 Hey, it's Monday night and time for voiceover body shop Dan Leonard here. George is in Way up in Colorado. All right out in the woods snowing and stuff We are gonna geek out tonight because we've got as a great guest the one and only Mike Delgaudio the booth junkie and Boy, this is gonna be really interesting as somebody else who knows a lot about voiceover equipment And we have a couple of questions and some bleary eyed stuff from Via Atlanta, which I think George and I are both bleary eyed from anyway It's all coming up right now on voiceover body shop two men Twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voiceover recording technology and the desire to make recording easy for voice actors everywhere together in one place George Whidham the home studio engineer to the stars a Virginia Tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voiceover today Dan Leonard the home studio master a voice actor with over 30 years experience in Broadcasting and recording and a no-holds-barred myth-busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is Together to bring you all the latest technology today's voiceover superstars and Leaving the discussion on how to make the most of your voiceover business This is voiceover body shop Voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements makers of source connect source connect pro and source connect now The oh to go go dot com everything you need to become a successful voice artist voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success The VO dojo take your voiceover career all the way J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and by voice actor websites dot com Where your voice actor website shouldn't be a pain in the butt And now live from their super-secret multimedia studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are George Whidham and Dan Leonard Hey, good evening. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover Body shop or VO Hey, there he is up there in Colorado How's it everybody? How's it going up there out there today up in the up in a thousand fear 5,000 feet or more Yeah, we're over a mile high here in Boulder I'm here at Maxine's house and it is a blustery super Chili and really windy time right now. I mean the winds they get up here are borderline scary Making the approach into DIA a little bit more exciting the flame last night We was really good until you got into that last, you know, 100 miles or so it got bumpy and the Southwest pilot man Man, those guys are good that plane you couldn't even tell when the wheels hit the ground. It was really amazing Yeah, well if he's in all that turbulence, he's like so, you know an easy landing It's just pull it back and stuff. Anyway tonight on our show Mike del Gaudio is joining us Maybe you're familiar with his videos, uh booth junkie. This guy has everything everything you could possibly ever need for our home voiceover studio or some really nice studios Um, and uh, they're they're really cool little videos that he does and he has a lot of them And he's got his own youtube channel So we'll be talking with him in a little bit. Maybe we'll let him sneak in on some of our tech questions a little bit and uh, but we're gonna also talk about VO Atlanta because Well, gee, we were only there like the past three and a half days It's not like nothing happened. Although you were sequestered away there in that bad booth Yeah, I'll talk about that. I talk about that in the video. Okay, cool. Yeah, very good. All right. Well with all that taken care of It's now time for voiceover body shop presents the VO BS voice over extra news All the information you need for a successful voiceover career Time for the voiceover extra news sleep Well, this past weekend's voiceover Atlanta conference is another one for the VO history books with over 650 attendees and four days of learning networking and Partying it was indeed a blast And if you were there our question for you tonight is did you catch up on your sleep yet? Baggie eyes can be expected in the mornings at such a busy event But now back home are your mind and throat rested for performing at your best Well, you might have met the one and only Natasha Marchukua at VO Atlanta She is a VO pro who confesses that she needs eight and a half hours of sleep Every night to feel and perform her best And in an article now on voiceover extra Natasha gives us 10 tips 10 for getting this required rest. Here's a highlight of her advice Number one your sleep routine Go to bed at the same time every night seven nights a week two Clear your mind with fresh air exercise and yoga All right Use uh, let's see keep a journal write out your thoughts to leave them on the page All right, four use guided meditation Five avoid sugar and caffeine before bed Six do not drink alcohol before bed. It's full of sugar and other things Seven get rid of light in your sleeping environment led and otherwise Eight keep the room temperature at cool to comfortable Do not use electronics. That's number nine Do not use electronics up to one hour before bed Except if you've just been on the v obs podcast and not playing words with friends 10 and more about your sleep routine wake up at the same time Every morning. Thank you Natasha always great advice from her We wish everyone a good night's sleep tonight and tomorrow Be sure to read Natasha's full article and hundreds more at voiceover extra.com your daily resource for voice over success Well Have you recovered yet? Now you you you only lost you only got back two hours, right? I got uh, I got a solid night's sleep last night and you know, we made up a lot of sleep And it's just a two hour difference in time. Not a big problem. Um, so You know, there was a lot to do at that event and so many activities It was just just an amazing time But we need the most important thing Was the ability to pull off some pretty important recording sessions That was my job at the event. I was running a studio for source elements And uh, this video clip we have I get to talk a little bit about it. Yeah All right. Well, let's take a look at it roll it Thank you. Nice So what went on in the studio? You said you had some interesting stories of Recording people uh, yeah, it's it's cool because I am I am a little bit sequestered away It's a it's a room that's purposely chosen to be as far away from everything else as possible And um, they picked a room that's a little bit of a challenge in itself because it's it's a room That's in the center aisle So we have double doors flanking the room either side not the greatest situation It took us a little while to figure out how to lock it down make it You know, we put signs up all over the place be quiet, which you know how well that works Um, but even with that with we're using these vocal booth to go soundproofer booths Which they feel like when you pull the flap open to go inside it feels like you're going to put on an x-ray Lead a lead the lead thing you wear in the x-rays And it's real heavy and the uh, one guy said it feels like a flak jacket You know from the militia. It's very heavy. It's made out of mass loaded vinyl And it does a darn good job like really surprisingly well and then that with a little bit of special sauce on the processing i'm doing just a little bit of seasoning on the expander Um, it does a good job and you know, I can't not mention the session I did for Maxine Dunn because that was that ironically was the star of the of the day yesterday It was an hour and 10 minutes source connect New client. So, you know, we really wanted it to go well Um, she was supposed to be in denver couldn't be so the studio in denver allowed us to remote him So there were a lot of little things that made it kind of a special session That's that's one of those things where the old saying if you want voice work Book of flight holy cow. I'm telling you for maxine that has never been more the kid You know what we're going to do every month make a big plane plane resubmit Send an email to your agent saying i'm out of town. Yeah, because that's going to get you more work. I'm telling you She's over. She's all she's off camera, but it um, it went exceedingly well It really did. I mean I was maxine. It's just a total pro It was one of those sessions where it's a 30 second spot But the client has to get approval that client wasn't physically in the studio The producers were is that right maxine? So the producers were giving all the direction and everything and then they would say, okay Let's lay it in then you'd hear it with the music And then they would say, okay, we like that now we need to get approval They'd send it to I guess mp3. I don't know what and it was just you took a lot of patience You know, especially on her part and she stood in that booth for she didn't she is such a pro She doesn't move her feet From where she's standing for that whole session because she wants to be sure she's always on mic in the right spot In those shoes and those shoes That's not that is that's discipline. I wouldn't be able to do that But yeah, we pulled it off and source connect was was What did the job? We had we even had telos zephyr down there using that visdn system Which we've had at the ready, but there's been no call for it ISDN Studios aren't using it the way they used to you know, it only happened, you know, we predicted What six seven years ago that it would be gone in two years. Yeah, we figured 2010 I'm 20 20 was when atc and ct says we're pulling the plug Right, so who knows we're all kind of getting ready for that But there's been no call for it But did we've done phone patches self directs auditions everything from telephony stuff to To Rebecca Davis just did some stuff for an anime for a video game You know, she was cackling and laughing and Well, she was like that, you know, it's We did it all in that in that studio So it's been it's been exciting to pull off that stuff and for me to be the engineer I never get to do that stuff anymore. I'm always the tech so it's it's fun. It's been interesting and fun You're always the guy crawling behind everybody's desk Yeah, it's been nice to just chill and it's always fun to do that take one. Yeah Yeah, we also wanted to demonstrate the acoustics in here. Oh, yeah, the acoustics in this room are rather Well, they are what they are. It's a let's do a test here. Okay. We clap our hands Holy crap. Are you guys hearing that? We're getting a crazy ping pong because we have parallel Drywall hard surfaces on either side and it's Bling you get this crazy slap back like a room like this. All they would have to do is scatter some panels