 three, two, one. Okay, we are live. Now people will start showing up here because I'll notice that we've gone live. So, yeah, so we'll open with a two shot of both of us. And then I'll, we'll go to the intro and then I'll come out and then I will introduce you. And then I will pop you on the screen and, you know, and when we start the cold open, you can go, hi. Perfect. It's very informal. Great. And we'll go through, you know, the questions that we've got. And then I will continuously like, you know, give people to remind people that they can ask questions. Craig, you can ask questions if you want. And throw them in the chat room and then I will be able to access them in the second, second half of the show. Great. And we'll go until six o'clock. Perfect. And so you've done this before. You know how it works. Yep. Sure. Of course, the question is, how can I increase my chances of getting back over there? I think I've done a couple of auditions over there and then yeah, often to the vote and the vortex they go, it's, you know, that's, that's the thing with everything nowadays. It's like it is send it off and there it is. You know, you never hear anything back and yeah, yeah, there's generally no feedback. Even agents don't give feedback. I know. I always tell people, I'm like, I'm open to feedback. So it's like if you, but I'm, you know, I don't just go through every audition and then give everybody my feedback. It's like if you email me and be like, Hey, I did these last couple of auditions for you, reattach them to your email to remind me. And so I don't have to go digging for them. Give me a few days and I'm happy to, to give some feedback. I usually just don't give, you know, unsolicited advice when, you know, I'd rather pay attention to the people who are, you know, asking for it and wanting feedback. Right. And you're still, you're still doing classes over there. Yep. What kind of classes are you doing? We've got commercial. We've got a level one and a level two commercial. We have a level three, which is basically an introduction to all areas of voiceover. So we focus on, you know, we've got commercial animation, video games, infomercials, all of that all in one class. We have an audition techniques class coming up. That's a three week class focusing on self directing. So something a lot of people need. We have an intro to animation and video games class, as well as an intermediate animation class, animation intensive. We have a one day seminar on marketing yourself and finding an agent. So all kinds of stuff. We also do a virtual workout group every week too. Good. That's important to know. Yeah. Who do you have teaching with you? So yeah, I teach three of the classes now. And then I do the one day seminars as well. Dave Boat is teaching our animation and video game classes. Marsha Goodman runs an animation intensive one day. I've done the one with Marsha. Over the top, over the top. And then Dimitri Micas, our senior casting booth director here, is teaching our level one commercials class right now as well. Cool. Let me just check. Oh, shoot. I've got to do this thing with that. I've got to get it on the website. The link for the website. I have you here tonight. Pay no attention. I'm just trying to figure this out right now. Because I'm doing this myself. Yeah, it's a lot. It is. It is. Okay. Find the right channel. Okay. It's on. Excellent. Okay. And it is one minute before and I got it just in time. All right. I know you could do it. All right. We sound good out there, everybody. Give me a thumbs up if you can. Jeff, give me a thumbs up. Ready to roll. All right. Okay. Not quite top of the hour, but I'm going to give it a countdown loud and clear. Okay. That's what I want to hear. All right. I did it. All right. All by yourself. We usually have a we have a director. She actually lives around the corner from you from your office, but she's busy today. So all righty. Are she five o'clock? Let me go to here. What's amazing is I hit the exact top of the hour there. Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop and George has COVID. So I'm doing this alone tonight. So just be nice to me is if I hit the wrong button or something like that. Anyway, our guest tonight is Kelly Mujinski from the voicecaster in Burbank. Hey Kelly, how you doing? Hello. I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. It's going to be a pleasure talking with you. We're going to talk about the casting process for all those voiceover gigs that we all are desperately trying to get. And if you have a question for Kelly, throw it in the chat room whether you're on Facebook live or YouTube live or are watching over God only knows what how you're watching this. People are watching on 50 inch TVs like I can't imagine us being that big. Anyway, again, if you've got a question, throw it in the chat room. It's time for voiceover body shop right now. It's time for voiceover body shop brought to you by voiceover essentials.com, the home of Harlan 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 Leonard and George is off COVID in somewhere and probably it is at his apartment. It's going around guys. Make sure you get your boosters because they actually work because I've had all five shots and I've only had it once and I got it in Europe. So, you know, anyway, he'll be joining us in just in probably later on and we'll be talking with Kelly in a second. And it is raining here in Southern California like you wouldn't believe. You know, I was telling the joke I had to go run back in the house to get some coffee and it's like, is the Calypso filming me as I'm coming across here? No, I know our audience knows that joke. So anyway, it's time to introduce our guests. And again, if you have a question for throw it in the chat room, whether you're on Facebook live or on YouTube live. And we will get back to that question a little bit. Anyway, our guest tonight is as I said, Kelly Moszinski, owner of the voicecaster in Burbank, California, voiceover casting and recording. It's a legendary voiceover studio that's been around for 45 years. So let's welcome to the show Kelly Moszinski. Hey, Kelly, how you doing? Hello, I'm doing good. How are you? I'm great. Great to have you on and thank you for not having to drive over here in this deluge. Oh man, it's like rivers are running up and stuff like that. But that doesn't stop voiceover body shop, because we're here. So tell us a little bit about yourself and because the studio has been around 45 years, but I know you haven't. So it precedes you. How did you come about to become the owner and director of this particular fine operation? Yeah, so the voicecaster was actually founded in 1975 by Bob Lloyd, who is, he's still around. We've been chatting a lot lately. But yeah, it's been around since 1975 when he opened it up. It was the first voiceover casting house in the country. Basically, it was something that he was, he kind of put together and he was like, nobody else has done anything like this. And so he kind of branched out from, he was originally a talent agent. So yeah, he ran the voicecaster, he moved into this building in Burbank in 1985. So we've been in the same location since 85. So a good long while. And then yeah, in 2000, Huck Leggett took over from Bob and he had been working with Bob for a while. Bob came to him, asked him if he was interested in taking over, he took over the company. So he was the second owner of the voicecaster. And then in 2013, Huck came to me after working with him for several years and asked me to take over. So that's the, the rest is history. As soon as I started working here though, you know, it was one of those things where I was like, yeah, this is definitely a future here for me. So yeah, it's, it's the rest. So explain a little bit about how your company works. I mean, people are like, you know, I got an audition for voiceover gigs. What happens to it when I throw an audition out there? And how do you work with, with clients to get their, their productions cast? Yeah, so yeah, clients come to us and they tell us, you know, what, what they're looking for, what kind of voice they're looking for, what the project is, all of the details. From there, we, we then start searching for talent. We, we work with a lot of talent who are unrepresented, people that we just have on our roster, who have submitted to us, you know, some people that we've met through classes and different workshops and things like that, but also just people who email us their demo and we like their demo and we send them auditions, you know, things like that. So, and then of course, we work with all of the agents as well. Well, most of the agents were selective. We won't say which ones. I'm not going to tell you who. But we are, we are selective on who we work with, both in LA and regionally. So yeah, they come to us, they're looking for a certain voice. We go to our roster, we go to the agents that we work with. And essentially, we just, we bring in the best of the best. Pre COVID, almost, I would say probably 95% of our auditions were done in-house. We tried to get as many people here as possible so that they could get our direction. Not everybody had home studios and not everybody was great at engineering themselves and directing themselves. So, you know, when, when everything shut down in March of 2020, we were like, okay, well, let's see what happens. We can give direction over the phone, over Zoom, you know, figure out ways to do it all remotely. And I think we had a quiet, like, three days and then just everything's exploding. And they're like, we need voice over for this. We're going to re-voice this. And we're reworking footage so we can have a new spot come out, you know, things like that for commercials and, you know, all kinds of, all kinds of things. But, you know, we were able to keep going through the pandemic. It never stopped. So the process changed a lot once COVID hit. And you had a, did you have to think about how are we going to adapt to this or? Absolutely. What were some of your thoughts on how you were going to do that? So I think one of the biggest things is we were like, okay, so first of all, we have to rely on people to have decent enough equipment that their auditions still sound good. Because, you know, they can't rely on coming into the studio and having us direct them and being on our equipment. So, you know, at first I was like, gosh, okay, we can do this for a couple months, no big deal. And then, you know, several six months into it, we're like, okay, we're going to be doing this for a while. Also, no big deal. We've figured it out by that point. So yeah, we still, you know, some things are the same in that we try to pre-screen as much as possible. We try to send auditions to specific people. Obviously, sometimes when we're sending out to the agents, they will also just send us auditions for whoever they want to. So there are some projects where it's, you know, we're casting typically when we cast, it's we're probably 10 to 30 people max is usually what we're sending to the client. So I talked to a client today and she's like, I just don't want to go online and cast because I'm going to get hundreds of auditions. And, you know, most of them don't even meet the specs. They're trying to be that something different or, you know, things like that. So, you know, they come to us to really narrow it down. And so yeah, I've even had clients who are like, I just want your top five. And so we try to be very selective in who we're auditioning. We try to still keep that up as much as possible. We cast a little bit of a wider net right now because we're not trying to just fill audition times, you know, coming in studio. And some people are better at self-directing than others. Some people also just aren't available. And so, you know, there are those challenges as well. But by casting the wider net, it's worked. You know, we get to listen to the auditions, choose the best of the best, send them off to the client. And so I think that's probably the biggest thing that has changed is we've been able to cast pretty much anywhere. You know, it's like we're not as limited to people who can come in, you know, to LA or have a home studio because more people have home studios now. And, you know, we can, we can cast nationwide, which has been nice. It's really opened up a completely different talent pool that we never really got to utilize as much. Well, let's talk about that for a second. But in the meantime, if you're just joining us, our guest is Kali Muzinski. She is the owner of The Voice Caster here in Burbank. And they cast commercials, voices for commercials. If you've got a question for you, again, you can throw it in the chat room. And we will get to that question. I'm sure you are probably loaded with questions like this one, because you are asking or telling us about, you know, people can audition from anywhere. Now, that doesn't mean everybody can audition from anywhere. If they want to audition or get the opportunity to audition for The Voice Casters. What does that involve? And how do you maintain a list of people that you know are going to work? Or, you know, how wide of a list do you have? Yeah, I mean, we're, you know, one of one of the biggest things is we don't want to, I just, I actually had a client meeting shortly before this, and she was telling me, she's like, gosh, I feel like, you know, there's another place that we used to use. And it's like, she's like, we got to the point where we were just hearing the same people over and over. And when we go directly to the agents, we are the same people over and over. And so it's been nice because we've been able to bring in new people, but we do need to get to know people, you know, we are selective. One of the things that our clients love is that not only do we bring them great talent, but we also have the personal side of it. I've had clients tell me, you know, like, I know you're not going to send anybody who's a pain into a session. And I strive very hard not to do that. Some get by me, of