 Hey there, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 72 Tech talk number 72 All this knowledge shoved into a podcast and webcast every every other week Everything you could possibly want to know about the technology of voiceover We've probably talked about it over and over and still we have new stuff and stored online forever to access on YouTube Yes, a little updates about some equipment I've seen coming down the pipeline most of it's just stuff I've heard about or maybe heard seen a review of that looks cool But just thought I would share it with you there wasn't a whole lot of Revolutionary things just a lot of really interesting new tech. Yeah, but it's just fun to talk about too. It is that's my thing Anyway, time for voiceover body shop tech talk coming right up. Don't go away From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Whidham the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional video studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voiceover body shop Tech talk Voiceover body shop tech talk is brought to you by voiceover essentials calm home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites calm where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes calm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Jay Michael Collins demos when Quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hi there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voiceover body shop or VO BBS Tech tech talk talk tech talk tech talk tech talk and why do we have tech talk because you guys? Apparently can't get enough of it George and I can never get enough of it. We get together. It's like Well about this what about that but it just goes on the great thing about tech is it's always moving That's true But there's a lot of things that never change and we're here to help you sort those that information out So you're not constantly chasing new things that you don't need to worry about that's right But still our phone rings and our our techs go off and our inbox Overflows every week with some of the you know, the same questions You know slight little different variations and the fact of the matter is is You know, we were talking with David H. Lawrence last week and we were talking about how You know, it shouldn't be difficult people are intimidated by their home voiceover studio by all the technology I gotta have this I gotta have that If you talk to the people who actually understand this as opposed to guys who are Musicians big recording studio engineers salespeople salespeople. We won't mention any particular retail outlets out there It's not difficult and it's it's getting the right stuff and learning how to use the simple stuff in a simple way that makes you sound great and Or as I said to somebody in France this week the idea of a home voiceover studio is to make voo sound like voo I hope they got that I They understood it. Okay, fortunately, it was it was half French half English and all that stuff, but it was a fun conversation Anyway If you need help if you want to learn how to do this properly if you already have a home voiceover Studio and you've been recording and you've been doing things in a certain way and perhaps you're not booking as much as you would like Or you're not happy with the sound which is a whole another question that we could we could address You can you can talk to Georgina. I mean, this is this is what we do There are you know, there aren't only a handful of people on the planet that truly understand what it is You're doing where you're doing it otherwise It's people who are like, you know, they they're experts in one studio their own and they everybody's got suggestions You can go on YouTube you can see all this stuff or you could talk to the guys Who actually get what it is that we're doing and keeping it simple So you can press record and do what it is you do and what you've trained to do and that's be a good voice actor Which is a whole mother thing in itself. Mm-hmm, but if you want to work with one of us You can work with George and what do you do you go over to? George the dot tech. That's my home on the web and You can order services through there Soundcheck is probably one of the most popular things that I do I offer and certainly most affordable Just send in your audio follow the instructions and I'll take a listen to your audio and let you know How you're doing? How's the recording quality you're doing and how's your mic placement? I cannot tell you how many times the first issue and the main problem is Simply mic placement. They got everything else sorted out and we tell them to put in the right place and all is well So you never know sometimes it could be the simplest little thing But you won't know unless you send in your audio So get a sound check and if you just need one-on-one support you can get that too On that same website in the VO tech support menu Dan Supplies tech support and a shoulder to cry on as well The demand a few times Yeah, you can find me over at home voiceover studio calm and believe it or not The new website is going to be going up very shortly. We have to the punch Well, I I didn't get really complex. It's just like take this move it here boo this. Yeah, let's update the pictures from 2008 Oh man, I know And you know and rewrite some stuff and and really update it to 2022 and you know We moved the specimen collection cup up top So it'll be easy. You know when you come to home voiceover studio calm and you're trying to figure out how to submit your audio for me The specimen collection cup is right there. You click on that follow the instructions $25. I will analyze your audio and Tell you what's going on in there and you can do that all over at home voiceover studio calm You know and to go back to what we were talking about a second ago The fact of the matter is and I tell people this all the time If you're trying to satisfy your own ears You got to remember you don't hire you and if you're trying to be geeky about this and you're trying to geek yourself out To make yourself sound amazing. You're going to sound amazing to you and you're going to be eating ramen noodles. So That's right or mac and cheese or some of those other things Anyway, it's time for George's weekly tech update and he's got some some voiceover related tech Take it away gadgets gears. What have you? Well, first of all, just get out of the way There's a new macOS update for Monterey if you're if you are running a bleeding edge system like Dan I think Dan you're running Monterey. I