on one wall A couple of gobos. Yeah, that'd be great. Great the drapery of draperies if the drapes were closed Drapes are helping a bit. Yeah, but we always we get a kick out of that Well, that's what we do is we go and we sniff around and we're like what's going on in this room And we don't use big complex calculations. I'm sure sometimes if you send something to oral x or they'll they'll do these Big calculations and it's yeah, there's all my calculators. Yeah, the only thing you gotta use is your ear It's pretty usually pretty simple. This is where the mic is my ears at the same place You're gonna hear what it's hearing only it's hearing more because it's not filtering out all the things that our brain filters So anyway, there's there's been a couple of great panels. I haven't attended any of the x sessions Right, you know, they're you know, those are the those are the paid sessions that are above and beyond the expense of the actual conference, right? And but I've been to a couple of panels. There was a great panel yesterday that j. Michael Collins one of our fine sponsors did on online casting and it was outstanding really was it And it brought up the subject that everybody's talking about that, you know Is there room in the marketplace For competition for other casting sites and madjouma who's been on our show from voice casting hub Uh, you know, great entrepreneur. He jumped right in and did it and and fine and Paul strict, right on here Yeah He was here yesterday And um, that things really hit the ground running. Hasn't it I'm suddenly getting access Is now the the major agents picked up on they all picked up on it not all of them But many of them and uh enough to have some momentum Well, I'm getting auditions that I never had access to before On voice bank. I wasn't that small chondria people who were like, you know in the corner like And now it's much more wide open and the independent agents with the agents alliance are Feeding stuff in there and suddenly there's there's a there's a network job that's coming over here And there's you know, other big stuff that's not, you know, $50 or something like that So the guys you called in the past the lunch pail Voice actors right are gonna benefit and they already are so that's the whole voice bank thing actually As I suspected at the time was actually Of great benefit to us. So we actually owe, you know, bolder mort Uh a uh, you know and some thanks for totally, you know messing up the market sometimes when you have a Disruption. Yeah, sometimes you just got to play 52 card tick up and and eventually everything, you know Or as tony robbins used to say out of chaos Comes ordered. Yeah, that's what that's about and that's 17 was a year of chaos. Definitely certainly the last six months of it was Um, let's see. There was a there was a round rates round table I was just at that that woevo was running, which was very interesting brad newman told a story about how he had a An agent who was still doing business with voice bank and he said I'm not gonna work with you if you're doing that he didn't say don't work with them He says I'm not gonna work with you And he fired them. Wow. Wow. So You know, I mean, hopefully they're getting the thing the the whole Thing that everybody seems to be finally Gelling around is this idea that people have to have the courage to talk to the people Who pay their rent and pay their bills and buy their food their clients? You know, it's a risky thing to do But how do you do your casting? Are you working with voices dot com? Do you realize? What they do Yeah, and show them the evidence There was a dossier put out the other day some financials and there's a lot of other You know very damning evidence about what they're doing, but let them decide Yeah, and it's been very very effective and it seems seems to have definitely Down up the work tainted the conversation at this conference But it's definitely been the topic of a lot of conversations. Well, they aren't here Yeah, because apparently a couple years ago. It was made quite clear by those attending that they were not very welcome. Yeah, so Anyway, but that was interesting. But the best part of any conference is it, you know, I mean the All of the you know the the discussions and the presentations Are great But nothing beats having lunch with some old friends and people who you just want to sit down talk with How you've been what's going on people who who are Leaders in the industry and you get to sit down and talk with them and yeah, they're interested in what you're doing And uh, it's just fun. But of course and then just meeting people like you're a unique individual I'd like to know more about you You know, how can we help each other and that's what these conferences are really all about But this is a big one. There's six hundred and seventy people Yeah, so congratulations to Gerald for uh, for really putting together a really fine Singer yeah speaking of people we had lunch with Gerald and ron miniatura Really they were sitting right across from us So we had a rare moment to kind of chat with them a little bit and yeah, we thanked Gerald for Having that booth set up there. Uh, because It's crucial things you for nice Snails like it too Before time began There was vlbs.tv Watch or else you're still watching vlbs Learn the latest in voiceover technology this Hey is 2018 going to be the year you take your voiceover practice to the next level If not, you can go back to checking your email and all the stuff on instagram and stuff while this message is airing And I think there's also a little bit of leftover pizza in the fridge back there But if you're serious about dramatically upping your level of success I want you to go to a very special url. That's a website vo the number two go go dot com forward slash V obs that's vo to go go dot com forward slash v obs Join the hundreds of voiceover professionals and practitioners around the world Who have decided to do something positive and invest in themselves for this new year Learn voiceover from the ground up or from wherever you are to where you want to be vo to go go dot com forward slash v obs. Hey, let's make 2018 your year As a voice talent you have to have a website But what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do They break or don't look right on mobile devices. They're not built for marketing and seo. They're expensive You have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live So what's the best way to get you online in no time? Go to voice actor websites dot com like our name implies voice actor websites dot com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as 700 dollars So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voicehactor websites dot com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what And we're back on voiceover body shop. You know the the flight back actually from vo Atlanta was interesting. We had There was nine of us nine there was nine of us that were there and we were Uh, it was me and yenny alvarez and her husband and rebecca davis and heather costa and uh, sofia cruz and michelle blanker and diana birdsall and myself and uh So we were like from b20 b9 to b26 and the rest of them were like c 37 on southwest so So we go running in the back of the plane and we start throwing all these suitcases and jackets across these seats and people are walking by and going So Nicely done. Yeah, so you actually you actually did Want to sit next to each other on a plane? We did we then we had we had nine of us together They were the three behind us and you know and I was in the in the front row and then the the other gals were on the other side None of the other gals wanted to sit with me for whatever they all wanted to gossip and talk and and you know And I was just sort of like sitting there looking out the window the whole time and we were really thinking Yeah, go ahead by then. Haven't you had enough of each other? Well, that's the way it turned out. You know, we were really rowdy in the terminal the second we got on the plane You know, it was a long way. Anyway. Oh, yeah, I slept on the plane. Yeah, I I tried to but anyway, uh, you know, we get lots of questions from our fans and why do they want to ask us questions because Georgia like we know what we're talking about, right? We know some stuff a thing or two of one and one a thing or two What's that one? We know a thing or two because we we make up a thing or two. I don't know We know stuff and we'll help you. Oh, I'll let you have the farmers commercial You know, we we we we know how to thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. That's what it is. Yeah Anyway, and you and I have seen a thing or three when it comes to home studios. Anyway, um You know, george and I do this for a living. We're home studio experts and You know, you can't do much better than george here because he's uh, he's been doing it a while How would they get in touch with you and what can you offer them? Well, hi, i'm at george the tech dot com or if you like short nerdy URLs, it's george the tech And I have all my services available to you there. You can book support calls You can book on-site visits if you're in la You can book offline services. I call them virtual engineering services where you send me your audio And I send back the resulting Whatever it is being uh, mean from a sound check to building up Processing presets to drawing an entire recording studio design Whatever it is lots of different ways to work with me and uh, dan also does some of this kind of stuff over it Where do you go dan a home voiceover studio dot com? And there you'll see everything that I can do for you talk about how I can work with you and I also have a I have a way for you to send me audio just click on the specimen collection cup at the bottom of the home page And uh, it takes you to a drop box send me some raw audio. There's some instructions exactly how to do that So, uh And boy do we love doing what we do nothing more fun than going into people's houses and going into their closets and stuff See what they have there Equipment yeah equipment wise that's right. Yeah. Anyway, so we got a couple of questions. You want to get this first one here Oh, yeah, this one's from mike mick vicker, which is a new name to me. Very cool. Welcome mike Um, he's very new to the voiceover world and just purchased the road nt1a kit package That's a that's a mic that comes with a pop screen a shock mount Maybe a mic cable What name and model for a preamp And interface Do you recommend and why? The ands are in capital letters For emphasis. Yes. Um, so