course. Some that I didn't know were going to be difficult, end up being a little bit difficult. But for the most part, you know, we're pre-screening, even if we just, you know, have an emailed demo from somebody and they're like, hey, just want to get on your radar. That kind of a thing, we'll listen to the demos, see if, you know, whether it's a category that we cast a lot or not, you know, it's we'll definitely keep people on our list, but we are selective about it. We do usually write back, it may take a little bit, so don't panic if I don't respond to you quickly, super quickly. But yeah, we do, you know, have a few questions for people. We, you know, just need the basic information and then we can get you on a roster. Super. Once again, you got a question for Kelly? Throw it in one of the chat rooms you're in right now. So people send in auditions all the time. I mean, as voice actors, I'm sending in stuff all the time, everybody knows, oh, it's audition, audition, audition. It tends to be that auditions go in the inbox and out the outbox and then nothing, it just sort of goes away. And all suddenly your phone rings and it's like, hey, somebody remembers I'm alive. So what's the most important thing you look for with self tape auditions or as we call them in voiceover business auditions? What do you expect from actors when they're submitting their stuff? I mean, first and foremost, honestly, and I can't stress this enough is, it's just paying attention to the directions, labeling it clearly, uploading it to the dropbox when we're asking for it to be uploaded as opposed to attached to an email. You know, some of the things that seem so basic end up being the things that people kind of overlook and they're like, oh, it doesn't matter, but it does matter because like I said, there are times when as selective as we want to be, sometimes the agents are like, I'm going to still send my 30 people. And I do my due diligence, you know, we go through everything. So the first things, you know, there was there was actually a project about, well, it was like mid December. And I ended up getting 1200 auditions for it. 1200. 1200 for one, for one, one role. A lot of different agents or how wide a net was cast. They went crazy. So we sent it to the LA agents that we work with and a few of the regional agents that we work with, because the client, you know, wanted to make sure we had some coverage. Again, we were only submitting 30. And so yeah, I had to narrow it down from 1200 to 30, which is no easy feat. So were some of the things that quickly disqualified people? I, you know, honestly, the first thing is labeling. If there were spaces where there shouldn't have been, if it wasn't labeled correctly, bye. It sounds harsh, but you know, give me please give me any reason to not listen to your audition so I can listen to the ones that paid attention and did it correctly. Otherwise, you know, if I if I'm listening to all 1200, it's like, it's a lot harder to narrow it down that way. So it really is just give me give me any reason to not listen late submissions, of course. In other words, follow the instructions guys. It's amazing. I mean, Kelly, I can tell you that because we're both getting your files from people and there's very specific instructions on how to submit stuff for me. It's for for audio quality and for her. It's here's how you're supposed to label your audition. Do it that way. Copy it, paste it, put your name in where it says first name, last name and people just give me an example. Don't mention any names. Give me a good example of some really bad. I've had people just copy and paste it, put it in there and it still says the product underscore first name, last name. It doesn't they didn't even swap out the first name, last name with their own name. So there's that. But yeah, I mean, I've had people just completely just do their name or just do the product and with again, without a name. And it's like, well, that's a particular project where we asked them not to slate and I don't have their name in a file. How am I supposed to even know who that is? You know, so yeah, we've we've gotten all kinds of crazy things. Yeah, well, you just mentioned slating there. Give us some guidelines on slating because I mean, I you know, over the past couple of years, they're like, don't slate. If your name's on it, they know who you are. And and I'm sure producers are like, oh, great, another slate. What what are the general guidelines when you're going to audition as far as slating is concerned? I love talking about slates. Because when they're wanted, they are super important. It's it's one of those things. Well, first of all, again, that's part of following the directions are do they want to slate? Do they not want to slate? Slates are one of those things that almost become a signature for people. It's something where like, when I'm looking through our roster of people, I'm looking through all these names. And I can literally hear people slating their names, it becomes that important. So I'm like, I don't even need to listen to their demo, because I hear them in my head saying their own names. So it can become that important. And, you know, the biggest thing with a slate is like, that's your first introduction. So it's it's having that smile, that confidence, you're introducing yourself, it's like your shake, you're you're reaching out your hand, you know, ready to shake somebody's hand to introduce yourself. That's how important it is. I also think it's really important to have a consistent slate. So sometimes people are like, oh, I slate, you know, based on the the tone of the script and things like that. And it's like, keep it consistent, whatever whatever that friendly introduction is. That is the next thing, especially on projects, obviously on projects, where we're asking for a slate. That's the next thing as soon as I play going through those 1200. Once I've gotten rid of the ones who didn't label correctly. The next thing I do is listen to slates, if we asked for slates, and we did on that project. So if a slate sounds bored, or if they didn't slate, again, following directions, I get rid of those ones. It's the ones who actually, you know, I listen to people's slates, and I'm like, oh, that sounds like somebody I want to work with. And I mean, it's for me, even because we do some animation and video game and, you know, character casting as well. And even when we're doing that, I want people to slate in their natural voice, so that we have your natural voice followed by the character voice. Now, some casting directors want you to slate in character, obviously do whatever they're asking. It can vary from place to place, it can vary from project to project. But slating can be so important. And sometimes that's, you know, clients instantly will be like, yep, I don't know, they don't sound interested, let's move on. We've even gotten to the point with a couple of our clients where we end up reslating everybody. Because they just don't want to get past the slate sometimes. And I actually had a booth director book a job because he reslated everybody, and we're like, oh, we really like the person who slated. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So yeah, it's super important. And I think just a lot of people don't really talk about it. Yeah, I know I've listened to several experts, you know, people who are coaches or presenting and they'll say stuff, okay, if you're doing a slate, this is Dan Leonard doing Captain Fred, you know, make it sound like you're really busy or something. Do you see people still trying to pull off stuff like that? Sometimes, yeah. Or like I have a few people, I mean, I can hear their slates in my head as I'm talking about it, who are like, Kelly Mushinsky, it's like they like got caught off guard, like, oh, all of a sudden I'm here. Those ones always make me laugh. Once again, we're talking with Kelly Mushinsky, she is the owner of the voice caster in Burbank, and they cast commercials and probably more projects than just commercials, a lot of corporate stuff and things like that. And we can talk about that in a second. But again, if you've got a question for based on all the stuff that we're talking about, because I know you're all wrapped into this is how I get work, you might want to ask a specific question about how to help yourself get that type of work. So back to what we were talking about here, because you're we were saying that, you know, people, some people slate, some people don't. What are the trends that you're seeing today as far as style and you know, what is it, what it is producers are looking for. And I guess it would depend a whole lot on what the genre of material is. But what are some some general things say for commercial copy? Yeah, so for commercial copy, of course, there's still the dreaded conversational. I mean, like talking right now exactly. But it's amazing when people get in front of a microphone how it's, it can be hard for some people to get into that conversational zone. But then there's also a lot of confusion on what conversational even is. You know, it's, it's one of those things where the word conversational drives me a little bit crazy when clients, you know, put it in specs because there are times we do some infomercial casting as well. And when infomercials tell me they want conversational, I basically am like, no, you don't. Because because I know you don't infomercials are not conversational. But I think there's there's a difference between truly conversational, you know, where you're just having that conversation with somebody and actually talking, not trying to emphasize anything too much, you know, honestly, truly conversational can be pretty boring. But then there's commercial conversational where it's you have to be relatable, you have to sound like a person, not the announcer. And I think that's usually it's that relatability, the authenticity, the, you know, natural, real, you know, that whole thing where they're like, we want real people, not actors. That's always one of my favorites. Because actors aren't real people. So, yeah, conversational is definitely, definitely one of those, one of those things that is, that I also think is shifting. You know, we are seeing we are seeing more on the announcer side. Oh, good. That's my forte. Yep. Yep. And it's been fun because it's like, you know, getting to do the announcer side without it just being a parody or a spoof or that stereotypical announcer, you know, getting to do that in a more legit way is a lot of fun too. And let's be honest, like the conversational side, it's like you do a conversational audition and then you hear it on the radio or on TV and you're like, that's not conversational. And that, that's where, you know, and this is another thing I can talk about all day, but the difference between what you have to do for an audition versus what the final spot is going to sound like, because if you do what the final spot is ultimately going to sound like and you know it's going to sound like that, you're probably not going to book the job. Yeah. So, do you have classes over there at the, the voicecaster you were mentioning that before? We do. Yeah, yeah. Tell us about some of the classes you offer over there. Yeah. So, we have a few different levels of commercial animation and video games. I'm also doing an audition techniques class. It's a three-week class that's starting in a couple of weeks here, where it's basically focused on self-directing, primarily in commercials. And yeah, we have a level one commercial class, which is just kind of an intro, intro to commercials, intro to voiceover, a level two commercial class that I teach as well. And then a level three beyond commercials class, where it's, you know, we still work on commercial copy, but then we're expanding into all the other areas. So, we work on phone on hold messaging, IVR, narration, whether it's audio book, industrial narration, animation, video games, infomercials, promo, just kind of a six-week introduction to all the different areas of voiceover. So, if nothing else by the end of that class, you have an idea of how to approach things as you get the auditions. Are you offering these online as well as in person? Yeah. So, right now, everything is still online. And we're hoping that within the next, hopefully within the next couple months here, we're planning on doing a hybrid option. So, I can get some people, you know, back in the studio with me, but we also don't want to cut off the, you know, again, we've been able to have so many people who don't live here be able to have access to all of our classes. I mean, we've had somebody from Kuwait in our classes recently. I've had all kinds of people from Australia and Europe and, you know, all over, and of course, across the country. So, you know, we also don't want to take that away from, you know, everybody else out there as well. So, yeah, the plan is to kind of do a hybrid option. Right. So, if somebody wants to take classes, you go to thevoicecaster.com? Yep, voicecaster.com. And yeah, you can find the information there, a list of the classes that we offer and all of that. And then you can always, you know, shoot us an email to get even more specifics on start dates and everything. Outstanding. Once again, we're talking with Kelly Mosinski from The Voice Caster. And again, if you have a question for her, I've got plenty of questions. But if you've got questions, throw them in the chat room. And Jeff Holman is hiding back there somewhere with his fountain pen, writing these all down. So, I can ask her in the next half hour here. So, you listen to hundreds of auditions, obviously, because you're saying, well, 1,200 auditions at once, apparently. When you're listening to all of these auditions, no, I can tell. When I listen to for audio problems and stuff, in like two, three seconds, I'm like, oh, I know what's going on in there. But what stands out or catches your ear? Maybe somebody you've never really heard before. And they're like, okay, what is it that you're