am on my MacBook Air because it came with Monterey 12.2 just apparently I mean literally said bug fixes That's really all that really is that there's Safari 15. I think comes with it and it has a security patch Remember the most important updates to ever run on your systems windows or Mac are security updates Always make sure you are up to date with security updates The rest the bug fixes, you know are recommended if you're not having any bugs then maybe Hold off until maybe in a couple of months when they release the next one But anyway, that's that's the only thing I've seen that is relevant in 12.2 is bug fixes There's some gear out there that I've heard some and sort of some of it. I've just heard tell of But I'll run down a few things that look that look pretty interesting First of all is I know we're always Talking about you don't need to travel and do voiceover, but some of you insist on being available Maybe some of you your careers depend on it and others Well, you just go on vacation, but you don't know how to shut your brain down. So you still keep looking for auditions Here's a microphone from road their newest video mic called the video mic go to That looks really promising The thing that's surprising about the package like it's of course, it's small. We knew it'd be small It's basically the very end of this road microphone like the very tip of it That's the whole thing right? That's the whole mic. They've miniaturized it down They call it a shotgun mic It's hard to say if it truly is a shotgun pickup pattern because it's so physically small But it is designed to be directional Of course, it was designed to go on a camera. That was its primary goal But I'll tell you it's such it from what I've heard so far on YouTube videos and things It sounds so good. You could use this as at the very least a travel Voice-over mic, I wouldn't probably make it my primary But it could definitely be a travel voice-over mic because not only does it plug in with the a mini jack into your camera But it also has a USB connection that can plug into PC Mac or iOS so it'll do it'll hook in directly With their little app that comes with it you can adjust a lot of things that you can adjust the microphone gain You can turn on and off zero latency monitoring So if you really really want to hear yourself in your cans You can do that you can plug your headphones right into the side of the little mic and you can hear yourself There's also a high-pass filter. Oh, wow. I think it has two modes like none Low frequency high frequency something like that and something they carried over from their road NTG I thought it was right over here in arms reach. It's not their NTG for they've also added a high boost button So because of what's roads been doing is they making their mic sound on the flat side not hyped up Not bright not sizzly and so if you wanted to give it that hi that shiny condenser Dare I see TLM 103 sort of sound when you press that bright button you'll get more of that kind of a signature anyway $100 it could be the ultimate Leave it in your glove box Microphone yeah, I saw that in my in my email and I you and I were throwing that one back and forth last week It's like I think I'm gonna get one of those Yeah, I mean it even comes with like a proper Suspension mount like a shock mount which is Really and really impressive. I mean for the the value you're getting it's just it's just they keep upping the ante Of what's cake? What's possible in a small package and speaking of which here's a quick look at it because I forgot to do that I meant to do that. Oh, there it is. See how tiny this I mean It's hard to tell from that picture But just imagine that the very last part of this microphone the tip of it and that's the whole thing and That right coach shotgun mark shot man is really really cool. Yeah, very cool Next up on the agenda. Let's take a look Mackie has they've been making studio monitor speakers for quite a while now But they have a new one that I think is kind of interesting for the for the home voiceover desktop workstation That's compelling. We're getting more and more into having big monitors and more than one monitor And it's not leaving a whole lot of room on our desks for any kind of monitor speakers or Studio speakers anymore. So They are making one now. That's called the stealth bar the Mackie CR stealth bar And it's this just very it looks like a little speaker dart like a home theater speaker bar a small one And it's designed to just sit right below your monitor. It's angled. So it points up toward your ears and I'm not looking for anything. That's like theater quality here Just something that will produce the voice that you play back cleanly without any distortion and I hope that's what it does I have not gotten to try this one for myself. So this is just sort of a You know heads up this thing exists alert But it looks very promising if you don't have a monitor speaker of any kind yet And you're looking for something that will play back audio for when you're you've got fatigue your ears are tired You just want to listen up back on something else and you don't have the space or the budget for real Full-size monitors hundred nineteen dollars for this little Stealth bar pretty cool. Cool another piece of cool tech not so relevant to maybe a lot of the voice actors out there But still I had to bring it up because I was just like whoa, this is awesome Road the road VRC 01 Aerocaster lots of casting devices nowadays Aerocaster, yeah It's it's a $300 device that kind of takes the combination of a few different pieces of gear and Mashes them into one. So it's a video switcher that takes video from up to four Mobile devices so that you can just set them up So you have one iPhone for this shot and you can have another one over here for a wide shot Or one for the guest and then it takes all those wirelessly into a little switcher that lets you switch them It also has two proper Balanced microphone preamp inputs with fan and power for actual studio mics And it ties all that in and plugs it into your computer Like and your computer just looks at it as a webcam. So whatever you're running whether it's zoom Stream yard like we're using or something else to stream video It it just shows up as a device. So These this technology has gotten so much better and so much easier to Step up your your capabilities if you're if you are one of us that watch the show Who actually is dabbling in streaming yourself? This is a really really cool piece of gear. I would check into it