I I think what he's talking about and maybe I could be wrong But when he says a preamp and interface Probably he's talking about an audio interface like a usb interface. That's also the preamp Right, which it's pretty much the only kind that we talk about on this show Um, Dan, why don't you start with your usual recommendations and I'll give him my usual recommendations Okay. Well, I mean, they're probably pretty much the same. It depends on your budget And uh, you know, how many features you want with it, you know, if you're not good with features, uh Then don't go for the stuff that has all the features, but uh from you know from the basic To all you really need a focus right makes a series of A preamp interfaces that are really good and then it makes them really really good ones But we're usually recommending either the focus rights scarlet 2 Little i2 the scarlet 2 i2 or even because you only need one microphone to do voiceover The eye track solo or the focus rights solo. I think they call it now Which is the eye track solo and the scarlet solo similar products and and they work with ios devices too, which is really nice Uh, and then I personally right now. I'm using uh a yamaha a go3 at mr. Wooden's Recommendation and I've had no problems with it. It just sounds sweet And it has it is really nice. Yeah. Yeah, and they make they make one with two inputs called the ago 6 Um But you know if you want that's a few more bells and whistles on that one Yeah, but and and you get that if you know how to use those bells and whistles Um, and you know and I found some uses for it In live webcasting and stuff like that not necessarily specifically for voiceover, but maybe you know you have that capability And then one I think we probably both agree on is the audience id 4 Uh, which is oh, yeah, nice. What about you? Yeah, I mean, I was going to say the audience id 4 it would be the I'd say the best sub 200 dollar or about 200 dollar mic preamp interface available period It just in terms of build quality sound quality It just it nails it and it doesn't and again no feature No over the top amount of features Doesn't even use a driver at least on a mac. It's just it's just plug and play and I love that about that unit My other sub hundred dollar unit of choice is the steinberg ur 12 That's very similar to the scarlet in terms of just a one mic preamp interface But the cool thing about the ur 12 is it also has a loop back feature And it's not on the box. I wish it was a push button that was really convenient. It's actually in a web drive. It's actually on a sound driver So on on mac it's in the system preferences There's actually a little sound drive when a window you pop it open Check a box and you get loop back for playing back your Yeah, just let's take yeah, just like the yamaha ego 3 and 6 too, which actually has this right on it, which is kind of Yeah, um, yeah, I mean I'm not if for someone that's new these are the things these are the things we're going to recommend to you For for for road warriors, which you are not yet You know the mic port pro is a really fantastic Ultra portable device. I just wouldn't recommend it as your daily driver It's very small and very light and it's it's hard to just manage it because it just falls off the table It's so small and light So these other units are you'll probably have better results with yeah, yeah And of course there's the ultimate which the the holy grail that a lot of people are gravitating to right now Which is the? Apollo twin Which is oh, yeah by universal audio and universal labs audio Or is it yeah, talk about its features Oh, yeah You know I I guess, you know, if you're if you're an engineer and I mean because this is what they use on a lot of Really good professional studios now because it allows for multi tracking and input, you know inputting and taking out and queuing Effects and all sorts of stuff. It really is a marvelous unit and it ain't cheap No, they they started 499. They have a new one. It's called the uh arrow the universal audio apollo arrow It's it's only thunderbolt 3 Yeah, there aren't a lot of computers with thunderbolt 3 and I all the new mac book mac book pro Not mac book air by the way Um the new iMacs and the mac book Let me think the mac pro those have uh thunderbolt. No, not even the mac pro has thunderbolt 3 I beg your pardon. Wow, so it's the only select ones you have to like really do your research It's a real niche They must know something everybody else doesn't know about the future of uh thunderbolt, but uh, you know, that's yeah They took a big chance. Yeah, you know, they developed a product that requires it And uh, it's you know, they take they invested in a lot of they put a lot of money obviously Investing in it and hoping that that thunderbolt 3 Technology just becomes commonplace. So yeah, those are some of the like the ones that we like and I don't know if uh, Mike is Patiently sitting and listening and waiting to chime in but mike delgaudio might be listening in and he may have an idea too Are you listening mike? I am I am In talking about I mean the the interface that I that I Am always in love with is uh, I've used it for a long time as the audience id 22. You guys mentioned the id the id 4 Yeah before and uh, I I liked the uh the id 22 because it allowed me to It allowed me to expand and to grow into the studio You know, I didn't start with this studio. I was able to grow into able to grow into it and so far I have not run into Any bottlenecks feature wise that that have allowed me to Expand and grow and be able to do more capable things not like having the two inputs Certainly for my channel having the two inputs two different mic inputs super clean preamps really feature rich. I just I love it durable Awesome. Yeah for well and for doing your videos having two mic inputs if you're testing side to side mics That's that's a big help. Yeah. Yeah, really important for the for the videos for sure. Yeah So, yeah, I forgot, you know, I I think about the 22, but that's it's a little have got a little few more features than Yeah, than the than the four Okay. All right. Well, we got another question here From Deirdre Holly Uh-huh demos are meant to showcase what the VA can do Right as right produce. Okay. We did the voice actor Uh, be you know, she could have said voice actor. I believe this way. Yeah, okay Uh, anyway, we record demos in a full blown professional studio There's no way to reproduce the same sound on different equipment in a different environment So, why do we do demos with all the music background and all the mastering? When it seems we should be putting out clean crisp files to show what we can reproduce in our own studios Rather than what we could pay a studio director producer to do Wow, what a killer question that is. Yeah, you know, that's something that I consider all the time um For commercial demos, you know, there's You know, I can count on about 50 hands how many demo producers there are here in LA and uh You know and and the funny thing is is the guys that do a lot of them You can tell who it is You know, oh, that's a so-and-so demo and that's a so-and-so demo because They do I don't want to say overproduce But a demo is not supposed to show off what the demo producer can do. It's supposed to highlight the person's voice And uh, but you know, it depends on who's hearing the demo and it's like You know, some agents if they want to hear a demo or a client go, well, you know, that's just the voice Where's all the production doesn't sound like a comment. We don't know Because eventually who's the ultimate person that makes the decision on who gets hired? It's not the casting director. It's not the you know an agent. It's the client And it's really a crapshoot as to Who's actually listening to it? Uh, I'd say for uh, an e-learning demo or a narration demo or Uh, you know, clearly medical narrations and stuff. It should just be your voice But you're trying to show people what you sound like on commercials in a commercial demo Your thoughts the context. Yes, you know, they they the the client wants to hear you in context They're not interested in knowing what you're what you sound like in just the vacuum of your studio Because that's not what they're going to be hearing in the end. They're going to be hearing a full production mix Right, so they just want to hear how you sound in context with with a real production. So Um, I you know, and these are norms that have been established in the business, right? These are You know, maybe that would change someday But right now these are the norms. This is what what is expected So we have to give them what they're looking for and what they're expecting But we also have to be on trend. So we better know what what they're looking for and that's why you hire the best You know a demo producer you can find that you can find recommended to you because they are on trend Right, you know, they know what people are looking for which is also why it's really Really risky to self-produce your demo as well Especially if you don't know what you're doing Well, yeah, there's so many layers to that. I won't even get into it, but If your demo is if you're starting out just doing phone systems, okay, that's pretty simple It's just your voice Over, you know that you can cut together and make a phone system demo It's it's not a lot of production But you know things that sound like they're on television or on a trailer or a movie trailer Or e-learning things that sound like they have have a mix going on with music and other things Yeah, that's really uh, gonna be tough to pull off yourself Uh, even if you know how to do it Um, you shouldn't probably do it. Like I was talking to cliff zelman Uh for a bit. He was really proud of an of a demo He had just finished for someone and and he he was playing it for me and he reminded me that when he produces a demo He does an entire commercial like if he has five spots in a in a demo, for example He come he produces five complete spots Right beginning to end and I think jay michael go ahead. Yeah. I think jay michael does that too Yeah, if I recall I'm sure he's learned a thing or two from cliff. I mean, uh, yeah, it's yeah, really I mean what does he records a whole commercial? He did my commercial demo, which I really love And uh, he just edited them down so they all fit together and show real good contrast and stuff and he highlights You know the voice Actors voice and not and not show off his production. His production is so good You don't notice it because it's showing off you and that's you know, that'll be that's