looking for? What are the things that stand out for you? Yeah. So, first off, right off the bat, there's usually some sort of, there's like a comfortability about it, whether it's the slate. And I'm like, oh, I want to work with that person. Sometimes, you know, a lot of times when I'm going through all of these auditions as well, I'm listening to the first three seconds, five seconds, maybe the first few words. And I can tell in those first few words, if they're moving on to my round two, I essentially do my casting in kind of three rounds. And I'll see if they're going to move on to the next or if they're not. And so, you know, usually it depends on obviously what the client is looking for. Some of the first things that I can hear are going to be the conversational relatability versus the more disconnected kind of announcer sound. And that oftentimes is a deciding factor as well. Sometimes right off the bat, I can tell if somebody is doing more of the final spot versus, you know, what's going to book the audition. Also, you know, it just ad libs. Ad libs, I love ad libs. Or any, yeah. Or anything that just brings it to life, whether it's a sigh or kind of that almost laughed sort of a thing. I like things like that, because I'll be honest with 1200 auditions. You know, it really is one of those things where I might just get distracted by something else over here. And so it's like, I'm kind of half listening. And so those are the things that kind of catch my ear. And imagine listening to the same thing 1200 times. It gets painful after a while. Yeah, it's like, oh, geez. Have you listened to a bunch of Mike and then forget who you've listened to? I'm good about like, you know, basically, I'll tell you a little bit of my process. I have folders. I have folders. So basically what we what we've been doing to kind of streamline the process, especially when I was finding out that like, okay, even if I ask for my top five, some agents are still going to send me 25. So instead of downloading all of that from emails and missing things and things like that, we started a system with Dropbox. So essentially, we send out a link, people upload their file to Dropbox, and then it's one big thing that we can download. So then from there, I have them all in a folder. And as I go through, I put them into other folders. I have a yes, no, and a maybe folder. So yes, essentially means that they're going to go on to my second round. No, obviously means I'm done with them. So those are the ones that are that were either submitted late, or the ones that were labeled incorrectly, things like that. And then of course, as I'm listening through, it's like, if it's asking for, you know, specifically an American accent, and I hear a British accent, they're going to go in the no folder, you know, things like that. And so once I've gone through everybody, then my second round is going into that yes folder, and then figuring out like, okay, how many do I have in the yes folder. So for that casting with 1200, I had just over 100 in my yes folder. So I knew that was that was plenty for my my 30 that I was going to submit. So then on my next round, that's when I listened to the beginning of the first take and the beginning of the second take. So if somebody didn't do a second take, and I asked for two takes, they go into the no folder. And so that starts to narrow down then my 100 that I saw potential in. And then from there, you know, I'm listening to make sure that the two takes sound different. If you have two takes and they sound too similar, then right off the bat, I'm like, okay, well, like, I know that's what you can do. So great, if that's what I'm looking for, that's fine. But I want to hear I want to hear some variation between those two takes, I have to hear some difference, even if it's just a matter of energy or pacing, anything like that, that's that's the most important thing. So making sure that those two takes are different. All right. Once again, we're talking with Kelly Moszinski here on voiceover body shop still got lots of time to put your questions into the chat room. And we'll get to those questions right after these important messages. So don't go away. Hi, this is Bill Farmer, and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great. From voiceover essentials.com, it's the relationship savior, the multicolor LED VO recording sign, not just a stock on the air or recording sign, it's our exclusive voiceover recording sign. This brilliantly lit led 20 color beacon tells everybody at home, which is currently everybody. Hey, I'm auditioning recording, podcasting, narrating or broadcasting here. And a few moments of relative quiet would be very much appreciated. What's more, the wafer thin remote control lets you choose a multitude of options from color to brightness, flashing to fade in and out. You can even set up your own personal codes. Red means I'm recording blue playing back green. It's a wrap plug in the seven foot long cord and hang it on a door knob or wall hook using the included chain. For voice workers, silence really is golden and gold is one of the 20 colors you can choose from. Order yours now for just 69.95 from voiceover essentials.com. That's voiceover essentials.com. And it's me again. And it's time to talk about source connect because George isn't here. He always talks about source connect, but I get the chance to do it without a script without a net. Let's see how it goes. Source connect is the way that you communicate with other studios and so that they can direct you and you can hear them directing you and they can record you on their end, which is really the best way to do things because they get the stuff in real time and they're able to direct you in real time. That's what source connect is. People are like, what's the source connect thing? That's what it is. It's what we used to call in the broadcasting business a studio link. And so we're, we're, we're trying to let you know that source connect is the best way for doing this. There used to be ISDN. We said for like 10 years, perhaps it would be a really good idea if you guys started using source connect and IP based things because ISDN is going to become outmoded after a while. So here's what we do. We buy source connect. We hook it up. It's not that hard to, to get on your computer using their software. It's all platform based and all you have to do is give them the party that is recording your name and that will, that will allow you to communicate with them. So try source connect. Go over to source elements.com, download it, see how it works and when you're ready for it, you'll have it. That's source connect.com. Hey there. I'm David H. Lawrence, the 17th and with my company, VO heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent. We guide voiceover actors along their journey and you may be watching VOBS here and not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching. You may not even have started yet and we actually specialize in helping you do just that. So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on VOBS and going, I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know, but I really want to do this. I'd really like to help you. Please go to VOheroes.com slash start. That's VOheroes.com 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, VOheroes.com slash start. That's VOheroes.com slash start. This is Ariana Ratner and you're enjoying Voiceover Body Shop with Dan Leonard and George Whitom, VOBS.tv. Hey, we're back with Kelly Mojinsky and we've got lots of questions for you to answer Kelly because people are listening carefully. So let's roll through them. Are you all set? I think you're still muted here. Let me unmute you. There we go. It's just like Zoom. Turn off the mute. You're muted. Why can't I hear the kids? You're muted. Anyway, let's see here. Our questions here. First from Play the Voice, Real Kids Voiceover Family is on YouTube. How frequently do you need kids? Great question. I would say probably once a month, we're probably casting kids. It kind of depends on what projects that we have going on. We've been doing some kid casting and some podcasts that we've actually been casting, full cast podcasts, which has been fun. And commercials, they're definitely our kids. Kids are used quite a bit in commercials. So yeah, I'd probably say we have one or two projects a month where we're working with kids. Yeah. She has a second part to this. How much variation in loudness do you hear across everyone's audition? Is louder perceived as better? Not necessarily. I guess overall I would probably rather it be a little bit too loud, not blown out and distorted, but I would rather it be a little bit louder so I can turn it down than some people recording so quietly that it's impossible to even turn it up enough to hear it. We try to teach people to modulate properly. As long as they do that, it's going to be loud enough. But it's like either too soft or too loud, what's the right amount? And that's the stuff that George and I teach. Alrighty. Next, we have one from Kana Ali. She says, hi. Where he, no, he says or he or she says, I live in Senegal Dakar. Can I take part in auditions? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we have people all over the world. So yeah. Okay. So how would one, how would someone in Senegal send you something so that they would be considered to be considered on a consistent basis? The biggest thing is emailing us a demo, letting us hear your voice, get to know you. We will obviously have some questions for you, union, non-union. We always ask for people our base if you have a home studio, that kind of a thing. So yeah, we'll have some basic questions, but then get to know you through your demo or any samples or website, things like that. Okay. How many demos do you get a day? Oh, that's a great question. A lot. Define a lot. I mean, like after doing this, I mean, I'll probably wake up tomorrow morning too. Yeah, quite a few. But yeah, I mean, it's some days, honestly, it's only like five. And then other days, it's like, you know, it's 100 easily. It just, it all depends. Throw that into the outbox or into the inbox. I'll get to these tomorrow. I have a folder that's actually, I have it labeled demos to screen. And there have been times where I'm emailing somebody and I'm like, I'm so sorry it's been four months since you reached out, but I'm finally getting through everything. We're trying to stay on top of it. But sometimes it takes a minute to get back to you. I mean, you got lots of stuff to do here. So Hailey Porter asks, Hi Kelly, do you work with Canadian voiceover talents? Thanks. Now we have this joke here in LA. What's the third largest Canadian city in the world? It's Los Angeles. Yep, we work with Canadian talent all the time. In fact, I've had, I've had several projects, especially over the last year, I feel like almost, almost probably once a month where we're specifically casting Canadian talent as well. So looking for specifically a Canadian accent, which only people from upper Minnesota and upper Michigan can do. Oh, I think I'm getting a barf. Okay, let's see here. Terry Brisco asks, considering that we aren't audio engineers, thank you, what is the expectation of the level of engineering of auditions from voiceover artists? I mean, I know what I'm looking for. I have the phrase, what it's supposed to sound like, whistle. What is it that you're listening for? I mean, the biggest thing is having a decent quality. It's not having the background noise. I would much rather have just a raw file that has the basic pickups and stuff edited than to have it be completely over-processed. I actually, I booked somebody a couple months ago where, you know, the audition sounded great, client loved it. And then they were actually calling me in the middle of the session, they were like, he doesn't sound like his audition. And, you know, like we listened back and ultimately what we figured out is he just over-processed it and he just didn't sound the same even as his audition. So of course, that was a problem with the client because they're like, we can't get him to sound like that again. So, you know, that kind of thing on the extreme end happens as well. But keeping it simple, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to be a professional engineer just to, you know, just keep it, keep it clean, keep it simple is really my biggest thing. Exactly. Let the engineers do the engineering. And work with George or I and we'll teach you how to do it properly. Yes. And then you don't have to worry about Kelly going, well, this sounds like, you know, they're in a tube. I think people spend too much time on it too. It's like, you know, they'll spend an hour recording an audition that probably should have only taken 10 minutes. We can talk about that later too. But then, you know, they'll spend an extra hour editing and it's like, shouldn't have to be that way. Yeah. Terry also asks, outside of authenticity, what is a good, good way, a good way he emphasizes to set yourself apart from other auditioners? Honestly, personality, I always listen for personality because it's one of those things where every not everybody, but almost everybody I'm generalizing here. So many people want to try to be what they think the client wants. Well, guess what? The client has no idea what they want. Honestly, that's really that's that's a huge thing. And I've actually, I've had clients, I had a client recently finally say that in a session after about about an hour in just pushing the talent all over the place. They were finally like, yeah, we can't quite agree on what we want to do with the spot. So I was like, thank you. But don't ever try to be who you think the client wants. Be yourself. I want to hear that personality. That's where the ad libs come in. That's where the adding little things that just bring it to life a little bit. Those are the things that stand out to me because I want to hear you and you can be what the talent want or what the client wants. That's really the biggest