sample rate lock Sync everything you send and stream over source connect will absolutely Reach the other studio at the same time every time with no shifts in latency Or anything weird going on with time stretching and things like this This is an issue that happens with a lot of the other systems at work on web browsers Source connect is its own standalone application. It's rock solid. It's proven and again It's going to be requested by the top studios around the world So if you want to play at that level and be ready to work with those big jobs that are using these studios Have source connect in your arsenal go get a 15-day free trial at source dash elements comm get your iLock going Get everything ready to go and then when that session comes in you can say I've got source connect You can buy your license activate it and you're ready to go Tell me sent you and we appreciate the support from source elements Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat This is virgin radio. Well, okay, we're not that innocent. There's jeans for wearing and there's jeans 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 smartphone, 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 red When hope is lost the I8 from BMW Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's Jay Michael Collins bet you think I'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's Jay Michael at jmc voice over calm Now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute. We'll get back to the show Hey everybody, it's time to talk about our great friend Harlan Hogan and his fabulous website voice over Essentials calm and Harlan wanted me to tell you that this month. He's got a great feature going on on voice over essentials calm He's going to be answering a question a week about voice over whether he gives you the right answer or not as a whole Nother deal, but it's going to be followed by a review Entitled crap. I bought on the internet And he's starting off with an item, which is a shotgun Shotgun mic mount for two dollars and sixty cents for free delivery Okay, that's interesting and then in June Harlan will present his annual top ten Recorded on the road tips like if you're in a hotel go out in the hallway and unplug the coke machine Anyway, Harlan knows more about voice over than just about anybody and he has more stuff made for voice over than Anybody in the business so go on over to voice over essentials calm where you'll find great stuff like the Harlan Hogan Vo1 a Voice optimized mic for voice over. It's the only microphone really made for voice over Designed by Harlan Hogan himself and you can get it there and at a great price It's at a great price point the best place to go to go to voice over essentials calm Is to go to the bottom of our home page find the picture of Harlan Hogan talking into his porta booth pro Click on it. It will take you there It'll let him know that you saw this message on voice over body shop and he'll be thrilled to tears Anyway, go to voice over essentials calm to get all your voice over stuff Thanks for being our sponsor for eight years Harlan and we are back here on voice over body shop Tech talk because I have something else in my other hand. I can't use the the quotation things First off we have to mention to people something okay, and that is you all need to have a home studio in 2019 and 2020 which it'll be with in seven months On the corner. Yeah, exactly and and it's important to understand what it takes to have a good home studio You got to learn from the people that know that Most importantly what it's supposed to sound like whistle finally remembered There's a certain sound that is inherent in a voice over studio that we're looking for it's not your job to be an engineer It's not your job to be doing all sorts of stuff to your audio Which will lead into what we're talking to talking about in a few minutes about mistakes that people make because you and I get questions all the time Sometimes it's serviceable. Sometimes it's people looking for free advice in which case we say go to our website We like we give out free advice every week here on this show on the show and on our in the forums and in our boats and a ton of forums Yeah, we like answering questions because that's what gets us going. That's what our passion is Taking care and of your home studio is important But creating it properly in the first place will save you so much time money and effort and hours of mind-numbing frustration later on We insist if you really want to have a good home studio You need to talk to one of us See I'm gonna go first this week go if you want to work with me and have me teach you how to build your home studio Properly the proper equipment to have and it's not a big long list No, and how to use it properly, which we talk about on this show all the time you can find me at homevoiceoverstudio.com Easy to go to easy to remember click on that you'll hear you'll see all the stuff that I teach and how I do it and I also have the Specimen collection cup where you can drop off a specimen of your audio so I can check it out and see you know How bad is it some people say hey? Is this a reason I'm not getting work And I'll listen to their audio and it's like No, probably not. It was okay. It's just fine But there are some other things we can we can talk about And it's for 25 bucks I'll I'll do that analysis for you and if you'd like to work with mr. Wittem here who is the home studio engineer to the stars here in Los Angeles, California. I'm working my way up Damn straight. How