a good ad for cliff there That'll be 500 dollars, please Hey, you know what cliff's a great guy is a friend of ours and absolutely You know it was he was a good reminder of why some demo producers take time It takes them a while to put something put something together because of the because of his approach Right, um, but it was to result speak for themselves. They sound like real commercials because they basically are right exactly Well, if you've got a question for us, uh, you know, you can always write to us at the guys at v o b s dot tv And uh, we'll get your question on like those fine viewers have done this evening. By the way, this is not my living room Um, although I wish it was You know, we asked you guys to show us your booths And so far we've only gotten two and we've shown those although it was fun being in jack de gully's closet last week Um, but uh, you know if take a picture of your studio from a perspective of someone looking at it from You know walking in the door and uh Your studio could star here on voiceover body shop and you can send that to the guys at v o b s dot tv Good timing there. Alrighty. Well, Mike Delgaudio is Standing by incredibly patiently and we're going to start to talk to him in just a minute or two So stay right where you are. We'll be right back on voiceover body shop Are you confused about how to set up and maintain a professional quality voiceover studio? No wonder the information out there is mostly mythology This is the best microphone to use. You'll have to have a preamp. You need a soundproof booth This software is the best your audio must be broadcast quality Consult with someone who knows the truth someone who's been there in the trenches Doing voiceover for over 30 years Someone with unparalleled experience with voiceover studios Who's worked with hundreds of voice actors and designed hundreds of personal studios He knows how to teach and cares about your success In one of the harshest environments known to voiceover your home Dan Leonard the home studio master Separate myth from fact and get a handle on your personal voiceover studio Contact the home studio master at home voiceover studio dot com drop off a specimen of your dry audio for a free analysis Source elements is proud to announce that i s d n is not dead It will live on Not in a bridge, but real i s d n and and v i s d n lets any customer use their i s d n codec Their telos zephyr Primarily, but whatever they got as as just with an internet connection Full access to the existing i s d n network and continued access In the future past the dreaded 2020 Supposed period when at and t and others will be ending their i s d n services v i s d n is more flexible and it's more affordable Then most traditional i s d n services, especially now Uh competitive outbound dialing rates and free in network calling means no usage charges between v i s d n customers Now and for all time So tell your friends get direct i s d n even if the local telco Says it's not available Travel with i s d n and don't rely on bridging v i s d n Provides the lowest latency and with two internet connections the most robust internet based i s d n access This is from source elements and it's backed by their excellent tech support You really get the best of both worlds with v i s d n and i can tell you we had it up and running At the booth in vio Atlanta and the recording studio We tested it and even in that case we were using wi-fi It still worked beautifully. So it's an amazing piece of technology Well, we're gonna be coming right back here with mike delgaudio right after this quick little break business and good old fashioned acting I really like your bracelet. It's awesome Hey paul, where did you get that watch? Um, that's really cool And a hamburger with no cheese, please Every monday nine eastern six specific only on voiceoverbodieshop.com And we're back here on voiceover body shop and time to introduce our guest and maybe show you a little bit of his work mike delgaudio is a non-union voice actor out of pittsburgh pennsylvania In addition to radio and tv commercial work You may have heard him narrate the new york times weekly on audible Or as part of the regular troupe on the no sleep podcast a popular podcast that dramatizes horror stories He also hosts the youtube channel called Booth junkie in which he helps people set up their home studio So they can start to perform behind the microphone. Let's take a look at some of his stuff The eddie is recording the eddie's recording the blue snowball is recording the blue snowballs recording Camera one is recording camera two is recording. Let's synchronize everything wreck wreck wreck We're recording. There are three different kinds of Pop filters that you can buy and we'll look at some diy type thingies that i've seen people do and we're going to see their effectiveness The first one is sorry for the rumbles. There's going to be rumbles as I as I handle the microphone here The first one is oops. There's going to be a nylon inexpensive Pop filter that is fabric I also have connected to the mic stand. We have a metal mesh Pop filter two different techniques Both in this pop filter format and then thirdly Here it is. We also have the foam um Squishy sock wind thing that goes on there Three different so three different approaches to keeping your breath from hitting the diaphragm Ah, it's good to be in the booth. Good to be in the booth. We have a new microphone in here One that I've never used before this one is been has been loaned to me by a fellow booth junkie Mikey Mike My man, Mike won't be his blue Yeti pro That's great stuff. Let's welcome to our show The booth junkie mike delgadio mike What's happening guys? Are you so glad to be here? Are you are you're you're on mike? Aren't you? That's good. I am I am well Uh, it's it's great to have you on on y'all been watching your videos. It's it's it's great stuff It's like like our show which were like over 305 episodes You've done quite a few too. Uh, that's really great. Uh, yeah, I don't know what my count is I've done done quite a few for sure. Yeah So tell us a little bit about yourself I mean, I gave you a little background on it But tell you how you know where you're from and how you got into voiceover and the type of work you do Sure, uh, let's see. I Have been I'm new I'm much newer to uh to voice over voice acting Then you guys are I've been doing it for seven years seven years I caught the bug I sort of recaut the bug much later in life. I thought I thought I was going to be in broadcasting I really wanted to be like a radio dj when I was a kid and then I went and sat in on A radio dj's spot, you know A session at like a small a.m radio station in baltimore and I said this is not for me This doesn't look like nearly as much fun as I thought it was gonna It's a lot of long lonely hours. I'll tell you long lonely hours for no pay and no job security and He's like, oh, yeah my my stations have changed format and I've been fired five times like well That's not gonna work. That's not gonna work for me. And so I sort of walked away from walked away from that for a long time a long time and then I moved to pittsburgh And rediscovered a love for it. I I took a class just uh on a whim I took a class and got in front of the microphone and just Positively fell in love with it and went gung-ho absolutely gung-ho from knowing really not anything To studying I bought my first microphone and I just studied studied study practice practice practice practice every single day and it luckily it turned out I Through a series of serendipitous events it worked out that people would start to give me money to talk into a microphone Which feels a lot like stealing sometimes because it's it's I enjoy it so much And so it's what I've been doing now for Seven years. Cool. What type of what type of work do you specialize in? I I often just say Whatever words you want to put in my mouth. I'll say them to the very best of my ability I tend to I tend to gravitate towards um medium form Narration I've done a few audiobooks. They're not my they're not as I've said this before It's not my favorite thing to do. It's a little bit of a marathon. I like the the medium sprints I like to do medium form. I love to do explainer videos After I left the idea of going into broadcasting I went into like corporate training for a long time and I really I really really super enjoyed Corporate training believe it or not getting up in front of a group and teaching people A new skill one that maybe they need to have or they really want to have and just being up in front of a group people Seem to like the way I like the way I teach and so I really I really enjoyed I really enjoyed the the corporate training of it. So things like explainers Corporate explainers, I love doing them especially on technical subjects I love doing those because it's it's stuff that I kind of know From past jobs and past lives It's stuff that I really I like to gravitate towards to love reading the news for the New York Times love doing that And you know, I'm on I'm on some I'm on a couple of different podcasts. I'm on the no sleep podcast. I'm on a new one called congeria That I really have enjoyed doing where it's uh, I get to act I get to act. Uh, so I get to I get but You asked me to say it and I'll say it. I don't care what it is And that's the attitude you gotta have Yeah, sure and as long as the check clears you've had a great day You know it. Yeah, you know it. So yeah, I so you've been doing this for seven years How did you start doing these videos? What motivated that and and how did that get rolling? Sure, let's see It started it started when I was in the market for my whisper room And I wanted to know before I put you know, like most people now I want to research how these things work and I want before I'm going to spend a lot of money I want to know about know about things and I was trying to decide between A whisper room and a couple of the other different voice booths that are out there and in this room where I am My ceiling is very is low And I wanted to make sure that I could put this Booth in my room and I was looking for well, how does it go together? How do I put those the ceiling on this thing? And I couldn't find it anywhere So I took the plunge I said, can you you know when I went and bought this because I bought it second hand I like buying things second hand. So I I had the measurement said yes, it'll fit But I have two inches of clearance and so I bought it on a on a risk and When I and so I made my first video was like, well, I'm going to try and put this