Well, last little thing is a little reminder because I already had to remind myself that this feature even exists And that's called sidecar The other day I plugged my iPad in I use my iPad as a A sort of now a dedicated mixer controller. It just sits there next to me Running the user interface for The revelator so where I used to have my roadcaster pro I have an iPad sitting there and the other day I had to plug it in and charge it So I plugged it on the lightning cord and all sudden I realized that on my Mac I can now make it another display and this is called sidecar It's been around for I think more than a year But I've just been playing around with it and it's really cool It basically turns your iPad if it doesn't have any other jobs like mine already does it gives it another job and that is to be a secondary tertiary or Quartenary is that a word? Another display that you can extend your desktop So if you've got that thing you always want to be able to see maybe it's your calendar maybe you always want to just know what's going on next or It's something else you want to have access to from your mouse You can slide it over to your iPad like it's another monitor You still use it with your you still use it with your your your mouse your trackpad or whatever you use and it's just another display And it just seems to work, you know as Apple things do they'll be like a feature You didn't realize was there you forgot about it and then one day just like me you stumble on that feature Realize it's there and you go wow they really thought about that. That's so easy So I had hats off to the sidecar feature. I don't know what model iPad you have to have I think it has to be at least an iPad. I want to say five or six So if you have a real old one in the drawer, it may not work. I have an iPad 7 a couple years old I mean you can buy these for probably 200 bucks or less used and It's a really useful little gadget. I got iPads piling up Well, there's there's more uses for them You could have one that's just dedicated to one, you know one task or one screen that just is always there I've got an iPhone on my radio here. That's my music player for all my radio. I love it Yeah, well old meets new right there and what not that all it's in your last generation, but we got new phone I mean the radios are the old part Yeah, well Not not the way I make them They sound like new so cool 1948. Well, that's my tech update And what's your discussion topic of the week? Is it have to do with levels? Yes it has to do with levels because You and I get you know, we get emails all week long and usually it's someone saying They get these little squiggles for waveforms and what's going on, you know So allow me to demonstrate here I got to share my screen here. How do I do that? I hit the share button and share screen and share This piece Alright, can you see that? Here we go. Okay. Can you see audacity here? Not yet. I think it hasn't Taken the shot yet or something like that. Okay. I have to share Okay Screen window this guy share. Oh, there it is. All right So when you're recording a Lot of people just you know, they hit record. I'll use audacity since all you guys are You if you're just starting out and And you get a little tiny waveform like that you guys can probably hardly Yeah, you dropped down a lot at least 20 DV. Yeah Exactly because it's supposed to sound like that. It's supposed to look like that. Why is that? Well, there's a lot of reasons why you're getting low levels. So we'll just stop that Stop sharing. Yeah. No. No, okay. Okay. We're back Why is that and it's usually Something you've done if it's different from the last time you did it and a lot of times it can be a Setting more than anything else. How many times has it been because somebody has a pad? Engaged, you know, and I'll look at it and I'll go. Do you is there a pattern? What mic are you using? sometimes they might be using an 18 2035 which has a high pass or a 10 DB pad on it Other mics to weather see now I was gonna go grab mine But you've beat me to it and if you get that right up to the camera and show people where that button is It's a if you see anything that says 10 DB pad That's the one. That's the 10 DB at the pad right there. If you have something that says 10 DB pad Don't turn it on unless you're a rock star Yeah, I mean the the idea what that does into it I know what it does is it makes your microphone less sensitive by 10 DB of gain Meaning you got a really crank it To do that. Now last, you know, I got I got an email this week from somebody. Let me show you this one because they were using a Share screen Share window share this guy Okay, they were using the AGO three to the AGO three. It's a great unit and it It has a pad on it right there and if you click that in suddenly your microphone is also less sensitive by 10 DB so You've got to pay attention to these things. How many times have we you know, have we worked with somebody and Stop the share stop the share Stop screen. There we go George, where'd you go? I'm here. I'm just trying to fix my other camera. Sorry. Okay. All right Anyway, so I just single shot of me until George figures that out there So the thing is is you've got to look for these little things and I know I know You know, Mark Cashman would call me in the middle of the night You know because I was Back east and it would be like 10 o'clock here or 9 o'clock and of course it'd be midnight What do you want? You know the cleaning lady came and Made sure and and did something and now everything's messed up on my you know, what did what did she do? I'm like, let me look at the settings Yeah, 10 DB pad was engaged the compressor had been changed the dial You know, somebody's dusting and suddenly they're turning the dial and Usually if everything was working and then it's not it's generally Something physical that you've done that you don't realize that you've done pressing the wrong button or So I got your microphone like George just did just so life imitates art here. That's right So yeah, I it if you're if you're really frustrated by that because not that I don't mind hearing from you and saying There's something wrong with my audio. It's usually a simple fix And that's usually what it is. What do you think? Yeah, it's it's It's it's amazing how I've been using photography as an acronym and not an acronym analogy Analogy because that word we are so spoiled by these devices that are so brilliant through computational Photography AI Etc. Etc. Learning engines blah blah blah that these things