do they do you're in the studios on after all I am You can head over to George the tech comm I do a lot of the same stuff that Dan's doing I also work with Clients that are dealing with the promos and the trailers and they need ISD ends and all the Goes in as it goes out is so I can sort all that out I can design a studio or I can just tell you which side of the mic to talking to you can pay me to do whatever you want And the way to do that is to go over to well anything to do with studios And you can go over to George the tech comm and find all the different types of services. I offer over there All right, so I love going into people's places. It's fun. It is kind of neat Like I do I went into one in old Hollywood this week. Oh cold apartment pre-deco Yeah, yeah, what stars lived in this place. Yeah, lots of mahogany Yeah, and lots of plaster lots of lots of echo. It's like okay. There's how we're gonna deal with this. Yeah, yeah fun stuff Anyway, we want to talk about mic mistakes. Let's do it. So let's let's start off with our good friend here the Studio condenser mic here is an old audio Technica 3035 but not a production but it was one of my first microphones when I got back at it's out of production But it's kind of been resurrected as the 2035 right, so that's the only mic that is on now, right? Yeah, so one of the problems I find someone will call or they'll I'll get I guess that's the only mic that's on right now Someone will call so you're not on you want me to turn that one on no, no, no, this is fine Okay, okay, someone will call and say or they'll send some audio and it sounds muffled uh-huh Nine times out of ten the reason is because they're talking into the wrong Mike oh Man, I know that sounds so here's the key to this kids Talk into talk into the logo It's amazing. It's amazing how many times people do that, you know, it's like I didn't know you what what side you I mean listen to the difference between talking into the front of the mic as opposed to the other side Even though it looks even though it looks just as good as the other side. It's not it's a one-sided mic It's what we call a side address mic right, you know Unidirectional side address mic right the other thing is the way a lot of people mount it and we talk about this all the time And you know you can see maybe you can see the way our mics are mounted in here You know, we don't use lav mics in here on our TV set. We use voice over We want you to know what it's supposed to sound like have mics are not up to par That's right. Your mic should be first off ups hung upside down for a lot of good reasons number one, it's it's going to get your copy Unobstructed because you gotta be able to read your copy and also By having the the mic at eye level. It's at the same plane as your ears and By having it that way. It's hearing you the way people are supposed to hear you Too many people try too much proximity effect To make their voices deeper, which is not really necessary The idea is not to make you sound amazing if you're a good voice actor you already sound amazing What you really want to be able to do is sound like you so why not have it? Mounted properly at the right distance of somebody else's ear so it's picking you up properly like that also the other advantage to this is You can go Peter Piper pick to pack a pickle peppers all day long and there will be no plosives We see all these pictures of people Using pop screens, you know even Harlan our good sponsor Harlan Hogan has pop screens And if you are a singer or you're something that's really working the mic There's spit screens. They really aren't for preventing plosives the way you prevent text them like there's more than anything else That's right, you know or if you don't have enough room in your booth also You can also have it like that as long as you're talking to the logo But that's like that the hugest mistake that people make okay You can turn these mics back and then we're gonna go to another mean remember that the capsule inside this microphone is around disc right and It's facing that direction now if you can turn the capsule you can turn the microphone 360 degrees Around like this and you're listening to me trying to do this without making a lot of noise That's okay And the tone of my voice really does not change in any appreciable way because the capsule is still pointing directly at my mouth So whatever way works in your particular system it can be sideways Absolutely, and I've had to do that in places also people forget that that pickup pattern is not in a flat plane It's in a hemisphere right so if you're talking, you know if you're you're talking to the mic here It's you're still in the pickup zone It's when you start going off to the side and you might you might start that's another cool thing to demonstrate I mean these mics change their tone as you turn them. That's right as you can hear from the back It's terrible because now you're talking to the dead zone of the mic So only here's low-end when you're right in front. It's very bright when you're about 50 50 It's sort of muddled. It's loses the top end But if you're overly sibilant there's a spot somewhere in the middle where the top end is an overly sibilant And so that's a way you can adjust the tone of a mic. That's too bright If you might that's too bright for your voice just twist a little bit move a little off axis Which which sort of means that it's really not the mic. It's how you use it All right, what's next the next one is We won't figure out what that is. Okay. This