thing together Let's see how it goes And that was my very first video was was assembling was assembling this whisper room and it re It re sparked that that corporate trainer part of it, you know teaching people The thing that I get super jazzed about super super jazzed about is Teaching is helping people get over that initial learning curve Going from noob to noob who knows what they don't know. I suppose It's what it is. I don't know what I don't know to go. I know that I don't know stuff I like to help people get up that that initial learning curve Once you're in it, you can go be in it, but I I love to teach I love to teach new new subjects to to people really Novices and I love watching that light bulb go off. I really really loved doing that. And so making that first video Um Sort of reinvigorating it's like I should make more of these I really should make more of these and it and it just sort of has snowballed and now I'm Really addicted to it. I really love making them. Yeah, well, it's clear that you're having a lot of fun doing it Where how do you set up the camera to do this? It looks like you you keep it stationary using an iPhone using a good camera What are you using? Let's see right now. So in I'm in my whisper room, but I have in my videos. I have a uh Sony mirrorless a five thousand like the budget the budget Mirrorless interchangeable lens camera right now. This is uh, it's just a logitech webcam but it's on the outside of the glass of my whisper room so yeah, that that um The camera's on the outside so it doesn't hear it doesn't hear anything and luckily the whisper room has a window So I just shoot might just shoot through the window and I've got a couple of led lights all it's all like velcro To the outside of the I gotta tell you that's that's pretty brilliant because I was thinking about that's gotta be a pretty big booth In order to get you know that perspective No, no, no, and you just put the cameras on the other side of the glass like duh As long as you eliminate the uh, do you have the cameras like completely flushed against the glass? So you don't get any uh reflections. Yep. Yep. I and so I I built and so my my Computer screen is right on the outside of the glass too. I measured the glass and I went and found the exact right monitor That would fit very edge to edge of on the glass here And so that's on the outside because the monitor the first monitor I had was hot. It was an lcd monitor Blasting heat so this booth. I mean the monitor was right here and it was like 110 degrees. It was killing me. I'm like You sweating these booths. Oh, look at me. I'm sweating out. You sweating these booths So as soon as I got everything on the outside of the glass, uh, it was it really works and so now everything I built a um uh, I uh one of those uh Iron pipes with a vase amount and so I just made it just perfect So it goes right up against the glass and the camera is mounted right at the top of it It's all like this one crazy contraption that I just built out of spare parts. I got awesome Yeah, sounds familiar To what we do around here. Yeah, it's glued you together somehow You know what? I that's the that's exactly the way I've I've done it. I because I you know, I don't I'm figuring this out as I go and I'll think this is perfect What I got going this is perfect and then like six months I'm like, you know what would have been better if I had just done this other thing So I never I never permanently modify anything if I can attach it with velcro If I can just scooch things together if I can do it with pvc That's just sort of squeezed together. I'll always I'll always do it that way always with that way I never want a big permanent modifications to any of this stuff pvc is always going to make it better PVC is the greatest thing ever, you know, and you can do all sorts of cool things with it You know, sometimes you'll you'll tell a client are you good with pvc and they'll sort of look at you Cross-eyed. No, no, no, it's really simple. You just need this blue glue You know, it makes you really wild and you know, so but anyway great for prototyping. Absolutely. Absolutely. So What is this passion you have for gear? What can we classify you as a geek? I don't see a geek I see someone who has a passion for gear I you know, I like you. I'm always in the pursuit of of of improvement of improving the sound and and I want to try everything. I mean, I just want to try it all because and to share it with people because we'd all don't get a chance to Use and listen to all these different microphones and that was part of the genesis for me was to Well, I've got this thing. I'll share it with other people. I've got two of these things I'll try to do them side by side and let let people hear them. And so now it's turned into I really get jazzed about trying new things and and I'm so incredibly grateful to all the people who watch my channel because they sent me Their precious equipment and they're like, Mike, would you like to borrow this? I'm like, what? You're gonna let me borrow your Multi hundred dollar thing sometimes multi thousand dollar thing You don't know me And so I'm I'm incredibly grateful. And so yeah, now I'm like really a junkie Look, I'm really a junkie for uh For just trying it out and seeing what might be best for me. What how can I improve? What can I do better? Is this gonna help me make more money? Is it going to help me sound better? Is it going to speed my workflow and any of those things? I'm always looking to improve right and that's usually the most important thing is is what works best For you, but you've got to have you've got to see all the choices and yeah, you know, you're presenting that and that helps They always say go buy two microphones and return one of them and I I can appreciate that. I know I that's not it doesn't always feel like the best thing for me I always feel bad, you know getting my Getting my spin on a microphone then sending it back to somebody else So if I can if I can help other people, you know, learn about these things and You know, just share it just share it. I'm always I'm into it What do you know about? What do you know about your viewers? Like what are the kind of people because we know we have a really target audience They're pretty much all voice actors. Yeah, they're getting in a voice over or they're very busy voice actors That just you know, like hanging out with us Well, how would you know about the audience? Where do people come from then that watch your show? Yeah, so my audience is actually much broader than I ever thought and I know this I don't look at analytics or anything like that, but I talk to them They all they they send me facebook and youtube messages and tweets and and emails and so I learn a lot about them and For me, there's I have Two maybe three groups of people that really gravitate towards What I'm what I'm doing is people that want to start voice acting and they really, you know, don't know what to do They like I'm into this thing. I want to talk. I want to make stories. I want to I want to make commercials I want to do, you know, I want to start talking in front of a microphone And I I don't know they want to become voice artists voice actors voiceover folks and they And they don't know what to do. That's one group and the other group that that really They talk to me a lot are the like twitch folks the streamers and the gamers that are that are trying to make their sound More competitive or you know better so they can attract more viewers for whatever it is that they're streaming And you know a lot of them are like well I know that there's the blue yeti and I and I put that on my desk and all of a sudden I'm good because I saw some other streamer do it and I try and help people Understand well, it's about the mic placement the mic style The you know the the patterns all of these things can have can have a play and so they they Ten even though I'm not really a streamer They they tend to come and they come and talk to me so tons and tons of tons of gamers and then you know the third group is a Podcaster there's a lot of people know me from the podcasts that I'm on and so they want to and they want to Improve start a podcast improve their podcast Improve the sound of their podcast and so they they come over and they check my stuff out. Yeah So I do any of the manufacturers know you're out there. Are they sending you stuff to test out? And they are and yeah, they're starting to yeah in the very beginning. It was lots of the um the chinese importers the the people would you know And no slight to them. It's just the you know that they're all from china They're sending me stuff from like aliexpress. They're they were sending me a bunch of inexpensive things but now since I've I've I guess my audience is bigger so I've been able to attract their attention So now several companies have sent me things most recently I One of my viewers sent me a luit microphone, which I didn't really know much about the luit 550 Just continue mic, but I did I did a video about it because I was interested in it And the folks from luit just Reached out to me and they said like would you like to test some more mics? On loan on loan, but they sent me one essentially one of everything So all of a sudden I've got this whole big Microphones right right over there and I'm like, yeah, I want to try them all Other companies this this microphone a company out in la that is a a vendor Sent me sent me this microphone to test and I you know, I try to disclose that During during the videos and I also disclose if uh, if it's just somebody who's loaning it to me or and if it's a A civilian who's loaning it to me as opposed to the business person. Yeah, some of the companies are starting to notice Well, that's good. That's a sank in. What is that mic? This is the sank in cu 51 Microphone sent to me by a company called plus 24. That's a vendor out in california I tell you they can get a little overwhelming right once they when they send you a bunch of stuff And you know, the some of them can be very patient. I have to admit I've been sitting on a review for a product now for Oh, man Probably four months Because it's taken me so long to Do the actual production and I feel so guilty Yeah, that it's taking me this long to do it But when they send you all that stuff he puts some pressure on you It does video of it all and I try and set expectations and it's not going to be less than a not less than a much I might have it longer. There's some there's some things that I got Late last year that I I haven't made videos because I try and prioritize