can take an amazing Photo if you can hold your hands still long enough you can get an amazing photo with an iPhone, right? The there's so much that goes into getting a great photo That same technology we are still way behind with audio recording, you know, I think and I think a lot of folks just don't know That they assume that well if I'm buying the newest might doesn't it just do that for you? And that's a reasonable assumption I think but if you're buying professional gear that plugs in to a professional audio interface it's likely not gonna have those kinds of features and you do have to learn some basics and So don't assume that it's plug-and-play. You can necessarily get a level But you need to know how to make adjustments to those levels. You just it's not complicated Just a little bit of knowledge will get you a long way so Never hesitate to ask someone that you that you really respect or Text like Dan and I to get the right advice who you should respect Well, you must be because you're watching this you're watching us. Yeah, well and we appreciate that respect Yeah, levels are something that we you know, we're always talking about but we're always talking about it because we have to Right because we wouldn't keep mentioning and it's item number three on my on my you know my hierarchy of Good voice over your home studio sound, you know acoustics Mike technique which we've already talked about and number three is setting proper levels and You know if you're if you're not getting enough gain out of your interface and it's a good interface and you've got a good mic it's not the interface in the mic it's something you've set and Remember look at the VU meter again. We used to use this guy. We don't use these anymore, but it's still the same thing Now we do it by by colors Look at the meter on your input always in the green Always in the yellow if you're in audacity into the orange a little bit But if it's just green, it's not loud enough if it's green and yellow. It's probably okay But you got to have a little bit of hard hard modulation in there over minus six up to minus three for it to be the way it's supposed to be and We can't tell you that enough and apparently for the next, you know until we do tech talk number 172 we're gonna keep telling you that because that's the most important thing you got to know at least out of the three You know so it you know no no noise coming in no reflections proper mic technique Setting your levels green yellow with a little bit of red every now and again Already we got a ton of questions tonight. I love it So we're gonna get to those we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back here on voice over body shop with the answers to your questions Right after this don't go away. This is the Latin lover narrator from Jane the Virgin Anthony Mendes And you're enjoying Dan and George on the voice over body shop Voice over essentials comm is happy to announce our VO recording sign winner who had the most creative use for the color codes Benjamin Britain and here's his entry green currently taking a break feel free to wail babble yodel and just get all that noise out Blue currently shaking my head while editing. Well, we need to redo that take red currently embarrassing myself Please no eavesdropping and keep the noise to a minimum yellow talking to a client I'm trying hard to convince them that I'm the one they want to hire for this gig Shh, please purple currently recording with live direction from the client now is definitely not the time to yodel Please wait until the sign is green Congrats, Ben in other news voice over essentials has the equally exciting new version of the fabulous mic port pro 3.0 with a limiter with the next generation of the mic port pro Sentrants raised the bar on portable recording the new mic port pro has a built-in rechargeable battery and records to phones and tablets in addition to laptops and desktop computers with a host of professional features mic port pro is versatile easy to use and travel friendly Get it now at voice over essentials calm Well, it's that time to thank source elements because of their long ongoing support of VOBS and they've been able to do that because of their development of a tool that has stood the test of time and Actually, really its use has been has been cemented as a studio tool as The as we've all been forced into our home studios the last two years Even more than before and that is source connect and this tool is what the pros love to use to bring your audio the voice actor Straight into their systems, which are almost always Gonna be pro tools that it's a plug-in in pro tools that producers can use That doesn't mean you need pro tools You do not need pro tools as a voice actor or talent to use source connect It's a standalone application You install it you get the license set up with the iLock account, which is free And you now have a system that you can use to connect to studios that produces very high sound quality And there's another really cool thing that it does that producers that are learning to use this feature love And that's called the cue manager. It's always recording you in the background As long as the cue manager is open It's keeping a recording of your voice in the in cash or in memory It's actually storing it in a temporary file on your hard drive And at the end of the session the producer can have that Sent to them and now they get the completely unprocessed uncompressed Raw audio right from your computer straight into the pro tools session It's really amazing technology And it's something that I think you should probably be ready to use When your studio gets to that stage of production quality If you're not sure get a sound check from me or drop your audio in the specimen cup for dam We'll let you know if your audio is at that level But you need to have a great sounding studio to to take advantage of it Go over to source dash elements dot com and get your 15 day free trial Get up to speed get comfortable with what it can do And have that on your list of features and sources of features and Accessories and tools On your website. It's going to help you start booking the bigger gigs Anyway, thanks for listening. Let's get back to your questions right after this Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you? This is virgin radio Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies because I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values A leader for california and a voice for america. It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone But it's so much more. It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for rent Oh, it's your mirror when hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's j michael collins. Bet you think i'm gonna try and sell you a demo now, huh? I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's j michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Oops, you caught me. Anyway, are you waxing your mustache again? Always waxing the mustache, you know, this pandemic has been A an absolute disaster for this mustache Oh, man This all the time and you know and it comes out through what going up and down. Yeah Yeah, I think you say signaling for a left turn Exactly. Yeah Now with that red background you look like a Byzantine religious icon Oh I meant to change the tone the break. Thanks for reminding me All righty Well, it is time for george's and I favorite part of this show We wait every two weeks just for the opportunity to answer your questions And we get to start off and the first one comes from tammy anderson who wrote in if you write in that gets priority If you actually write us an email, yeah, we get to start she goes I'm looking to get an additional mic for my female tenor alto voice All right, that's tenor alto All right. Yeah, okay Are women described as tenors? Not that I can remember if you're deep enough. I guess contra alto. All right, whatever I can't even read music. What do I care? Uh, I use a windows 10 pc My current mark mic is a rote nt2 a self noise 8 db. That's fine. Okay considering an at 40 50 self noise 17 db Or a lewitt lct 440 self noise the lewitt, of course has probably one of the lowest of self noise All of those mics the self noise is irrelevant They're all really really quiet and they're they're all great mics Will the self noise be an issue with my noise floor? Not if you're Over driving your mic, I guess. Well, yeah, I mean if your noise of your studio is A problem if your noise at the noise of your studio is loud enough that you can't hear the noise floor of the mic Then you're not worried about the noise Mike you're loaded with the noise of your studio So if your studio is really quiet Then you might hear the difference in noise floor between that the say the 40 50 And the 440 lewitt But that's only if you had the gain Really high like way high on your interface. So it's not likely you're gonna notice the difference The thing is you never talk about why you don't like The rote nt2 a You're you're shopping for mics. Well, we don't know why I mean what is what is the rote nt2 a not doing? That that you need it to do because you know people talk about you know my voice is in this range I'm like well the microphone hears From way down here Way way up here your voice is in a little Window in here the lead 20 Hertz to 20 20,000 Hertz our voice fits in there and all these mics carry that The mics don't differ all that much in the low mid range range They really seem to differ the most in the upper mid range to treble range. That's where They see the character of the different microphones starts to come out the The responses have little some of them have a rising response that have more trouble Some of them have a little bit of a weird curve or a bump in the response but I don't think there's probably anything wrong with the mic you already have Unless there is and we haven't heard it. So we don't know um And you're also planning to get a revelator that i'm the same thing i'm using here And you currently have the forkus right scarlet solo And I have a homemade double walled studio with sound insulation and record with audacity It really comes down to we got to hear it Yeah, you know and again as I said at the top of the show You know if you're trying to satisfy your own ears with all this technology you're saying well, this is what's gonna i'm gonna sound best on You may not know what's gonna what's gonna sound best to you Yeah, so it's important that you let somebody who actually knows what it's supposed to sound like Listen to it and the old whistle whistle What it's supposed to sound like yeah, um, but yeah upgrades from a scarlet to a revelator I don't know if there's a you know, I don't know what scarlet you have the gen three is is really quite good What you're going to gain with the revelator is something you're going to lose, right? So you gain functionality You lose the extremely simple operation of the scarlet, right? You the scarlet has one knob for gain One switch for phantom power one knob for your head, you know, it's got it's very simple The revelator isn't it's it's a lot more complicated to to operate. Um, so that's what you lose Sound quality difference. I don't think you could probably Find a true difference in quality between those Two pieces of gear it's just more More power comes more responsibility I guess it's the best way to put it and the and the more you got the more it can go wrong with it and the more you If you're going to get something with a lot of features you have to understand what those features are And how to use them Otherwise it's a lot of money for stuff. You're never going to use or you're going to use it properly And uh, oh it looks like there's a follow-up the point of the extra mic is really just an extra mic a backup Back up. Um, I I I guess between those two mics since you're picking two very very different mics the 40 50 is a multi pattern Mic the 440 isn't Um I would I would probably pick the cleaner the newer quieter mic of the two. I'd probably pick the lewitt Um, there's so many other mics out there. Yeah 40 50 again multi pattern So it has a whole different set of tools available to you, but do you need them? So I think we need to hear it first. You're all yeah Yes, let's let's hear the difference. And the fact of the matter is is Nobody can tell what mic you're using unless it's a really crappy one. Right. Very exactly unless there's something out of whack Really noisy distorted or Sounds funky. They're not gonna call you out for having a cheap whatever mic it is. They're not exactly exactly Jeff Holman asks last time you guys discussed pixelation on 4k monitors that are too big for a desk You both said you love the 27 inch 4k monitors you have in the 55 inches a little too big Since I have an m1 macbook air and can only add one monitor unless I use sidecar I want to be the biggest I want it to be the biggest it can be without pixelation for came 4k seems like the sweet spot for price. So it was a 32 inch too big for a desk And a little more