guy That's a thing. That's an old mic. That was an audio technique that I can handle that you could use it to hammer nails This is An electric voice re 20 yes, it is now we were talking with David H. Lawrence a little earlier about stuff that people brought home from the Radio studio right or as her one like to say what they stole from the last radio studio they worked at an re 20 is a lot of people in voiceover who like using an re 20 The question I have for them is what work are they not booking because they're using an re 20 The question the thing about an re 20 is it's I it's a dynamic Broadcast microphone, okay, so right so so I had to gain at 34 right right. Let's turn on the re 20 right This is the re 20 it has far less pickup That's about as far away and now people use it because the perhaps they have a noisy room or something along those lines Okay Okay, now that you can hear me again All right, and so if I keep talking so that and now what now we're at about the right level with this thing, right? When you're on the game, right when you're on the yeah, so you have to add a lot of gain Which means you need a pre amp ridiculous amounts of game. Yeah, so The only way that it really works, you know with a regular interface is if you talk right into it Like if you're on the radio But here's the thing if you're doing voiceover you're not on the radio You're just in your studio what makes it sound like you're on the radio is a whole nother technology that we don't even want to talk about so if If you're talking this close, it's doing a couple of things one It's adding proximity effect all of the re 20 is good at controlling proximity for the most part because it was designed as a Bass drum microphone originally We just use it for broadcasting and it's made for live broadcasting but It's an a wholly unnatural sound We don't talk to people an inch from their eardrum and even though this thing is designed for high SPL and And then how people use it it's still wholly unnatural And I think all the reasons a lot we get a lot of Requests and specs for no announcers is because we got a lot of people using mics like this I Okay, I'm so off I'm off Mike Let me turn the eq off because I've had a little eq on there if you've to make that mic sound a certain way right So now speaking of the mic now as one here now, it's flat. This is totally without eq, right? So how does it sound like like now? Oh, I got them. Oh, okay. Okay. No, that's the right one, right? I Playing microphone roulette I had a lot of bass boosts for because those mics are so far away right so that's flat now That's more about the what the mic sounds right, you know And there are adjustments on this for there's a bass roll off on this and stuff like that But this is not how you're supposed to do voice over as you're gonna get lots of plosives You're going to sound like you're talking into somebody's ear to a certain extent But you need a lot of gain To make it work if you want to work this mic in proper voiceover placement Like say here or here or something like that You're gonna need gobs of gain probably a lot more than your audio interface that your scarlet 2i 2 is gonna have right now I'm at plus 45 a lot of your USB interfaces don't go much more than that now. I'm up to Plus 55. I'm almost topped out on our preamp. Let's go full wide open. That's plus 60 This is the most gain I can give this microphone and now it sounds about right, right? You know at a at a at a voiceover proximity where it sounds somewhat natural that sounds pretty good But by the time you've done that you've negated all the advantages You've had to crank the gain way up getting his the mic becomes more sensitive it picks up more background noise So it just doesn't end up being in most people's advantages I'll turn my other mic back on to have a mic like that right great for podcasting You know where people can be like that because it's not voiceover. It's podcasting. You're it's like being on the radio. Yeah, anyway, so mistakes with microphones Okay, you can turn that mic on I did okay. Good job. So we have a couple of questions. We do From this one is from Jane here. Erolah Erolah. I can read that cool I currently have a scarlet studios CM 25 mic and a focus rights guard that's so low preamp and low-end headphone. Uh-huh I think to be Quality competitive I need to upgrade could you suggest equipment that would help me be competitive in starting my voiceover career? Boy, how often do we hear this one? well The scarlet it's fine your face is fine fine the mic is the mic is bull. Yeah I don't know where they got this mic They must bought they must have bought it's a package thousand dollars of these 10,000 of these mics for $5 each because they are in the they're pretty noisy. They don't they're noisy. Yeah, I Hear the newer ones are a little better. I would imagine that we're complaining. They're gonna upgrade them eventually Right now man. Yeah, if you're gonna upgrade something like an audio technica 2020 even yeah, even the regular 2020 of the 20s the 20 35 for $50 more is a better capsule, right? It has a high-pass filter switch, which is pretty helpful. Yeah for getting less rumble in your recording, right? So, you know, those are 100 to $150 options, right? If you want to go up another at you know order of magnitude and costs and quality You know Harlan's V01 a I mean we're too great. We're biased. We're talking into it right now, but it sounds fantastic great microphone You know, but really almost any hundred dollar plus microphone. That's