the The civilians that have sent me their stuff. I try and do that faster. So the companies They're they're gonna wait they're gonna wait unless they're you know, unless they're like we we're trying to do it For a deadline or something like that Then I'll then I'll try and accommodate that but the companies the companies will always Come before the or come after the the fans. I don't know if they're fans with the people who send me things They'll always come first. Yeah, if you're just joining us or you've been uh, but we're talking with mike delgadio The booth junkie and if you have a question for him All you have to do is put it in the chat room and jack daniel is sitting around somewhere But looking at the chat room and he is relaying those questions to us So if you want to ask him something go in the chat room and do that Also facebook and facebook feed is you can you can make comments on the facebook page as well with the show is and Jack is also monitoring that so we got you both covered because I understand the show's so popular tonight our chat room Actually got fooled Wow, if you're wanting to make comments or or sending questions do it on the facebook page Alrighty, um What is your favorite piece of gear mike? Uh besides the cad e100 s My favorite piece of gear That's a toughy is it a microphone. I I my I love my uh, sunhizer 416 Microphone, I love that microphone super versatile. I love it. I love my audience id 22. We mentioned that earlier I really like that. It's been super reliable It it never breaks. It's expanded to to everything I've needed it to do from having a talk back And monitors and two headphone feeds and I can I can do everything I can I can do a session where I'm the control person and I have a talent in the booth or I can do it all myself I really like that And people who know my channel know I'm a big huge proponent of the zoom h5 Portable device because it's super flexible especially for people who are new And they're trying to set up a booth and their computer They got to move away from their computer for the noise the zoom h5 because it can be an interface because it can be A portable recorder. I'm a big big proponent of that. It's been really invaluable for my channel. So I mean Who's my favorite kid? I don't know How many you have Two kids, okay, my favorites you you can you can play them off each other. It works really well I've done that too But what is what is this thing you have for the the caddy 100 s? I mean we were talking about it earlier I mean I have one and and it's a great mic You know some people have other things to say about it, but you seem to really like it gets you you compare it to everything else, right? Yeah, I do I I tend to use it a lot and you know, like many people I I had to have mine fixed But once I had it fixed the way it sounded I think is on par with Even the most expensive microphones that I've tested I really I think for voiceover. I think the pattern Being the super cardioid it's forgiving of the of the The less than optimal booth. So I think it's one that you can Grow with I think it's got a really robust sound. I think it's very flattering to the voice I think it's got a great low end it It's not at all Hissy sibilant or anything like that a common thing that I People e-mail me about e-mail me about their own mics. They say man, it's the the s's sound like static. What can I do? Whereas the the e100 s for me. It's it's always been just It's it's great. It just sounds wonderful sounds very natural. It's not it's uh I don't know. I just I just love it so much What what monitors do you have in your studio when you're outside the booth? Um, uh, right now it's the basic uh jbl lsr 305s, but I also have a pair of They're discontinued jbl eight inch Uh, the the model number just flew out of my head, but they were these ones that came with Came with a microphone. So it would do all the e queuing for you So you just put the microphone in the listening position And you know played a bunch of sounds and it would do the e queuing for you And then it'll come to me at some point. Hopefully It's an lsr Like 26 35, you know, go look during the break. Yeah, and you can tell us later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Don't rack your brain. We we need you for another a few minutes here. We're gonna wear you out I've already forgotten what we were talking about. Let's go Genelik actually a genelik came out with their own system of that Amazingly years later after jbl did and I just uh saw it demoed at uh friend studio byron wagoners Oh, but yeah, oh, yeah, I can't wait to see that pretty uh fancy stuff But boy is a whole different price category Way more expensive. No doubt. No doubt, you know, but I I think you mentioned this last week, george Buying second hand for me has been the the absolute the absolute key To a lot of this stuff. I you know, I'm just a small time voice actor I'm my budget's as small as anybody else's so Learning how to have craigslist alerts come to me for all those things that's I sometimes I wait Years for for things to come by and hopefully I'll have the money for it So buying second hand if you're uh, if you're willing to take the risk you can really save a lot of money That's how I've been doing it George you got a question Oh, yeah, well, we talked a lot about hardware, but software Yeah, it's pretty well known by now that anybody knows you that you love one particular digital audio workstation software at reaper reaper How long how far along was it before you discovered reaper? When did you discover it? I I discovered it reasonably early. Thank goodness. I started with audacity and The hard part for me for audacity was the destructive editing Especially for somebody who like new photoshop and was like I can non-destructively edit a photo like in I non-destructively edit my Audio so audacity some of the things that it would do was was hard The very first interface I bought I bought second hand was a personas one and it came with a copy of studio one, I think right and It was okay. It was okay, but it was really for music It was, you know, really really optimized for making music and I have no interest in making music wasn't my thing and so And then I heard, you know, people talking about Reaper and and it's and it's really really customizable and I'm a I'm a geek. I was a Former life. I was a programmer so technical things didn't scare me and I I liked that I could have you know, I could program it in python if I wanted to and anyway I don't really do that. But I but being able to Do anything I want in the DAW and reconfigure it however I want so that I can totally optimize it for exactly the way that I want to work And create the macros that I need to that match exactly the workflow that I have in my head And that I can improve those workflows Reaper has been an absolute absolute game changer for me because I My reaper might not look like anybody else's but it's it's mine and it's Totally exactly tailored to exactly the way that I want to work Until I think of the next thing and then whatever the next thing is it will work for that too That's what's really been amazing for it is I haven't It might not out of the box. It might not have every bell and whistle It's got far near every bell and whistle but I you know, I think you know pro tools and they probably And no endo. They probably have have more things They definitely have more things but so far I have not been stymied in any way to to Bend a reaper to my will rather than me bending to reapers will I bend it to my will? So I'm a fan total fan and for the price For the for the most of the world 60 bucks. Come on 60 bucks. How can you go wrong? Yeah, really? Yeah, so yeah, if you love it Yeah, if you're joining us again, we're talking with mike delgato the booth junkie Maybe you're familiar with some of his youtube videos about home studio equipment. It's really cool Again, if you got a question throw it in the chat room and we'll we'll throw it to him I got one more question before we take the break though with all the video that you do Has it led to any professional voice work? Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely absolutely People part of the the benefit that I have I've learned from from working on youtube is It's it's as much my marketing as anything I before I started doing this channel I was a voice for another channel That that has since gone on hiatus, but that generated a lot of work for me And then starting to make this make these videos it has generated a lot of work for me because I I get to demonstrate That I know what I'm doing. I don't have to I don't have to say hey, you should hire me because I know what I'm doing Hey, you should hire me because I've got a good voice for you I get to demonstrate that one how my studio sounds exactly in the raw estate how my studio sounds I get to demonstrate that I I know what I know and I sound how I sound and you can see sort of how I am naturally and and hopefully it's uh A voice that you like for your project. I know I'm not right for every project but I've I've gotten a a lot of work a lot of work gets generated just because Because I get to demonstrate and I think that's I think that's I don't know a lot about marketing, but for me that's been a really good marketing aspect for my business is I just make something that I really like And I demonstrate my proficiency my expertise at it and if that resonates with you then possibly you're hire me I I don't I don't cold call. I don't I don't Send emails out about my myself or anything like that I just I try and make the things that I want to make and hopefully it resonates with some people and maybe they'll want to hire me I hope that that's that's good to hear because you know, you put you put a lot of time and effort into it You want to see you know, I mean you enjoy doing it, but you want to see some results from that as well Yeah, all right. Well, we're going to take a quick break again Put it in the chat room if you've got a question for mike delgaudio the uh the booth junkie They ask you why you came up with that name, but uh, we'll talk to him in just a minute Right after this Skittles taste the rainbow. She has fought for those who don't have a voice the national zoo Because sometimes you just need to stroke a llama Instagram Download it and start embarrassing your teenagers today resolve spot and stain Because the dog's gonna drag his butt on the carpet. He just is 400 million dollars That's what the mayor wants you to pay for a new basketball stadium Chickens were made to be fried Sorry, buddy kfc