than arms length. What do you think the sweet spot for size is? Ask your optometrist because we all see differently. It definitely starts there. How's your eyesight and how big is your desk? Yeah, how's your eyesight? I so I'm using a 27 inch screen right in front of me And let's see Yeah, it's about arms length if I put my arms fully out. I can just touch this a little further Mine's more like about a yard. Okay. Yeah, so that's part of it And then also I do recommend a 4k screen absolutely recommend it Because you have a lot more flexibility as to how big you see things so If you're as as you age your eyesight, you know, you need things to be a little larger to make them out sharply You have that ability to scale up and make images larger But if you want to do some something complex if you want to do Some kind of production and you want to see a lot at once A 4k screen will also allow you to do that and now yes, everything on the screen is going to be tiny You can choose to make everything on the screen Very small indeed, but then you can squeeze a lot more onto the screen So it depends on on your eyesight what you're planning to do but I run mine at like actually If you go into the apple menu you go to system preferences you go to displays and then you get um resolution default for display or there's another option scaled And you'll see there's larger text on the left side And there's more space on the other side I've had to take out the loop with the one I when I said like that If you put it on the last to the right setting more space That's where you get to squeeze a lot on the screen, but you have to look at it You got to really get up on it because everything gets super tight Okay, so to answer the question. I think either 27 inch or 32 inch is going to be good for you um go to I guess Best buy for lack of a better idea and look at some monitors and see but i'm using the lg 4k 27 inch screen. I think it was like a 300 ish monitor and it's I think we're using the exact same I'm extremely happy with it. I have an older 1080p hp display, which is one of my original ones That's just because I do a lot of multitasking like during the show. I've got other stuff over here So I do use that display, but if you only have one a 32 inch is probably Awesome, and you know, I think you'll be extremely happy. Yeah, it's working for me All right, you've got the next question from mike max goldberg What are your feelings on base traps in the corners of an eight by six foot ish? Parallel walled booth. Is it necessary? Um, yeah, I think so. That's a that's a relatively small It's a big booth as booth go, but it's still a pretty small room So you likely are going to need some kind of base trapping to control the low end in that room So I would say it's a good idea You could also just go with very thick panels on the walls that have a good low end control four inch thick Rockwool or something like that That will probably do everything you need to do. But if you have a deep deep voice Then you will and make that low end of that booth still you'll still energize the low end of the booth I love the ats acoustics bass traps If you've got a room that big You've got room to sacrifice two corners To these big ats corner bass traps and they work. They really work. I mean they're Those things are an instant fix Of course the question he he says necessary Yeah, we don't know your voice. We haven't heard you hear the booth Yeah, we don't know Are you do is your room ringing with your voice if your voice is up in this register? And that's the deepest you ever get then you're probably not a problem Yeah, but if you're down, well knocked of below that down in the basement Yeah, you're probably gonna ring that room. I go into people's booth all the time I don't have a super deep voice, but I'll go Hmm I'll just keep making noise until I get the room to start ringing, you know And if I can't get the room to ring and resonate That's a really good sounding studio. Yeah, I think that's probably one of the most fun things I think for someone when we'd go do a house call or something and we're we're doing that kind of stuff One two one two one two Okay They're all like looking at us like that and I'm like like I can hear okay There's this ringing here and that sort of thing, you know, and that's that really is the uh, you know, the the ring of truth there Of course, I find that people who who tend to have a really deep voice They may also be over projecting And you know and the louder you talk the more the acoustics of the room come into play Right, so Inside voice use your inside voice when you're doing voice That's the important thing Uh Theodore j medsa from youtube says what audio interface preamp would you guys recommend at about 200 dollars or lower all sorts Uh, there are so many and and as we were saying earlier as we were talking about the uh The personas or the personas revelator the revelator for you all the all these things The more stuff it has the more stuff that you're not going to use Uh, you don't get the equipment for all its features you get the equipment So it does the basics of what you need done And so you don't go hog wild, uh, and at 200 dollars 150 to 200 dollars You got lots of choices. It's the under 150 dollars that you want to avoid Uh, I mean the the focus right scarlet solo is around that price Maybe it's 119 now. It's 119. Yeah, so that one's that one's okay. The gen three is a good one Of the scarlet, right Yeah, all all the scarlets the two i2 the two i4 because unless you're using a midi Why would you go anywhere besides a two i2 or a solo? Uh, but you know, there are a lot of other good ones as well the Steinberg you are the Steinberg you are we were just talking about the the yamaha ago 3 and the ago 6 Some people have had good success with the Audience equipment. I've had mixed success with audience stuff. Um, their sound quality is fantastic The id4 is really really really good for the price. Yeah the The uh, what else am I thinking about the motu another one of those that looks awesome on paper Some people say it's awesome and I've had too many clients with Weird behavior of their motu m3 or m2 or m4 so You know, there's some things I'm not going to recommend not because they have great features or they don't have great features They don't have great sound quality Just that I've had enough people say I had an issue To make me shy away, you know So some i'm not going to recommend because of because of that If you can stretch your budget a little bit the