thing. Don't try to be anything but yourself. Yeah. And it's that's why it's important why we tell people take improv classes because that's really vital for setting yourself apart. Yeah. All right. Next question from Linda Joyce Minor. Kelly, since you're our guest, what is your favorite area of voiceover or acting in general? Because I know you're a playwright and a director as well. What's your favorite area of the entertainment business? I mean, I of course love character work. Who doesn't? But honestly, I mean, I do love the commercial side. Like I feel like there's so much to dig in. So many people approach commercials like it's just, I'm just going to read this commercial copy, whatever and be done with it. But you can approach it the same way as you would a character. You can approach it so many different ways and dig into it. So it's, you know, I love being able to do that with people and the collaboration. I feel like the pandemic has kind of killed some of the collaboration. That's one of my favorite parts is I love working with actors. I love directing. So it's, you know, it's like the actors will do something and that gives me an idea. So then I mentioned that idea and then they're like, oh, yeah. And then, you know, it's just that back and forth collaboration that you just don't get right now with with all of the self tapes and doing everything at home. So, you know, really, ultimately, that is just my favorite part of all of it. Excellent. Alrighty. Once again, we're talking with Kelly Mosinski from the voice caster. We're talking about how commercials and other projects get voices get cast. Catherine Jade Jarvey asks, is there an it factor when comparing two auditions that are similar? If so, how would you describe that decision process? Because I have a feeling there are probably more than one or two that sound exactly the same. Absolutely. Absolutely. Sometimes it's just a matter of if I hear something, you know, first of all, your first instinct is probably most people's first instinct. That's not to say that your first instinct is ever wrong. In fact, usually I would say within the first four or five takes that you do when you're recording at home, one of those is probably the take that's, you know, going to book the job. When you get into takes 10, 15, 20, then it's your overthinking too much. So as far as listening to all of those auditions, if I am, you know, deciding between a couple, sometimes the personal factor comes in, you know, if I know people and I'm like, oh, this person is going to be great to work with. Sometimes it's, I know this person has even more range, or their two takes are even more distinctly different than the other person then I'll go with that. You know, there's not necessarily one it factor. I would love to say that there is, that would probably make my life easier. But there really isn't. It is project by project. It depends on the two people and, you know, what the auditions sound like. Sometimes also if we're requiring a home studio, some of the clients are doing that. We're trying to get more of them to be open to, you know, talent recording in studio if they want to. But if they're requiring a home studio, then obviously audio quality plays a factor into it too. You know, listening to the auditions that way. Okay. Bill Hepburn asked sort of a similar question, but you can let yourself go with this one. Two part question. What annoys you most about talent? Oh, well, first of all, one of the biggest things is just not following instructions or emailing me with a list of questions that I can literally say, did you read the email below? Because that happens an unbelievable amount. I've stopped responding to those emails, in fact. So if you email me a question about an audition and I don't respond, just look through the email again, more than likely the answer's already there and I just didn't have time to answer it again. So that's one of the things that kind of drives me crazy. Part two is what annoys you most about clients? Well, first of all, sometimes they're just their language in the specs, you know, just using words, you know, either incorrectly or not how, you know, that need more clarification. Or saying one thing. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes it's a matter, I mean, I've been on the email chains where there are eight creatives involved and it's like, they all have their say. And so they're like, okay, well, let's just put it all in a spec. And I'm like, well, that's not because now you're saying, you know, just things that are contradicting, it happens all the time. And so in those cases, that's when I usually tell people do two takes, do one in this direction, do one in this direction, don't try to do that entire spec all in one take because it's contradicting. Yeah. This sort of follows up on that from Greg Cooper. He said, should the first take stick to the specs and the second be on my own interpretation or vice versa? I ask myself that one all the time. It's like, well, maybe you're kind of listening to that little voice in your head as to what you think is going to work best, I guess. Yeah. I honestly think it's, it's whatever you feel is the strongest one. And for most people, the take where they made it their own is usually the strongest one. So yeah, I like to have some fun. And then, you know, that kind of goes back to the, you know, what I had mentioned earlier about the take that books the job versus the final spot, you know, it's like you can give the take that books the job first and then give the final spot second, you know. All right. Jeff Holman, our chat room monitor has a great question. He says, what happens when a voice actor's booth has too much outside noise for the client on a Source Connect job? Booth sounds great, but the neighbor might be trimming trees that day, et cetera. How do you tell your, you know, the people you book how to handle something like that? Yeah. So especially earlier on in the pandemic, it was clients were willing to be a lot more flexible. And they were like, oh, you know, we can pause for a couple minutes, we can adjust things, you know, like, oh, let's give it five minutes or, you know, the gardener's outside like, okay, well, let's reconvene in 20, you know, things like that. And now I think the expectations are a lot higher where it's more of like, well, figure out the best time to do it and see if, you know, see if you can make it happen. I've had clients who are actually also like, you know, it's if it might be too loud, then, you know, maybe they need to get a studio and it's like. I know my neighbor's gardener comes on Tuesday at about 11 o'clock. So I'm like, okay, I'll go for doctor's appointments at that time. Yeah, exactly. AJB voice actor on YouTube says, please explain the difference between the final spot versus what it takes to book the job take. So if you, you know, start listening to commercials with your eyes closed, especially TV commercials or web commercials, and you will hear that most of the time, things are pretty much straightforward. It's aiding the visuals, you know, not usually doing a whole lot with it. If you do that for the audition, where we don't have the music, we don't have the visuals, then a lot of the times it just sounds boring. Like, oh, why is it so flat? Why is there so little energy, you know, things like that are, you know, the things that come to our minds as we're listening. So that is your final take, your final spot take. And your booking the audition take is going to be the one that has the energy, that has the personality, where you're doing a little bit of something with it, whether that's ad-living, or just giving it a little bit, a little bit more life, being a little bit more you. Maybe it is a spot that tends to be a little more straightforward. But, you know, give it, give it some of your personality. That's really the, the, the biggest thing, you know, we want it, it has to be interesting to listen to without the visuals and without the music. Catch our attention and then show us that you can do what ultimately is going to be done. Okay. Patricia, Andrea asks, are you handling any Spanish speaking voiceover stuff with Spanish accent? Yep, we do both. We do a lot of Spanish casting. Excellent. I have a big Spanish project coming up soon actually. Ah, bueno. All right. Last question from Stacy Allen, who's on YouTube. What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a casting director and a business owner? Every day is different. That could be the favorite and the least favorite, right? Every day is different. That's one of the reasons I love my job. I love the people that I get to work with. Again, that can also be least favorite as well. But for the most part, I mean, every day is different. I get to work with some amazing people. I love the collaboration projects, projects, you know, it's like I like to be a part of something. And I love that, you know, all the, all the pieces coming together. And I'm a part of that. And, you know, the actors are a part of that. And, you know, it's just, it's, it's fun to get to work with all the different people and, and do so many different things. Um, least favorite part is, I mean, paperwork. Who wants to do paperwork? So I get to do the fun side of the casting and the directing and, you know, production stuff. But then I also have to do the business side and pay the paperwork and, you know, deal with all of that too. Well, Kelly, it has been fabulous having you on here as it always is. And I look forward to waltzing down the street and seeing you in your office. Hopefully to do an audition one of these days and see how things are going over at The Voice Caster. If people want to write to you, where do they write to you? Casting at voicecaster.com. And that comes directly to me. So casting at voicecaster.com. All right. And there it is right there. See, I can do this kind of perfect. You're amazing. So I'm told. Anyway, Kelly, thanks for being with us. We really appreciate it and, uh, and good luck with everything over at The Voice Caster. Thank you so much. Alrighty. Well, we will be right back after these important messages and get set up for tech talks. So don't go away. We will be right back. Yeah. Hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky, The Voice of Rocco, and you're watching Voiceover Body Shop. Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead. There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer. That place is voiceoverextra.com. Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level, stay in touch with market trends, coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls. Voiceoverextra 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, home studio setup and equipment, marketing, performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success. Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceoverextra.com. That's voiceoverextra.com. 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, voiceactorwebsites.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 voiceactorwebsites.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 voiceactorwebsites.com has other great resources like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish. Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros. Voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VO website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? You're still watching VLBS? Well, look what the cat dragged in. Hey, I made out of bed, took a shower and I'm here. Thanks to a little bit of help from my lovely partner who gave me great food, tea, coffee all morning and I think paxilvid. Yeah, that'll give you a little bit of a salty taste in your mouth. It's pretty strange, but hey, I got diagnosed with COVID yesterday and I'm here now, so it must do something. Well, good. Sorry, I missed that, but I'm glad to be here for the tech talk. Alrighty. Well, next week on this very show, we'll be doing tech talk. We're going to do it like right after this. So if you're watching live, you get to hang out and be with us during tech talk and ask your questions. And George and I will answer those questions. Let's see. What else we got going on here? You've got tech talk stuff you're doing now? Oh, yeah. Freakin' tech talk. Freakin' tech talk. Hey, it's how them youngins do things today. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of folks of our age group on there too, I've noticed as well. So it's everybody's kind of latching on and getting into it. But yeah, I have some tech talk. I put up tips when I get around to it about once a week or so to tip videos and try not to waste your time on there too much. Instead of tech talk wasting my time. That's usually what ends up happening. Boy, you sound like a radio announcer with that voice of yours right now. My voice sounds weird. I'm even confused. I keep thinking, are my headphones messed up or something? No, it's just my voice just sounds this way right now. Here's our donors of the week. We have Grace Newton. Oh, I'm looking at the wrong week. Let me scroll up. Here we go. Robert Leadham. Steve Chandler. Casey Clack. Jonathan Grant. Thomas Pinto. Greg Thomas. A Doctor Voice. Antland Productions. Martha Kahn. 949 Designs. Christopher Everson. Sarah Borges. Phillip Sapir. Brian Page. Patty Gibbons. Rob Ryder. Shawna Pennington-Baird. Don Griffith. Trey Mosley. Diana Birdsall. And Sandra Mannweiler. All right, you know you should join our mailing list because if you were on our mailing list, you knew what it was we were doing today. Go over to our website vOBS.tv and sign up to get on our mailing list. And then you'll get an email every week saying, here's what we're going to be doing this week. So that's really important to do. I don't think the mailing list predicted that I was going to have COVID. But it's not clairvoyant. It doesn't matter. We were able to handle it. At least this part without you, tech talk is another deal. Yeah. Well, let's make it happen. All right. We need to thank our sponsors too, like Harlan Hogan's VoiceOver Essentials. VoiceOver Extra. Source Elements. VioHeroes.com. VoiceActorWebsites.com. And WorldVoices.org. It's world-voices.org because that's the Industry Association of Freelance Voice Talent. Okay, now I have to get into the banners here and take those out. Oh, how do I take that out? I think I hold on one second. I know how to do it. That's how you do it. Bingo. Hide. Presto. Got it. I'm getting the hang of this. All right. Alrighty. Our thanks to Jeff Holman in the chat room tonight. Thanks, Jeff. And Sue Merlino, wherever she is, she didn't do anything tonight. But we do have to thank Lee Penny for being Lee Penny. So we're going to get set up and re-rack for tech talk. If you've got a question for us about your Home VoiceOver Studio or Home VoiceOver Studio technology, now would be a really good time to throw it in the chat room so George and I can discuss it. And so that's going to do it for us this week here on VoiceOver Body Shop. Thanks for hanging out with us. And we'll be back next week with tech talk that we're about to do. If you're watching live, you can be part of it right now. In the meantime, it's only been me, Dan Leonard. And this latecomer, George Woodham. This is VoiceOver. Body Shop. Or VO. BS. All right. We'll see you in just a little bit. All right. Where is he? Where is the son? Oh, there it is. We're back. How'd it go? We survived the hour. He did it. I did it. I figured, I practiced. I, you know, it's like, okay, this, that, you know, it's a bit of a dance. But once you get it, you got it. Of course, there's the panic right before like, why am I not hearing my audio? Why doesn't this work? Why isn't it? It's like, and then it's like, okay, go out, get back in. Oh, now it works. When in due, refresh. When in, when in due. When in due, reboot. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now I've been playing with the camera that you recommended that we get. And it does all sorts of weird things. You can set preset shots, right? It does snap. Yeah, it does those like whip pans and stuff. Geez, look how fast it does that. It's crazy. It's like a movie, special effect. Yes. But if I do certain hand gestures, it will go into a totally different place. Yeah, you might need to tell it to ignore the hand gestures somehow. I've got it set to position one. What if I do this? No, I won't do it for you. It's only on my camera. For me, it just makes me a loser. Okay. Anyway, okay, we're set for tech talk here. It is six and three. Mark that time, servinize your watches. And again, if you've got a question for us in tech talk, throw it in the chat room. And are we ready to start tech talk? Yeah, I guess so. You got enough air? Yeah, I will have my finger by the mute button in case I have a coughing fit, but I haven't had one in a little while now, so. All right. Okay. All right. Well, here we go in five, four, three, two. Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. It is actually number 94, but Sue's not here to draw the 94 that goes in here. So we'll go 94. That's close enough. Because I don't buy that. I can't show nine. Well, if you show nine, I can show four and then. True. All right. But if you've got a question for us, throw it in the chat room, especially it has to do with home voiceover studio technology. There must be something you want to know. We've been doing the show for almost 12 years. You figure we know just about everything, but then someone will surprise us with something. Well, I'll tell you, people need to be retaught things over and over as today's lessons in my client experiences. We know you need repetition to really get things to sink in, so. That's right. Here we are to answer those same questions over and over. All right. Well, in that case, we'll get the chance to discuss that stuff because you've got your tech update and I want to talk about bad internet advice. When you put it in there as internet advice, I thought you were going to talk about what's kind of cable modem to get. Well, people can ask that, but you know, it's like. No, you're talking about bad internet advice, which we will definitely know what that's about. All righty. Well, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now. Tech talk brought to you by voiceover essentials.com, the home of Harlan Hogan Signature Products, Source Elements, the makers of Source Connect. Voiceover heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training. VoiceActorWebsites.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, hi there. I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Wittem. And this is voiceover body shop or V-O-B-S tech talk. Tech talk. Tech talk. This is tech talk. This is what people want to hear. They want to hear George and I talk about stuff. I mean, we talk about all sorts of stuff when we're together and we get to discuss stuff, but it always comes down to not necessarily talking about any specific clients. We won't mention any names. It happens. It does happen, but we won't say hoop. But yeah, we talk about our lives and all those other things. But when we talk about home voiceover studios, everybody seems to want to listen, which is why for the past almost 12 years, we've been doing this during show. And you guys keep asking questions. And you keep coming back for more. And you keep coming back for even more than that. And that's why we're here. And we want to make sure that you get all of the answers you need to keep your audio sounding really spiffy. There's a word. That's the word. Never used. No more whistle. We're just going to use spiffy from now on. Spiffy. This spiffy, yes. We need to come up with an acronym for spiffy. Sounds pretty in, I don't know, never mind. Okay. Well, here's the thing. George and I do this. This is where experts in home voiceover studios talk about a niche. There are a lot of people out there that say that they're voice acting coaches. And then they're also I coached with so-and-so, but they never taught me any of this stuff. Well, or you coached with so-and-so and they taught you the wrong wrong thing. That also happens a whole lot. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. But you can work with one of us because we're the experts. We're the guys that actually know and understand what goes on in your closet, in your PVC booth, or in your prefab booth, or one that you built yourself. What's the right equipment? What is more importantly, what's the right way to use that equipment? That's the stuff we do. And if something breaks, I missed your t-shirt that says I'm here because you broke something. I missed that too. Where is it? It's probably hiding in the dryer. It was a long time ago, that shirt. Had to go out of rotation. I get the, you're wearing t-shirt with holes in it. I don't want to see that. Where am I going to put them? These are legendary t-shirts from legendary conferences. Anyway, if you want to work with one of us, especially me or George, because that's one of us, if you want to work with George, where exactly do they go to do that? Between coughs, you go to georgev.tech on the web. That's my website, and it's going to be new. Just like Dan used to tell us, he has a new website coming. And I actually do. Mine is coming. I'm still not going to say a date, but it is coming, and it's going to be revolutionary. But anyway, you can still book services and get access to all of the things that I know, and do, and teach, and train over at georgev.tech. And Dan, you do a lot of the same kind of thing over at... I do. My style is a little bit different. I will talk equipment and I will do all those other things. You probably get a little bit more life coaching or actual coaching, coaching, slipping in there too. Oh, it's like I'm a therapist sometimes. Yes, I'm sure. There's a lot of panic out there. I don't know how to do this. What's involved in the Beginner's Course? Well, over at homevoiceoverstudio.com, I will answer all of your questions. And we can do a consult, whether you're starting from zero. You've got no equipment. You obviously have a computer if you email me, or unless you just use your phone. And I will teach you from soup to nuts how to get it done right, so you don't have to be an audio engineer, which I think is probably a big misunderstanding with a lot of people getting into the voiceover business is like, I got to be out of all these processors. It's all, to me, at least, it's all physical. And that's what I keep telling George, and I think he almost agrees with me. So it's the acoustic of properties of your booth, or your recording space. Your mic technique. And your mic technique and setting proper levels and all that kind of stuff. But that's not really all that technical. That's really simple stuff. And we've broken it down into really super things. And if you go over to homevoiceoverstudio.com, I've got my specimen collection cup at the top of the page now. And you can click on that, send me a raw sample. And for $25, I will do an analysis of your audio to see what's good about it and what can be fixed. And if it's really bad, then we can, you know, we can troubleshoot it and see if we can get your sound sounding what it's supposed to sound like, whistle. Anyway, it's time for George's tech update. And seeing as he's only been like taking prescriptions all day, I imagine you've had some time to go onto the internet and come up with a couple of tech issues and tech things that you want to remind us about. Yeah, I was spending entirely too much time on the internet. And it was kind of annoying, which is why. Mostly about COVID, probably. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. But I got tired of, I got tired of doom scrolling. And so, well, first I, a microphone showed up, a microphone that I'm using right now, in fact, to do the show. And that's the road video might go to Dan's familiar with this, Mike, because he has it. So here's, here, we'll do it in opposite sides here. Yes. So actually it'll be over here. I had fully intended on borrowing it when I saw it was on a temporary promotion on price at $79. And I was like, oh, geez, I just, I just, I just should buy one. And so here I am using it. So, so I was going to mention this Adobe Creative Cloud thing first, but my voice needs apparently a rest because I've been coughing. So I'm going to play this video that while I was laying in bed today, I actually had the energy thanks to probably some miracle Paxloved drug treatment I got today to get me over COVID. I had the energy to put together a video review of the video Mike could go. And you know, as usual, it goes into a little bit of depth. It goes into a little bit of troubleshooting and how to. And I hope you enjoy it. Here it is. Buddy, it's George the tech. This is the sick in bed edition of an unboxing. It's not something I've done before, but what the heck on board? So this just came in the mail. I bought it with my own money because I've heard about it for a while now. My friend Dan Leonard has one and a few other people. And I just thought, huh, I got to get one because I've been telling people to use them without actually owning one, which I think is not good. So now I own one and it's the video Mike go to from road, obviously. So what am I excited about with this Mike? I'm excited in the prospect of one, a Mike that's very affordable. Two, a Mike that's extremely portable. And three, a Mike that sounds really good. All these things are important to voice actors. The price thing being what it is, I mean, at twice the price, it's probably still a great Mike at $99 insanely good Mike, I think. But let's find out. So let's pull it out of the box. What does it come with in the box? Well, it says it's got a digital output. And that's what I'm really most interested in is using it as a USB mic. However, it does not include a USB cable, which I found out because it shows what comes in the box. And one of those things is not the USB cable. They obviously did that to save money. They did it because they have several different USB cable models, one that goes to lightning for an iPhone or iPad, one that goes to USB-C, and one that goes to USB-A. Now I happen to have these second two, the first cable I don't have, but I do have an adapter, which I'm hoping is going to work. So we'll see what happens. And then I'll plug it directly into the phone and finish the video using the mic on the phone. That's what you see inside. Road does a really great job of doing great packaging, sort of a all-paper packaging, no plastics, cardboards. There it is. Look how small it is. Here's the cable that comes with it to plug it into a camera. This is not going to work with a smartphone, with a TRRS cable. This will only work with a camera, with a TRS eighth inch input connection. So most DSLR cameras, or mirrorless cameras, or pros and cons, I would say, is the word on the table. Here is the very, very cute and very well-made shock mount. If this, well, I was going to say if this alone was $50, it would be worth it, and it actually is. These are actually $50 shock mounts that I recommend for people using Sennheiser 416s and other shotguns and pencil mics. So the fact that you're getting it, that's half the price of the mic right there. That's insane. Okay. The rest of what's in there is silica gel on a very tiny little, tiny little user manual. It's probably just legal ease. So that's it. That's the whole thing. I'm going to take the windscreen off, get a better look at it. It's got a little tag on here. This is the person who inspected it for quality control. Very nice touch. Even at $79, these mics are tested individually in quality control to make sure they sound good. Not made in China, made in Australia. Pretty amazing. Here's the line output jack. This also doubles as a headphone jack. So when you're using it with the USB port right here, this actually allows you to monitor the mic. It actually has zero latency monitoring built in, which is pretty remarkable. All right. So the next question is, can I plug it into the phone and have it send audio in? I