engage the droid army with this lego star wars republic fighter tank What you've never seen a girl kill a troll game stop Hey, i'm the cat meme guy come on, you know, you love cat memes Instagram, what's your thing? Hi, it's j michael collins And these are just a few examples of the first class demos my team and i are producing if you'd like to have something similar Visit jmc voiceover dot com and click on the demo production tab to find out more It's actually paul had said that all righty Hey, we're back here to talk about one of our favorite people somebody who has supported this show You know george, it's all almost been seven years. It'll be seven years in March You know, but Harlan hogan is a great guy But not only is he a great guy and a great voice talent He also has a great website voice over essentials dot com And if you need something for your home studio, he's got it Everything everything that mike delgaudio is talking about tonight if you need it If you go to voiceover essentials dot com you can probably find it there Well, maybe not some of those higher end mics depending on how you buy some of those But all the other things he has plus his signature series products like the vo1a voice optimized for voiceover microphone not a lot of microphones made for voiceover as we were talking about All this stuff is made for makin music But not the harlan hogan vo1a, which is a great mic and it's there It's our our desk mic here at voiceover body shop also He has those great headphones the of the optimized for voiceover Headphones they've got memory foam leather pads on them. They're very isolating. They're really comfortable But most importantly they have very very flat response You're hearing exactly what you record and that's why you have something like that if you need good headphones Those are good and they're not plastic either They're actually made of metal. So they're the best ones you can find for for when you're doing voiceover work But how do you get there? It's really easy All you have to do is go to the bottom of our page that you're watching the show on now if you're not on facebook But then that might make you want to go to our page Go down there to the bottom and you'll see all our sponsors There's a picture there of harlan hogan talking into his porta booth pro Another great product that you can find there you click on that. It'll take you right to voiceover essentials.com and then you can just peruse all the stuff And if it's not something you see in his immediate catalog of specialty products, you can probably find it and Find get it on amazon through voiceover essentials.com. So go over there right now by all of his stuff And pay every last cent you have to harlan hogan because it will be worth it in the long run Thanks for being a sponsor harlan. We just love having you here on voiceover body shop We'll be right back with your questions for mike del gaudio right after this Learn the latest in voiceover technology business a good old-fashioned actor. Hey pa. I really like your suit Where did you get it looks good? This is the obs And we are back we're talking with mike del gaudio the Booth junkie and it's great talking to you mike It's one of the things is is you sound like one of us and because you've been looking at all this equipment But a lot of our listeners and viewers have questions for you leading off With paul stafano who has a multiplicative amount of questions here Uh, he says he says mike. What is the one piece of equipment that really surprised you? The behringer euphoria uhc 404 interface. I expected that to be a dog and it was great. It was great for an interface I think at the time it was like 70 dollars. I was shocked and so that that that interface right off the bat was Was one that was really surprising surprisingly good the preamps were nice and quiet It sounded sounded great. It was effortless to hook up worked great. I use a mac it worked great with my mac I was really surprised that one was uh, that was a very pleasant surprise because I didn't expect to like that one at all Well, I mean a little secret Well, the mics we use on our show in the studio are running through a behringer mixer it's actually an x r 12 r the x air series. It's a digitally controlled mixer, but um, one of the reasons why even some of the less expensive Behringer stuff sounds so great. It's because they acquired mitis Which makes you know made and makes really big high-end consoles and they Trickled down the preamps and some other technologies into these really inexpensive stuff Well, I think that's one of them that that piece you're talking about and yeah, behringer ain't the behringer We used to think of they've come a long way What's your opinion also from paul? What's your opinion on processing For auditions. Do you put a little special sauce on your audition files? No But I don't send them raw either So I don't know if that's special sauce or not, but I I try and for auditions. I try and give them the exact same chain That I that I give them for the final and it's very very light. It's just super light. I I use a noise gate to manage the breath and if I rustle in the booth a little tiny bit of gate to just manage the The in-between luckily, I've got a really low noise floor in the booth So I don't have to worry about you know gating out hiss or anything like that. I So I use a gate. I use them A little bit of a little bit of eq just to make sure in case there's there's traffic right out there out there So I will roll off a little low end. So it's not raw But it it sounds it sounds raw, but I don't like I don't like you know hype it up or anything like that I don't like really compress it or anything like that. I don't normalize it. I just Send it with my my standard chain exactly what you're gonna get Well, the sound you have in that booth sounds like you having a conversation with us Your your mic technique is on the booth is acoustically right and that's all that really matters for that kind of stuff um Paul has another question. He says and I think we'd all ask this Living in Pittsburgh. Do you think you're missing out on large market jobs? Yeah, definitely Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure I am Most of the you know, I have an agent here in town And most of the gigs there, you know, they're regional discovery channeling come into Pittsburgh to look at You know to look at talent for anything like that. So yeah, I'm sure I am Maybe if I had representation in la or new york, I I would um I would get a chance at more of those gigs, but yeah, so I'd say out in this market But that doesn't mean I'm not you know, I'm not earning I'm just you know, it's a little bit of a different hustle It's a little bit of a different grind. I'm and you know, I like to think that my ocean is a little bluer here The competition isn't nearly so stiff or when I'm in auditions And I'm happy doing I'm happy doing radio and tv commercials in the in regional markets, too. So Will that change? Maybe maybe as I as I want to grow and expand my business into into plunge into You know the the redder oceans and in the in the major markets. So, yeah, I'm There's his audio. Here we go. Here we go. He's back. They're like I fat fingered a button and I Thought I was you saying something I wasn't supposed to be saying this is this is an issue with remote Pitching the show. There's a bit of a latency in a lag when I hit buttons. So sorry about that, man Yeah, what were you saying? Don't worry No, so I you know, I probably am missing out on some, uh, you know I don't get I don't get Budweiser coming to offer me offer me gigs. So yeah, I'm sure I'm missing out on some of those Okay, and his last question He had a few there paul, but paul's a good answer. Yeah Uh, do you have plans to make booth junkie a paid channel? If not, what are the plans for the future? A paid channel, uh, that you'd have to pay to watch. No, no, I I don't think so. Um Where I take it from here, I haven't really, you know, I I I just want to expose I just want I don't know grow the audience But no, I it's it does fine. It it does exactly what I want it to do right now. So I don't I don't feel compelled to You know try and get people to subscribe or to You know to tithe themselves to me if they want to make a donation. That's fine. But uh, no right now I plan to keep it just I'm a firm believer in just giving it away. I'm just gonna get I'm gonna keep giving it away If they need to talk to me individually, I'm happy to do like a A The limited coaching that I do you know, I People people ask me to do the same thing. I guess that you that they ask you to do with your specimen cup and it's not really my It's not my strong suit, you know trying to diagnose what people and so I'll leave that for you, Dan. I'll leave that But no, I don't I don't really have plans to like close it or or or anything or anything like that Mike you're not selling anything. That's I mean that's when I watched booth punk I kept watching the videos are going wait a minute. And when is he going to sell something? Yeah, really when is he when is he going to promote his business or show show as a you know affiliate links and blah You're truly not selling anything. You're just out there to share this knowledge. It's just it's really awesome Yeah, the one place the one place that I I confess to making, you know A few extra pennies is uh, you know the first link in the description If there's if the mic I'm talking about or piece of equipment if it's available on amazon I'll send you over there and if I you know if it makes a little bit But no, I just I'm just giving it giving it away That's awesome. Um, this one's from jeff plunk and he says what is your hardware vocal chain? So what are you using in your day-to-day recordings for your voice actors your mic interfaces and such? Yeah, so I do uh for my YouTube videos I try and keep it aside from whatever microphone i'm testing. I try and keep it prosumer. So it goes from here I have a rolls headphone amp here in the booth just so I can hear myself It goes over to my audience id 22 and into reaper Really straightforward. Um And that for that really does serve most of my purposes. Um, I do have George, as you know, I bought an avalon preamp. And so right now you're hearing me through the avalon preamp. So for my My production work I have the the vacuum tube preamp because I like the way it sounds and that's just chained into the into the id 22 And I've got a couple of other preamps that i'm experimenting with that i've That people have recommended to me the people that I trust have recommended