made by Audio Technica Mxl AKG Series reception stuff is gonna probably sound better than the CM 25 So that would be money well spent probably and then making sure that which you did not mention Your room is dialed in right acoustically All you're mentioning is your gear you didn't mention anything about where you're recording What's the space like what you've done to make the room sound better? That all definitely needs to be sorted as well So we need to hear that so we can understand what's going on in your room. Yeah, all right one last question from Brad Stevenson all right says I currently use audio mute sound absorption sheets in my recording space Actually, the brand is audio mute audio mute audio mute. Yeah flat against the walls how far away from the walls should I have What I have to space the sheets in order to take advantage of any additional sound absorption by utilizing the air pocket Thanks pocket. Well, you've written you've written a lot of stuff on on acoustics and you know I had studio suit which is similar to audio mute It's like draping it right it doesn't it you don't want to like write up on the wall But it can be I mean if it's flat up against the wall, you're getting the least of overall effectiveness Right, it's gonna help right, but yeah as there's a gap you get more Better you get more and better control over lower frequencies now. I honestly man. I don't know what that measurement is I'd have to Get information from auto mute about the properties of the blanket What's the NRC the noise reduction coefficient blah blah blah so frankly? I don't know exactly but any gap that you can if you have room to have a gap Then it's a good thing like give yourself some space So now the sound will pass through the blanket go through that blanket barrier travel on reflect off the wall Come back be further attenuated by over that distance right then go back through the blanket so it gets a second dosing of Absorption and if it does that yeah, so you will definitely get better performance from it I I'm gonna give you just a number and say six inches You know it's gonna help I can do it in four inches There you go four inches and better yet experiment. Yeah, I have a friend hold the blanket up Okay, I'm about six inches do a recording I mean, that's the only way you really know about the times you have to experiment because every room is different Yeah, and every voice is different Plus the louder you talk the more the acoustics of the room come into play. That's true Having something overhead is not to be overrated I mean if you make a four-sided booth around you and you leave the ceiling open That can sometimes be that last point of reflection where you're getting some Fazy weird sounding stuff. So don't completely ignore the ceiling and sometimes when you treat the ceiling Then you don't have to do as much stuff around you so you can make your room feel a little bit more open So that can be another way to work it. That's what we're doing here by the way, right? We don't have we have a big absorber behind us. It's behind the green screen And then the walls on that side that side and Okay, the wall behind the camera and the wall on that side is pretty much Untreated there's a little bit of blanket there and random stuff over there But it's pretty but the majority of the treatment is on the ceiling in this room Right, and that's what allows us to be this far away from the mic Have a pretty nice open natural sound and when we talk loud it it's still pretty controlled. It is. Yeah This is a pretty big room. So anyway, yeah, yeah, all right That's probably more tech than you could probably handle in a week, which is why we only do it Once a week once every other week Yes, to be all right again if you've got a question for ascended to us at the guys at VOBS.tv and We'll be happy to answer it here on this show because we're the guys that know Anyway, we'll be right back to say goodbye and wrap things up into a nice tight little package right after this 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? What question do we get most often? Well far and away It's how do I even get started in voiceover and we have a great answer to that question Take VO to go goes free getting started in VO class. You heard right It's free and it's available online 24 7 at getting started in VO comm That's getting started in VO comm if you've been watching VO BS and Thinking that you need to get in gear and start your own voice over career This is the class you should start with you'll learn about the vocal skills You need the storytelling skills you need the equipment you need and the business skills You need all in one single comprehensive online class taught by VO to go goes David H. Lawrence the 17th This class won the backstage readers choice award four years in a row and again. There's no charge. It's absolutely free Want to take it? Sure you do Go to getting started in VO comm that's getting started in VO comm Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead now There's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer that place is voice over extra comm Whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics Like audio books auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing Performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voice over audition It's all here at voice over extra.com. That's voice over x t r a dot com This is Bill Ratner and you're enjoying voice over body shop with Dan Leonard and George Whidham VOBS dot TV and we are back here