ssl2 Yeah, which is really nice one. 229 usually i've seen them for 200. Yeah A lot of people using those, you know, nice quiet gain of really simple interface So easy to use that's the thing. Yeah, just simple to operate very clear controls very easy to Access. Yeah. Yeah, so we have to call the people that sound logic and Hey, you want to sponsor our show we just gave you a big ad right there Yeah, no all all of those preamps and interfaces between You know 200 and 150 and 200 even up to 220 you can't go wrong you start going more expensive And you're not going to notice the difference You know, you can say I got this really expensive interface, but it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference I have a client who has an apogee symphony desktop. This is a $1,500 It's like a rack mount thing. Isn't it she has spent two weeks locked in You know a source locked in a tech support thread with With apogee and it doesn't work, right? She's outside of the return window with the dealer guitar center won't take it back. She's stuck in this purgatory So it doesn't matter what you paid for at the reputation of the company Sometimes the most complicated high-end of gear is just going to cause pain Yeah, so hours of mind numbing frustration. Yeah All right, you get the tony hoover question. Okay. Um, is that a decoupler from the hook studios on your boom It is indeed. So how do you like it? Well, this one's a this one was a prototype It's actually coming apart a little bit right now. I already did I've had it for a long time Dan and I each had prototypes of them. He was giving how do I like it? Uh, my again if as long as the final version that he has doesn't ever start separating like this Um, I think it's awesome because it's a lot more compact than a big Giant spider shock mount that takes up a lot more space and I just happen to have it So I threw it on my arm boom arm Beating on the boom on there it it's definitely damping things if I tap on the mic itself Versus the arm It definitely absorbs quite a bit of of It definitely absorbs quite a bit of thumping and low frequency noise. So I mean I'd have to say I like it. It works. Yeah, I think that the the the question comes up is How do you have the mic mounted? Uh, and you know, do you have it on a boom stand that is connected to your desk? Or connected to the wall this particular boom arm is connected to the wall Yes, if you bank if you bump into your desk, you don't get any No, you don't get any transmission of noise at all then you're gonna get something on right So I I always tell people look if you're gonna if you're gonna, you know Do something like that and even you know this the shock mount is only as good as where you put the mic stand Uh, because I've seen you know, if you put it on your desk and you've got your computer on your desk Even if it's you know, it still has a mechanical external hard drives or an external hard Oh man, those things calming and vibrating all sorts of stuff. Yeah So anyway, uh, yeah, uh, yeah, it's okay, you know, but Better to get the spider. It's a lot easier to use and you know, let's let's see if has he improved Is he still making those? We don't even know I somebody asked they recognized it knew what it was and knew to ask so either they'd seen it I don't know where you saw it because I don't know where to get it. I guess the hook studios.com is probably where he's still Yeah, we just they just show up in our mailbox somehow and We've known mike french for a long time. He he made prototype products that we got to demonstrate and test out And uh, he's a good guy. We love that. They're still Made as far as we know totally by hand here in los angeles. Yeah, that's kind of cool. Yeah, mike max goldberg How does one go about sending a booth review dry demo? I'm so glad you asked that question because george and I talked about that at the top of the show um We both have places to do that Uh, george has his what do you call yours? soundcheck soundcheck Great name. Uh, I have my specimen collection cup Uh over home voiceover studio dot com. Uh, and you just click on that or over in george's site I charge $25 for an analysis. I will give you a very thorough analysis Of your audio what i'm really listening for Is the acoustics of your room how you're using your mike and are your levels right because if you're thinking about other stuff That's distracting you from what you're supposed to be doing Which is looking at copy. Who are you who you're talking to? You know, how are you talking to them? Why are you talking to them? and you you really want to uh avoid The other problems that you can have noise coming in reflectivity within your booth Those sorts of things i'm picking about the plosives to you know, uh, my placement peter piper picked a pick a pickle pepper As you can see you don't you'll never you'll never hear a plosive out of my mike You see a pop screen here those things just distract you, you know, yeah, mike Mike technique is everything. So we're gonna all those things We're gonna hear when we listen to your sample and give you Give you our thoughts about what you need to change or if you're really on par We'll let you know I mean within five seconds. We'll know we pretty yeah Yeah, we we've listened to thousands and thousands of files and it's like Oh, yeah, we know what's going on without even seeing the room. We know exactly what's going on Okay, you get the the last question from the theodore j mesle All right. Yes. He says uh, um, he has a three by three portable vocal booth from vocal booth to go So that's basically a a tent made out of heavy blanket material On four sides and a roof um work general tips you could give to optimize the sound in audacity What I don't know what you need to optimize So like if if you are in a noisy room because those any of these portable booths don't stop a lot of noise You may still need to apply things like a high pass filter to take out rumble low frequency noise You may have um because of the mic you're using and your particular voice. You may be overly sibilant So maybe you need to reduce some sibilant treble range a little bit Um, maybe you're not a seasoned voice actor So your dynamic range is kind of all over the place and you're getting loud and soft and so a little compression Might be helpful. Um, these are all things that depend on all of the aspects of your studio not just the space But those those portable type booths that are surrounding you on basically all sides Generally do a really really good job of getting