know this isn't going to work, right? So I grabbed a few cables. I have this lightning to USB-A adapter, for example. We'll see if this works. If so, it'll save me $30 buying the lightning to USB-C cable that they sell. Let's find out. I'm going to stop the recording, plug it in, and cross our fingers. Okay, it's plugged in. First good sign is that it has a little light lit up, indicating it's plugged in. I don't know if that light has multiple colors or modes, but if it actually is working right now, then you should be hearing me far better than before. Okay, well, first test shows that the mic was not being used. Even though it was plugged in and the light was lit saying I'm on, it was not actually using this mic. As you can see, the light is lit right now, and I don't think it's using this mic. So either my adapter won't work with this cable or some other magic sauce must be happening from Rode and their special cable to allow to talk to the extremely picky Apple devices. So let's try some other tests. Okay, well, now the mic's plugged into my Mac. So let's see if Twisted Wave sees the mic. Audio input Rode video might go too. Boom. Is it recording this mic? Definitely. One, two, three, four, five. This is one foot away. One, two, three, four, five. About eight inches away. One, two, three, four, five. About six inches away. One, two, three, four, five. About four inches away. One, two, three, four, five. And two inches away. One, two, three, four, five. All that without the pop screen. So over the network, I copied the Rode Central app, which is what allows me to update the firmware. I ran the firmware updater and it was successful. So we have some actual software features that the mic has, which is amazing considering again what this thing costs. And you've got a high pass filter, which has two points of high pass, 75 and 150. There's flat, flat high pass filter, 75 hertz high pass filter, which is what I would probably use 90% of the time. And a 150 if I was outside with lots of wind or something. There's a high frequency boost, which is something that comes on their Rode NTG4 series mics. Nice to see it here. Direct monitor. So if you have the headphones plugged into the device, you get direct monitoring and you can control how loud the direct monitoring is from here. How cool is that? And then you have a pad, which would be for recording extremely loud things, or maybe in this case, voiceover, because since we use the mic so close, we might actually want to have the pad turned on so we can have more granular control over the gain. If that would be the optimal thing to do or not, but for now, leaving the gain about 25% seems to do the trick. Well, this is my last test to see if the newly firmware updated video mic go-to from Rode will work as a video microphone plugged into the iPhone using an iPhone camera adapter, then connected by USB-A to a USB-C cable. Cross our fingers. Yeah, it looks like you do have to install and use the Rode Central mobile app, so you do have control over the microphone. But once you've done that, you now can record your Rode mic over the camera connection adapter kit. And if you go into a video app, now I'm in the video camera app. Again, being iOS, it doesn't tell you what mic we're using, which I absolutely despise, but it is working. I rest assured and I'll scratch the mic as proof. There you go. What does it not come in the box that you will need? If you want to use it in the way I'm using it, you will need a USB cable. It uses USB-C, so you'll need any standard USB-C to USB-A or a USB-C to USB-C cable, which is what I'm using right now to plug the microphone directly into my MacBook Air. The other thing you'll need is an adapter to attach the shock mount to a standard microphone stand, assuming you have a microphone boom or stand that has a five-eighths microphone thread. This has the European standard, which is a three-eighths inch thread. So it's not even a quarter inch thread like we all have on our tripods here. It is the standard that's used overseas for production sound and pro sound, which is three-eighths inch. That's all you need, USB cable and the adapter. So you buy those things. If you don't have the cable already, you're at about 125 bucks if you paid full price for the mic. Thanks for listening, George the Checkout. All right, well, what did you think? The whole time. Did we learn anything? Yes. Yes, you have the right cable. Yes, I have two of them. I bought an extra just in case. Yeah, that is the USB-C to lightning cable. Yeah, it's a great little mic. Now, this is what you're using right now that you're talking about. It is. As you can hear, it sounds great. As a remote unit, because this was one of the discussions that we saw on Facebook this week, is people are like, well, what's a good road mic? How about a road mic? Yes. Yeah, this thing is hard to beat. I mean, at $99, it's a good deal. I mean, it's a great deal. I mean, at $199, I would still recommend it without any reservations. They have one up the food chain. It's called the Videomic NTG. It's $250. I don't know if there's any major upgrade you get with that mic. I can't figure out what it would be. I wasn't sure if the self-noise of this little, you know, inexpensive USB mic would be usable for pro use. And from what I can tell, the self-noise is very acceptable. So I got to say I'm really impressed. Yeah, with a lot of people do video work with their iPhone, because the camera in this thing is amazing. The camera's amazing. You know, and you and I have done remote stuff with it, and once you hook up that mic to the iPhone, and it just, it's like having, it is having professional sound for your video. Yeah, I mean, you heard it in my video. Directional, yeah. The first half of the video was the iPhone mic. Picking up all the room reflections, echoing the whole thing. And then the second half was all with the video mic. I mean, it was night and day. And then you could tell before what is, what your voice sounded before you take two plags of it. A little higher. You're right, it has changed. I also have a Rode PSA1 Plus boom, which because the boom has the same 3.8 thread, this threaded right onto it. And what's impressive about the boom is, you know, they just took the old one, the PSA1, and they just upgraded everything they could. And they're the only ones that ever seen anybody do this. They put these neoprene sleeves over the entire arm so that there's no clunking or any noise or anything from the mic arm, as you- Like, from springs? Yeah, there's no springs. You can move this thing around like I am right now, and there's no mechanical noises. You know, it's a darn impressive piece of hardware. And the mounting brackets, everything about the machining of it is like really top-notch. So it's a very impressive mic arm. The mic arm is more expensive than this mic. I think it's about twice as much. It's fascinating. How did they make it so cheap? Yeah, it's crazy. But anyway. Yeah, something else on about, it has to do with Adobe's Creative Cloud, many of us use. Yeah, so like you were saying, I had some time on the internet today. When I wasn't watching the press release from the Santa Barbara police and fire department about the nine to 12 inches of rain they're expecting over the last 24 hours, they literally gave all of Santa Barbara County a shelter in place to this morning. I wasn't watching that. That was pretty sketchy. I found this article that somebody shared on Facebook and it was, oh gosh, I can't remember your name. I'm so sorry if you're watching. But it's an article about Adobe's Creative Cloud and that they opt you in. Not, it's not, it's one of those things where they opt you in for something by default instead of opting you out of something by default. And what they opt you in on is, of course, you know how every time you install a new Mac or new Mac OS, it always asks you, do you want us to send user information to us? Do you want us to, do you want to send feedback automatically to us about your equipment and your software so we can improve the Apple products? And if you read that, if you're like me, you probably turn that off. Well, that is also the case with Adobe's Creative Cloud. If everybody that uses Creative Cloud, anything you upload to the Creative Cloud, and that's the thing, everybody's kind of having a little bit of a panic moment, techno panic moment, unless you're putting everything you do, your photography, your videos, your voiceover recordings, if you're unless you're using the Creative Cloud thing, it's moot. Okay, so let's get that out of the way. But people were having a little bit of a fit because in this age of AI is stealing our jabs, jabs, jobs, job, you know, the other stealing our jobs. Then they're looking at this going, holy crap, that means Adobe is scanning every image and every video we send to the cloud and using it to build new AI derivative tools and, you know, learning, learning how to crow these things and learning how to teach AI with our content. And people freaked out when they started reading this. From basically from the article I have here from FastCompany.com, I found quite a few articles about this, but there seemed very, very measured about it. It wasn't, you know, from the perspective of the damaged artist or anything else. It seemed like a very fair and balanced kind of POV. They said, look, it's not really what's going on. But at the same time, the photographer creator they interviewed in the article said, you shouldn't be putting your stuff up in the creative cloud in the first place. So, so when I had the cough button there. Yeah. So I was a little late on the cough button. So when I saw, when I saw that, I was like, ew, that's a bit of a biting comment, you know, like nobody professional would put all their content in the creative cloud is what the guy literally wrote in the article. But at the very end, Adobe's, Adobe's weasel out on this whole thing is, we give customers full control of their privacy preferences and settings. The policy and discussion is, well, they do at the end, the policy and discussion is not new and has been in place for a decade to help us enhance our products for customers. The spokesperson directed any customer, prefers their content be excluded from analysis to the options on the privacy page and the article actually links to the actual privacy page on the, on the, on your user account. So if you do want to turn this off, you're going to go to Adobe.com, you're going to log into your account and you're going to go into your privacy settings and you're going to turn off the privacy, the functions that share that content. It's not very hard to find. If you're, if you're just something you're paranoid about or if you feel like it's possibly could hurt you in some way, this is a way to turn it off. All right. That's it from me. As you can tell my voice doesn't want to talk a lot longer. Okay. Well, then I get a chance to talk. Let's talk about internet advice. Yeah. George and I spend a lot of time on the internet, especially in some chat rooms where people say some stuff or people are, they're learning voice over and their coach or the person teaching them whether they're a coach or not or why keep using the quotation marks. I think you all know what I mean. There's a lot of bad advice out there when it comes to home voiceover studios. As I like to say, everybody aside from George and I and maybe three or four other people are experts in only one studio and one voice and that's their own and that does not give them the license to tell you what's going to work best for you. So I would suggest going back to the start of this segment talking about what George and I do talk to people that actually know what they're talking about. If you ask a recording engineer, somebody who is a multi-track recording engineer who records lots of spots, they have no idea what's going on in your closet. And all the stuff that they do, I think the problem is, is that they live in a different world from what we do. So they're like, well, if you're going to do voiceover, this is what I use. Well, that doesn't mean anything if you have no idea how to use it. It's not the equipment that gets you the work. It's what goes on between your ears and comes out of your mouth and how it sounds in the room in which you're recording it and how you use your microphone and how you set your levels. Everything else, I'm sorry, is bullshit. You know how many times I've seen like commercial studio engineers recommend voice actors by an SM7B, for example, a dynamic microphone for voiceover. Exactly. You know how many times I've seen Sweetwater recommend an SM7B for your voiceover studio? It's like... Just grab them by the head and slap them. I've told the people at Sweetwater, stop doing that. Well, yeah, we don't make as much money that way, then. Well, the other thing is, yeah, because then they get to sell the Cloudlifters, too. Well, yeah, that thing exactly. You get to buy our friend Roger Cloud another boat. But we love you, Roger. Here's the deal. Also, as Dan was saying, these forums, what I've discovered, and I'm speaking for myself here a little bit, is people get a dopamine hit by answering questions. Okay? I think we all have been there a little bit. You feel good. I will speak for myself. I feel good when I get to answer a question and give what I think is the right advice. And I think everybody, there's a lot of people, not everybody, but a lot of people on these groups that are all looking for that. I want to answer the question first and I want to have the best information. They're all looking for that same kind of dopamine hit. And so your information is not driven by, you know, a tremendous amount of depths of knowledge. Sometimes it's very, very cursory. Sometimes it's not based on your actual audio, because all you did was post a picture of a waveform or something else. And so that's another thing I've been thinking about. It's just, why do people answer all the questions? What's the purpose? And what are they getting