on voice over body shop Next week You know we do tech talk, but next week we have Memorial Day you guys want to give you hot dogs. Well, maybe not you but There's a pretty good vegan hot dog. I have to admit. Yeah, you know field roast. Look it up. It's pretty good. Okay, cool We're taking Memorial Day off which means we'll be off for a couple of weeks and And then I'm going to Alaska in June, but on June 10th Laurie Allen will be here. Who's always a riot. Oh, yeah, because she loves holding my dogs She's a she's an animal lover extraordinary. She is she is super talented and funny She'll be fun. So stay tuned for that But who are our donors of the week? Those are the week we've got on the list here Debbie Irwin Brian Rausch Joseph Harrison Christie Burns Gary Gary. He just said Gary. Yeah, I like the name Gary. All right. I got a cousin named Gary Don Griffith Uncle Roy at Ant-land Productions. Those are our freshest donors and we thank you very much The most of those are subscribers. They they're doing it on an auto remission basis, right? And if you want to donate to the show, there's a donate button right here on our home page So just click on the bottom one that says Donate you can do it buck. You can do a buck a month. You can do it and you can we'll do 100 We'll whatever amount you're willing to send it helps us keep this show technically amazing Alrighty by the way show us your booth. Somebody actually sent in a booth this week this week It's there and sad. It's legit. Yeah, it's over booths. Yeah, as you can tell Clothes make great sound absorption material and in closets. We now know what he wears But how he set up? The mic could be in a better position, but you know, but it there we go. Yeah, see he's he's got the mic upright What is he using there is that? Oh my gosh? I think that's an audio tennika ATR 2100 ah, which is a great podcasting mic So so learning for you. He says it's a newbie boot. So he's looking. No, I mean a move up He made a minimal investment. He's recording in a closet and if he's got his mic placement dialed in I bet he's getting some pretty decent audio out of that spot cool So so if you want your booth on here any booth is any booth is cool If you're like it doesn't have to be crazy. We love showing like a this is what real voice actor booths often Look like right and people make money in a closet like this Some people making good money. Yeah, unless it's like this just remember people don't need to see how the sausage is made It's only what it sounds like Okay, after you eat it Okay, think about that one for a second I know If you need help with your home studio, you want to help from George they go to George the tech calm And then you can also visit Dan for a different flavor of sausage over here I'm not going anywhere with that Home voiceover studio calm is the place you can what's in the coffee? Just coffee. Okay, trust me. Hey, if you want to be in our audience. We're on opposite Mondays right to us and You can be in the audience here with us put audience in the subject line. Wait a minute How did oh, that's right? He came back I Love how we did on this show. It's just magic. That's right So if you want to be in the audience right to us at the guys at the OBS dot TV if you're here in Los Angeles Or are going to be in the greater Los Angeles area Right to us tell us when you want to come and we'll give you the secret handshake and let you through the gate Maybe Okay, we need to thank our sponsors, of course Arlen Hogan's voice over essentials calm voice over extra source elements Vio to that's the numeral to go go Voice actor websites calm and a Michael Collins demos. All right Just did a demo with J. Michael an announcer demo going against the grain That's great. I can't wait. It sounds fabulous. I'm I'm never happy with my demos. I like this one. It was really good We need to thank of course the Dan and Marcy Leonard foundation for the betterment of live webcasting Our producer Katherine Curden who will be back eventually we got to get a hold of her again Mike Merlino Suze son in the chat room and this man his mom our director Sue Merlino for doing a great job tonight And of course Lee penny for being we penny. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week Again, we'll be back on Well tech talk we have tech talk this week and then we'll be back on June 10th with Lori Allen, so That's gonna do it for us tonight. Not an easy business guys. You need help with your home studio tune into our show because we know what it's supposed to sound like because when it sounds good whistle It is good. I'm Dan Leonard George Whidham and this is voice over body shot or Vio Be as every great week everybody Are you confused about how to set up and maintain a professional quality voice over studio? No wonder the information out there is mostly Mythology this is the best microphone to use. You'll have to have a preamp. You need a soundproof booth This software is the best your audio must be broadcast quality Consult with someone who knows the truth someone who's been there in the trenches doing voiceover for over 30 years someone with unparalleled experience with voiceover studios who's worked with hundreds of voice actors and designed hundreds of personal studios He knows how to teach and cares about your success in one of the harshest environments known to voiceover your home Dan Leonard the home studio master Separate myth from fact and get a handle on your personal voiceover studio Contact the home studio master at home voiceover studio comm