For me to to get vintage stuff. I have a a clm dynamics db 400 it's a four channel preamp of which I use one whole channel of it So I have I have one of those that I I recently got. Uh, so i'm i'm experimenting with experimenting with that And I have a db x 286 s Uh that I use from my on my channel from time to time because I really like that from a prosumer perspective It's really affordable. It's a it's a good alternative to something like a cloud lifter or a fed head So, you know in in in that realm, but generally Whatever mic and the id 20 id 22 it has been Has been perfect for really anything anything that I needed it's been perfect. Let me ask you this. Are you plugging your Avalon output into the mic or line input of the id 22 or Are you plugging into the return jack? I hope this isn't a trick question because it goes into the return Hopefully that's not a trick question goes into the ding ding Oh good We'll send you a voice over body shop Uh, uh Charger uh block Yeah, you never have enough of those Uh, they want to only remain Kendrick Mosley who we saw in uh, beyond Atlanta this weekend. Great to see you there trey Uh, Mike, do you use different types of mics depending on the type of session or at least what's your choices on that? Yeah, so, uh I do tend to go between three um Generally my repertoire of microphones has expanded. So I you know, sometimes we're like, I'm not going to try this other thing I will confess that My new york times reading is a lot of times where my mic experiments go Because it ends up unaudible and they and they process it So I I can kind of get away with it there And so a lot of the microphones that I test if you listen to the new york times on saturday morning And if i'm articles you might be hearing one of the one of the recent mics, but generally speaking I have the mkh 416 microphone that I really uh, I like to use And that's one of my favorites because it's super easy from a copy perspective. So it's it can be out of my way Sounds fantastic. It's quiet as a mouse. I get no street noise. My furnace doesn't doesn't interfere with it That's great. Um, if I want to sound Uh for radio commercials for a lot of radio imaging even though that's like a radio imaging mic. I use my uh My tlm 103 I use that one a lot because I love the proximity effect. I can get right up on that mic and I can sound big and huge and authoritative And I use the e100 s uh for quite a bit for narration for acting where I need to sound like a regular person I don't want to boom or I don't want to I I don't want to Sound extra bassier or anything like that. I I will often put the e100 s In the in the mount two those are the three Those are my three go-tos and if that for whatever reason doesn't do it then I go to any of the Wide variety of other mics that I've acquired over the past couple of years All right, we got time for like one maybe two more questions and uh, Deidre holly asks so mike I've talked to folks that have one monitor and some that have two So do I buy a pair of jbls or a single? and why Well, that's an excellent question. I think for voiceover If you're only going to be doing voiceover, I think you can get away with one That's I don't have any reason why you wouldn't be able to I record everything in mono. I don't have a I don't know that There's a reason uh for there to be two but if you are going to Be over a stereo music bed or anything like that I have to because I also listen to music over over my monitors And so I I think two is More natural for me, but I think you can get away with one if you just want to buy one I don't see any reason why you couldn't if you're just doing it to monitor your voice Alrighty, that's that's what I say. Yeah, I gotta squeeze in one last one. Yeah without the potato chips though without the potato chips Sorry, I I needed to eat before the show So rude of me Um, this one's from maxine done. She says thanks for the amazing interview, but this is you know about your production How many hours a week do you spend working on these videos versus doing? You know your voice work. How is this it must be a significant chunk out of your time out of your day The videos take a chunk of time I I will do them on a night that i'm not booked So if I'm not uh, I generally try and do them After the traffic outside has subsided So I record them a lot at night and then I'll edit them usually I I I go back and rewatch them to make sure that there isn't anything horrifying in there And then I'll edit them the next day. So each video probably 15 minute video video might take me three or four hours to do maybe five hours depending Um, so I just squeeze it in I squeeze it in sometimes I'm really super productive on videos and sometimes they might go a couple of weeks I'm proud youtube probably hates me for that because they like consistency. I'm not as consistent as I should be Uh, but I just squeeze it in I squeeze it in whenever I can Alrighty, well, Mike it is I've been looking forward to having you on this was really great It's it's great to see how you do your stuff and it was a lot of fun having you We appreciate honor honor and a privilege. I'm so grateful to be invited onto the channel. It's been a ton of fun Thank you so much. All right. Come out and visit us out here in california on a monday night. We'd love to have you in here Alrighty, thanks, mike Thank you. Alrighty. Thanks, mike. All right. We'll be right back to uh, say goodbye right after this. Don't go anywhere quite yet Your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot 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 Voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books Auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com And we're back got to send out special wishes to again to our great friend pat sweeney give him a pat on the back He's going through some uh some treatment right now and everybody's praying for him and sending him lots of love And we wish him all the best up there in toronto. So Good luck there pat. Um, who's on next on our show? Next week. You want to be here? We've got carlos alis rocky. This guy's been on Everything we thought you thought roger rose was on everything This guy's been on everything too. And uh, you know an elbow bail crowd of people here for that Uh, so make sure you're here for that march 19th dano day. We'll be here to talk about his uh, his course on uh audio books march 26th the lovely and extremely talented and uh, very bright dr rena Dr rena gupta who is a She is a rhino Auto rhino, what uh, when she's an she's an ear nose and throat doctor An otolino laryngologist otolino laryngologist from uh from osborne head neck here in la And uh, we'll be off in april 2nd and then tim freedlander will be out here on uh, april 9th Who are our donors of the week? Yes, i've been queuing them up here. I've got donations from tracy h runnels angiocoffman eric erigoni Stephanie sutherland's that's kind of a new name to me diana birdsall. Hey, we saw her in the airport. I saw her on the airplane Here's one that's a kind of a new one to me royal tartan holdings. Somebody named sandy. Thank you heather masters Jorge and fanta or hey And uh, that's the that seems to be the loop and then we go back to the prior week where some Some folks donate pretty much every week like the angiocoffman and eric erigoni and uh, it's man Super appreciated of you guys to do that. It's really nice. Yeah, uh, you've got a new podcast too. It's real geeky Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, and we do have a new podcast It's me and a few other fellas in the business Um darren robertson who's in stidney australia. He's a producer and engineer andrew peters who's kind of the summer someone of the brainchild behind it He's a voice talent in melbourne area and then robert marshal of sorts elements The four of us together formed the pro audio suite and we talk Pro audio stuff, but there is also the occasional interview and uh mixed in there as well and that's that's purely a podcast That's no video content whatsoever or a pure podcast Alrighty and of course you can access the show logs when the show gets posted on youtube Thanks to jack the goalie if you're doing that we have a podcast It's on everything anywhere. You can get a podcast and I know there's a lot of people that access the show that way We're on here six o'clock pacific time every monday night. You want to be here? Where do they write george? You can join us by emailing the guys At vobs.tv let us know you want to be in the audience and we will let you in if you have the secret knock Yeah, and handshake. It's it's a combination. You have to do both Um also show us your booths Gotta see your booths We want to see the pictures of your studios like we talked at the top of the show So I don't have to hang out in my virtual living room here with george over my shoulder And next week with carlo solace rocky here It's gonna be rocking. So just write to us if you think he can be here thanking our sponsors harlin hogan's voiceover essentials Oh voiceover extra. There you go source elements vo to go go voice actor websites dot com and j michael collins demos for providing an uninterrupted live stream And bandwidth and an uninterrupted line of mimosa's My goodness he had a lot of that stuff lined up at vo atlanta Uh, gotta thank a bunch of people. Uh, thanks to marsy for letting us be out here in the garage Uh, thanks to maxine dunn for letting me sit in the living room and take over part of the house for this Well, that's always great. Uh, our great producer kathryn curran and for finding us great guests like mike dale gaudio and Carl solace rocky next week Uh, sumer lino our amazing floor director pled technical director and jack degolia for the show notes And of course lee pinney for simply being lee pinney And you may have miss jack daniel. Oh possibly. Oh, they're Daniel is doing the uh the rundown That's right. I'm taking care of all your questions. Yeah, thank you everybody. We don't see it. He's not here tonight He's he's burnt here virtually. I'd forgot he was there. That's right doing a great job. Appreciate it All right. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week Uh, thanks again to mike dale gaudio for a great interview and some really cool insight into his world And uh, you know, this isn't an easy business You gotta study you gotta know all the details to make it work and george and i are here to help you out Every week you're on voiceover body shop. So i'm dan lennard And i'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vo BS See you next week guys