out of it? There must be a medical reason for it. And you say, yeah, you get a dopamine hit. You get a dopamine hit. It's either that or take Zoloft. Yeah. I mean, I tend to, I tend to agree with you. That's, but there are also some people just sending out misinformation because that's the kind of people they are. It's not a lot of them. Most people have very good intentions with the information they send out there. But how many times have George and I had to get out the mop and ringer and mop up after them? Because it happens every week. I was just today, like I have a client who was like trying to send me a, oh wait, show them, I'm like, send me eight, you know, just send me a little dry sample, right? She didn't send it to me before. So she records one and I'm not screen sharing. So I don't know what she's doing, right? And then she sends me the file and listened to it while we're on the call and it's crunchy and brittle and distorted. I'm going, it didn't sound like that on Zoom. And then I do a screen share and she's running Studio One. This multi-track software with a ton of pre-built tracks with all sorts of processing in it. And then I said, can you send me another clip with no processing on it at all? She sent me another clip. It still has distortion. I said, are you sure you have all the processing turned off? She says, I have the gain turned up to a what, to a 14 dB or something on this track. I'm like, do you know why? She says no. No. I said, turn that off and now record me another sample. Third sample is the charm, no clipping, no distortion. I said, you've got it. Now we're getting somewhere. So yeah, mopping up, pulling out a lot of wires and cables, getting back to basics, putting the mic in the right place, all those things, the basics never get old because people need them. So come to us, get the right information quickly and efficiently. The other thing here is that people can talk about stuff and write stuff. The only way to know if it's right is how it sounds and you have to know what it's supposed to sound like. Whistle. Exactly. And so, you know, reading an entire book about how to record just means nothing to me. You've got to experience it. You've got to understand what things are supposed to sound like and don't try to satisfy your own ears until you are well trained to know what it's supposed to sound like. And that can take years. I mean, George and I've been doing this, I mean, I've been listening to audio since, you know, 1974. I know what it's supposed to sound like. George is an expert in audio. We're the guys to talk to. So if you've got a problem, that's where you've got to go. All right, we're going to take a little break and we've got a pile of questions to answer. So don't go away. We will be right back. This is Arianna Ratner and you're enjoying VoiceOver Body Shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem. V-O-B-S dot T-V. From VoiceOver... From VoiceOverEssentials.com, it's the relationship savior. The multicolor LED VO recording sign. Not just a stock on the air or recording sign. It's our exclusive voiceover recording sign. This brilliantly lit LED 20 color beacon tells everybody at home, which is currently everybody. Hey, I'm auditioning, recording, podcasting, narrating, or broadcasting here. And a few moments of relative quiet would be very much appreciated. What's more, the wafer-thin remote control lets you choose a multitude of options from color to brightness, flashing to fade in and out. You can even set up your own personal codes. Red means I'm recording. Blue, playing back. Green, it's a wrap. Plug in the seven-foot-long cord and hang it on a door knob or wall hook using the included chain. For voice workers, silence really is golden. And gold is one of the 20 colors you can choose from. Order yours now for just $69.95 from VoiceOverEssentials.com. That's VoiceOverEssentials.com. Well, it's time in the show where we get to thank our sponsor, Source Elements, the creators of Source Connect and Source Nexus. Tools that are going to be increasingly a part of so many VoiceOver productions as they have been, especially over the last three years of the pandemic. This toolset is what allows studios to collaborate with their clients and their talent all over the world. The talent can be at home. That's you, the voice actor. The studio can be in another state or another country. And their client, the one you're recording for, can be scattered all over the world. And with those tools from Source Elements, Source Nexus in the studio and Source Connect in your home studio, you can connect to everyone and everything. An amazing set of tools. Nexus is like virtual patch cables that lets the studio patch Zoom. Microsoft Teams, whatever the technology as the client insists on using, they can patch it into the studio and bring everybody into the same conversation while you, the talent, are giving them great sounding audio in Source Connect. And if you want to give it a try, head over to Source-Elements.com and get a 15-day free trial and check out all the really helpful learning content they have on that website. Their support is second to none. Thanks, Source Elements. We'll be right back with Tech Talk and all your questions right after this. Hey there, I'm David H. Lawrence, the 17th and with my company, VioHeroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent, we guide voiceover actors along their journey. And you may be watching VOBS here and not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching. You may not even have started yet and we actually specialize in helping you do just that. So if you're watching all the stuff going on here on VOBS and going, I have no idea what they're talking about. But I really want to do this. I'd really like to help you. Please go to VioHeroes.com slash start. That's VioHeroes.com 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, VioHeroes.com slash start. That's VioHeroes.com slash start. This is Bill Ratner and you're enjoying Voiceover Body Shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem. V-O-B-S dot T-V. Hey now, we back. Let me unmute your mic for you. It's nice because we can both control things. Oh, there we go. I figured it out by myself. I mean, we can do all sorts of things with this. We can go like that. We can go this. We can do that. It's nice though because if my mic's muted, you know because you can't hear me. If your mic's muted, I know because I can't hear you. So it's like we can watch each other's backs that way. Exactly. Well, we got a huge audience right now and they've got a huge amount of questions. Indeed they do. Let's go to them here. Vic Case asks, George, now this was written in. Somebody emailed this so it gets to the front of the line. Headed in the line. All right. George, you made a passing remark about the hypercardioid pattern in the last tech talk. For mics where you can select between a cardioid or a hypercardioid pattern, do you recommend one or the other for a voiceover studio or does it depend on the mic? He has a CAD M179 in his home studio and that's a really cool mic because it's got lots of switchable patterns in it like a U87 does, but it doesn't cost nearly as much as a U87. What are your thoughts on the M179? It is a bizarrely decent mic for how cheap it is. I got to say, CAD is such an interesting company, right? I mean, we've a lot of us have known and heard and you even used their CAD-E100S. Dan, you have one, right? I have one. Haven't used it in a while because I've got this wonderful Mojave here now and my 416, but there are situations where you might use it. Yeah. It's a very different mic from the M179 now. Yeah. Well, that one's a fixed pattern mic, right? It's a one-trick pony there. I don't know if they call it a super or a hyper. I think it's... No, I think it's got a very wide cardioid pattern to it, but it also has a pad on it, a 20 dB pad, which everybody turns on like, why is it so quiet? It's a big number. It doesn't mean it's louder. There's a minus in front of it. And a high-pass filter, which is kind of nice. Right. So, but the M179, yeah, I mean, if you want to change patterns, what does changing a pattern do for somebody though? Yeah, I mean, it very much depends on the booth and how you use the mic. So, I think the pattern control on that is actually completely variable, which is also really unusual, especially at this price. So, you can dial it in. So, at the end of the day, what makes sense is completely 100% based on listening. And so, what I would recommend is to record yourself on a track and while recording that piece of script or something, started at cardioid, record, you know, a sentence of the script. Start turning it an increment and then record another sentence or the same sentence and keep incrementally adjusting the mic and recording another sentence and keep doing that. But don't listen to it right now, not until you've completely done this whole recording test. This might take you five minutes going through all these different settings, right? You might even slate the recording and saying, now cardioid, now this is more hyper cardioid or whatever, whatever you have to do, right? And listen to the difference. And listen to the difference. It's going to be very hard to judge that while listening real time. You've got to stop and then listen to it and play it back. And then when you're done, you're going to know. And if you don't know, then your hearing isn't tuned well yet. You don't have the experience. And then you might want to bounce it off me or Dan, because then we'll help you figure out what is the best pattern setting for your voice and your booth. Right, exactly. And that's it. It's all acoustics, which is one of the most important parts of getting your booth set up is sound coming in. You don't want that. You don't want it bouncing around. You said using a certain pattern might actually help you get the sound that you really, really need. As the mic gets more directional in one direction, like the right out of the front of the mic, it does some weird things. It grows a little tail in the back. So as it gets more directional this way, it actually starts to have a tail on it, right? Well, as you go to the farthest extreme, which is called figure eight, that's the extent of that. It is literally the front and the back of the mic are equally sensitive. But the side effect of it is the sides of the mic are completely null or dead. So you might find that even figure eight works well. Yeah, right there you're hearing mostly just thumping and not much else, right? Because it's the back of the mic. As you do figure eight, the sides of the mic have no pickup. So you might find that figure eight is a surprisingly better pattern, because maybe you've got a window to one side or maybe you have a desk right underneath and that's all reflecting sound. The figure eight pattern will tune it out. So yeah, try it out and listen. All right. Our next question from Alicia Hurley on YouTube. Oh, don't skip. Don't skip Jeff. Oh, no, we'll get to him. We'll get to him. Okay, okay. She says, I need a backup interface and was looking at the Focusrite 2i2. I just inherited a free Focusrite 8i6 Gen 2. Is that just as good for basic voiceover with a Mac? An interface is an interface. What what does an 8i6 do? It's got a lot more crap to play around with. That's right. You know, you have to run a control panel to access all the features. Yeah, yeah. If you're using all of those features, you might be better off just using a 2i2. You know, but keep it simple. It's the simple interfaces that work best because you don't have to do much with them. Is that the level? Plus all the features are right on the unit. Like the 2i2, there's a direct monitor button. You turn it on, you turn it off. With something like this, you might not hear yourself in your headphones and you won't know why to install their software and then you install the software and you get lost in their console and you start realizing, oh my God, what did I do? Why am I using this thing? So keep it around because you got it for free. It's nice of them. But use it as a backup for the 2i2. Deal with that problem when it comes to it because you won't need it. Hopefully the 2i2 won't fail on you. Right. Let's see. In the past, we've recommended a power surge strip for equipment. Could you address that again? Yeah, a good way to make sure that you've got the right power is using a line filter and a what they call a line conditioner and making sure that you've got clean power going to all of your equipment. You know, your interface, your, well, mostly your computer. That's where a lot of the problems happen with electronics and your monitors and whatever else. Always good to have something that's going to keep your 120 at 120 and monitor what it's at, right? Yeah, I mean the subject of these products is sort of a rat hole because there's like, there's $50 devices, $200 devices, $500, and they go up from there, right? Some of them are line conditioners. Some of them have voltage regulation. Oh my God, on and on and on, right? You know, and it may reduce the noise floor of your recording. It could, if there's a lot of noise in your power and you're always dealing with that and going, where's the noise coming from? It could conceivably reduce the noise in your recording, but here's the deal. A lot of times they don't do anything at all and they just cost a lot of money. So if you're going to try one, either just get one that's cheap because at least it's got a surge protector to protect your expensive equipment from a surge or get a really expensive one like $200 plus and actually try it out and record with it plugged in and see if it actually does make a audible or in any way noticeable difference. And then if it does, then you knew it was actually worth buying. Yeah, or go to a garage sale and pick up one while someone's thrown out of stereo, which I did. I've got a monster cable power conditioner here that I've been using for over 10 years that I bought for 25 bucks at a garage sale. I have a Furman. What is this thing called? Okay, now you're going to become a power filter snob. Well, I've had it since I was running a studio. It's an AR-1215 and I've had this since 1998. That's the only reason I have this. It's like a $700 power conditioner, but I had it in my recording truck back in the day. And talk about gear that lasts. This is literally the only thing I have from that era and it still works. Okay, great. Okay, now I'll do Jeff's question. Alrighty. As a matter of fact, I'll read it. We'll rest your voice here. Thank you. He says, the road video, go Mike too. This guy, this guy, is really sensitive, like too sensitive. I'm standing like two, two and a half feet in front of it and the camera. It sounds like it's reaching into my mouth and amplifying my mouth noise to untenable levels. Can I aim it to the side? Much like I would by 416. So I'm not speaking directly down the barrel. Reducing gain doesn't seem to help. Yeah, that probably would help. It's going to reduce plosives. And what cameras are you plugging it into? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what's going on after your mic, Jeff. So I couldn't tell you what's going on. He may not have the limiter on or something like that. Yeah, the camera's got in manual gain control. You want to turn it way down. Turn that down. That might be where the issue is. It's so hard to know. And yeah, the pad is only going to matter. He's asking me, he said iPhone 12 Pro, is it plugged in with USB or something else? If it's plugged in with USB, just like in the review video that you just watched, you saw that I installed the RODE central app. You need to install that so that you can then control the mic and then you can turn on the pad. So this mic is so sensitive that you may actually need the pad for the use case of what you're doing. So yeah, it's surprisingly sensitive. But then again, I have the RODE NTG5 and this mic is stupid sensitive. So I bet these mics share a lot in common internally. This is a $500 mic. This is a $100 mic. Whenever I use this, whatever was plugged in last, it's 10 dB louder than anything. It's ridiculous. So that is exactly what you're dealing with. And that's probably one of the few cases of where with a pad is going to make sense. Yeah. All right. Grace Newton, who always has a good question, she says, I have a MacBook Air M1 for... The hell was that? Thunder. That's what that was. Did you hear thunder? I just heard thunder. Whoa. It's really coming down here. It's so rare here. That's going to make Jacob very happy. He loves thunder. Cool. He loves the rain, as Jackson Brown once said. She says, I have a MacBook Air M1 for video podcast recording. Do you recommend the purchase of an external webcam? And if so, which ones are the best for that use? Well, there's this one that George is like making me play with all the time. It'll do all this cool stuff. Yeah. This is a pretty insane camera. The camera's built into the MacBook's Apple. Yeah. I don't understand you. They are terrible. They are terrible. Even an $80 Logitech camera is better than what's built into the MacBook, even the new MacBooks. But an iPhone camera is an amazing webcam. These things are fabulous. Yeah. Will you plug that in with a lightning cable? And then you can install any number of virtual camera driver programs. You can use OBS, which is hopelessly far more complicated than you probably need. Or you could install, what do I have on this machine? Because I have something. It's just not on my dock right now. I think it's called Camo Studio. Camo Studio. Yeah. That's what's on my phone. Yes. Camo Studio. And that will turn your phone, any one of the cameras on your iPhone, into the best webcam you've ever seen. So I would use the camera you already have. Now, if you don't have an iPhone, which could be the case. Dan, what is the name of that one? Isn't it the Insta360 Link? The Insta360 Link, yes. Yeah, this is great little camera. Look how clear it is. It has got great color. It has a great picture. It's a little more techy and geeky than your typical webcam, and certainly a little more expensive. And it will follow you. It will follow you if you wanted to. If you wanted to. I'm not going to have it do that. We found out that not turning that on is a good idea. I was using it for a consult the other day, and I'm like walking around from the booth, and it's like following me around. I'm like, whoa, this is kind of creepy. I also have this camera here, which I will not recommend. This is called the Lumina. That's literally, that's the name. That's the brand. That's the product. That's the model number. This is called Lumina. I thought it was going to be awesome. I bought it on a Kickstarter, and it's been a year since I got it, and it still sucks. Yes, you still have it mounted there, perhaps. Well, because they keep releasing new firmware for it, because they keep saying one of these days, you'll be able to hold up a little color card, and it will automatically calibrate the camera and look amazing. And yes, this feature works now a year later, and it still doesn't look very good. So that's a $200 camera right there. So the one that Dan's got, I mean, the Brio also has been around like five years, the Logitech Brio. Dan's got one of those, too. We also, we also both have a UC70 by a company called Mokosi, M-O-K-O-S-E. That one is tough to use, because the lenses are completely manually adjusted, so they're tough to get focused and everything. So I wouldn't go with that one unless you've got to absolutely... Like, I'm using it now, but I never, ever touch it, you know? And I don't hold anything close, because if you do, it's never in focus. So anyway, there's our recommendations. All right, we got time for one more here from Patricia Andrea, says, would George be doing a webinar on how to use Twisted Wave to add sound to video the right way, please? Not that hard. I mean, in addition, it's probably better for doing that. Yeah, definitely. Twisted Wave is not used for adding audio to video. Just like Twisted Wave is not a multi-track program, it's not a multi-track video program either. So you can't lay audio over a video in Twisted Wave directly. You probably can hack it to do it, but it's not designed to do it. And so it would not be my first choice for that purpose. It's great for editing the video. You can do very, very easy and fast edits, but that's sort of the extent. It's kind of a one-trick pony. Have you played around with it yet, Dan? The video function? I haven't needed to. I just use Adobe Audition that I can throw. I could just throw the video file in there and I can dub stuff. I can sync it up with somebody speaking German. And it's like, okay, I can move it over here a little bit. Trying to match the lip flattens. Not as easy to do in Twisted Wave. Well, it'd be ridiculously hard or basically impossible. So one last thing. Play the voice, real kids, family, voiceover, voiceover, family. Is this the same as a Rycote? Yeah, I think what happened, I think Rycote made a deal with Rode. Licensing deal, whatever it was. And so Rode is making the Rycote. It's the same one that I recommend for Sennheiser 416s and every other shotgun mic out there. It's essentially identical. And it's nice because it doesn't have the rubber bands that stretch out and try out. And then the mic is sagging in it. It does a pretty good job. Yeah, all right. Hey, lots of great questions, everybody. And that's going to do it for now. Time flew. Or whatever drugs I'm on made time slow down. One or the other way, the time stretched. And I think it's all in my adult brain. Well, in that case, all right, well, we're going to take another quick break here and we'll be right back to clean up everything that's left right after this. Yeah. Yeah. Hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky, the voice of Rocco, and you're watching Voiceover 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, voiceactorwebsites.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 voiceactorwebsites.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, voiceactorwebsites.com has other great resources like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish. Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros. Voiceactorwebsites.com, where your VIA website shouldn't be a pain in the, you know what. Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead. There's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer. That place is voiceoverextra.com. Whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level, stay in touch with market trends, coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls. Voiceoverextra 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, home studio setup and equipment, marketing, performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one stop daily resource for voiceover success. Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceoverextra.com. That's voiceoverextra.com. Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis-Rocky, the voice of Rocco, and you're watching Voiceover Body Shop. This is the Latin lover narrator from Jane the Virgin, Anthony Mendes. And you're enjoying Dan and George on the Voiceover Body Shop. All right, we're back. See, it automatically comes back. I don't even have to do anything. It's amazing. It's like my car, you know, my new Camry. It goes right down the center lane, and you can let go of the wheel if you're in cruise control. It keeps the right distance from the car in front of you. That's pretty neat. And keeps you in the lane. So, this is interesting, but you've got to sort of keep your finger on the wheel anyway. Just in case. Just in case. Just in case. Because you'll be able to react faster than the computer to an oncoming accident. Probably not. Automatically breaks, too. Breaks! Exactly. Exactly. Sometimes my foot will be on the break before, you know, or before my wife says, stop. There's a couple of other questions that we'll ask. So, you know, if you write to us, we will get to those questions. There's one about Discord and Acoustics for a Studio Break. So, we'll get to those. You know, we'll write back to you and because we know who you are. Or write to us directly at the guys at VOBS.tv. Let me make sure that it, there it is. Write to us at the guys at VOBS.tv. And that way, we'll answer your questions. You know, Discord has its own crazy learning curve. I've been using it. In fact, the video I showed you guys today, I edited with Discord and had a few very frustrating quirks. I still managed to get it done. My son lives on Discord, so. Yeah, I mean, and you know, we're all calling, we're calling it Discord because I call it Discord by mistake. I think what we're actually talking about is Descript. Oh, maybe. The video editor, Descript. I used Descript to edit the video and I think Grace is talking about Descript in this case. Discord is a whole chapter. Discord is a whole other deal. Descript is also a big learning curve. Anyway, I will someday maybe teach a course on Descript once I learn how to use it and if people really, really want to learn it. So, write to us there. Okay, let's see here. Next week on this very show, we will have another great guest. I have a couple of great people who have expressed interest. People like Scott Brick and Maurice Lamarche. We're trying to get them. Gotta get the email addresses right. So, if you know Maurice's actual email address, send it to us. Yeah, let us know. At theguysatvobs.tv. Yeah, exactly. Alrighty. Let's see here. Okay, we've got... Oh, you know who's going to be on next week? Jason Lanier White. Oh, excellent. That's who. I will be healthy for that so I can be there in person because I'm pretty sure he will be there in person unless something happens. I would imagine so. He just lives around the block. That makes it a lot easier. Okay, our donors of the week, we have Robert Liedem. Steven Chandler. Casey Clack. Jonathan Grant. Tom Pinto. Shelly Abolino. Hey, Shelly. Greg Thomas. Hey, Dr. Voice. Antland Productions. Martha Kahn. 949 Designs. Christopher Epperson. Sarah Borges. Phillip Sapir. Brian Page. Patty Gibbons. Rob Rader. Shauna Bennington-Baird. Don Griffith. Trey Mosley. Diana Birdsall. Hi, Diana. And Sandra Mann-Willard. Thanks for all your support. That's how we keep this thing running the way it's supposed to run. Alrighty. Hey, if you need help with your home voiceover studio, you can go join me over at homevoiceoverstudio.com and I will be able to do that kind of stuff for you. Just ask your questions there. Or if you want to do a consult, go on over to homevoiceoverstudio.com or if you want to talk to George. George. It's George the Tech. It's that one. Dot the Tech. And I do have a code for you guys. VOBSFAN10 gets you 10% off your bookings through the old website and the new website when we finally have it. All right. It will happen. It will happen. I promise. Alrighty. Okay. I'll hide. There it goes. Anyway, thanks to our sponsors, Harlan Hogan's Voiceover Essentials. Voiceover Extra. Soros Elements. VOheroes.com. VoiceActorWebsites.com. And World-Voices.org. The Industry Association of Freelance Voice Talent. Go join now. Right this second. Anyway, thanks to Jeff Holman for keeping a great job in the chat room tonight. Lots of great questions. And that's what makes this show work. Anyway, that's going to do it for us this week. Oh, we also have to thank Lee Penny just for beating me, Penny. And that's why he keeps sending us money because we keep mentioning his name. Anyway, see now, send us money. We'll say your name. It makes it really simple. Anyway, this is not an easy business, folks. There's a lot of stuff you have to understand with acting and business. And your audio's got to be right. But a bottom line is if it sounds good. It is good. I'm Dan Leonard. And I'm George Whidham. Just making sure. And this is Voiceover. Body Shop. Or VOBS. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. Tech Talk. We'll see you next week. Jason Lanier White. Have a great week, everybody. Bye.