rid of the room reverb and the room echo And that kind of stuff they but they'd have to be in a quiet room to use but it has to be quiet. That's right Yeah, so if we hear noise levels and things that you can't fix With your setup in your room, then we'll we'll give you tips and um another thing I do is I make macros they're called they're presets but in On audacity, they call it a macro and I will build a an effects chain that will Try to adjust certain things in your voice not your voice But in the sound quality of your recording To optimize things, but it's something that I do By ear and it's not a formula. It's just 10 000 hours, you know what they say Of of doing this kind of thing, you know, so yeah, it's it's amazing what people don't hear They don't realize it and we see this every time we get we get a sample from somebody Uh, is the low frequency rumble or a fan running somewhere? And the fact of the matter is and I've mentioned this before You probably don't hear it when you're sitting there in your booth because it's always there Yeah, it's just you know George and I were talking about the fact that because we were broadcast professionals and probably set a feedback loop several times in our careers uh We we have what's called a tinnitus Which is that ringing in your ears mine somehow is getting louder And I'm noticing it but for the most part, you know, your brain will say, okay, let's you know Pay attention to something your brain will tune it out for you. Yes So if there's a constant, you know, if there's a rumble that Mostly we don't hear that because it's below the range of our hearing But it shows up on the vu meter and see it very well You know, but but fan noise is generally something you generally won't hear until you stop It's like your refrigerator. You're sitting there having a cup of coffee in your in your kitchen and you're like My fridge make noise and then all of a sudden you hear Yeah, the best is when you lose power, right, right and you realize how quiet it is all of a sudden You realize how many damn things in your house make noise noise Yeah, the refrigerator is a big one The furnace all the little things that are always making little hums buzzes and words when they all go away It's kind of startling. That's what a professional recording studio sounds like inside Imagine that quiet That's what that's why they they spend tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars Trying to get their studios to that point and still having electricity air conditioning Uh in all of the comforts you need to to enjoy your studio. So that's yeah a whole not a level Yeah Well, it's time all the odds used to say you've wasted another perfectly good hour. Um, yeah talking about Click and clack I miss those guys. Yeah, it's uh, you know, we love doing this. We love doing it for you guys and we love, you know, the fact that you you tune in every week and You know, it's it's great to have your questions and it's great to enlighten you And uh, we appreciate that Uh, well, we got a little bit more to talk about Just a little bit. We'll be right back after these messages. Thanks so much for your questions and for watching This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv Hey, it's david h laurence the 17th and we talk a lot in this business about moving forward with our career Getting more information We often don't talk about simply Getting started It can be one of the most immovable objects In in our life getting out of our own way and just simply taking the first step And if you're watching this podcast voiceover body shop For some tips on how to get started in voiceover or to change something about your voiceover career or to increase your knowledge in a certain area Check out vio heroes comms getting started in voiceover If you go to vio heroes comm slash start you'll get all the information Uh, it's really cheap And I give you a lot to get started in the business But you might also learn something if you've been in the voiceover business for a while vio heroes comm slash start That's vio heroes comm slash start In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish They'll try it yourself go with the pros voice actor websites dot com or your vio website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else And we're back I think that voice I think we're we're on the clock here. I think we're right where we should be Anyway, uh, thanks for joining us tonight. Uh, next week another great guest here on the show. Who is it going to be? Why don't you give us some suggestions? Who do you want to hear on the show? Who do you want to see joining us? Eventually we're gonna they're gonna be joining us here back in the studio with all of us here Not wearing masks breathing on each other. Well, maybe Anyway, uh Who are our donors this week? We got quite a few like rob rider patty gibbons greg thomas shana panes and bear Yes, I con productions our good friend martha con don griffith steven chandler Sondra manwheeler robert ledum antlamp productions ogleroy Shelly avaleno thomas pinto brian page george a widom my dad and nathan carlson gram spicer and lee pinney What? Yeah, why I don't know People we appreciate the donations guys. It's we read his name. Anyway, I well, he doesn't have to give us any money Yeah, but he gave us a good donation. 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Harlan hogan's voiceover essentials Voiceover extra source elements v o heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and jmc demos When quality matters our thanks to jeff holman great job in the chat room tonight We had lots of questions and lots of comments and we appreciate you being here and giving us those Sumer lino Almost perfect Almost almost I was the least perfect of the night tonight Ah, you do all right and of course once again li penny for being li penny. Who's actually watching? We love you too. Yeah, we love you. Love you li come on visit us down here Anyway, uh, you know, this is not an easy business voiceover. There's so much you got to know you have to be a good Voice actor and you have to have the technology you have to know how to use it just not over use it But the bottom line is with if you got it set up right if it sounds good It is good. I'm tan Leonard. I'm george widham and this is voiceover body shop or vo B s tech talk talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk Great to see y'all. Thanks for joining us this week. We'll see you next week with another great show Good night, everyone. Hey, mishka