 Hey everybody, welcome. It's time for tech talk here on voiceover body shop where we talk about tech And we got some great stuff to talk about tonight like oh we talk about do's and don'ts with using noise gates For example a new mic stand that stands on the floor, but you can shove in your bag Oh, the blue comp is arm watch out for using that with lightweight mics I have a little audacity rant and we talk and we talk a little bit about our philosophy of On voiceover studios along with some great questions on lots of cool stuff about mics and Those sorts of things coming up next here on voiceover body shop tech talk From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a Professional voice 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 voice over body shop tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voice over essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO to go go.com everything you need to be a successful voiceover artist J. 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 All right, and it's time now for tech talk here on voice over body shop and Lots of cool stuff to talk about tonight. I mean you've got a couple of little items to talk about I want to talk a little bit about our home voiceover studio philosophies Okay, throw that in into the wind and let's see what happens with that And of course if you got a question throw it in the chat room and we will get to that We have a couple of questions. We want to get to those in a little bit. So stay tuned for that But to start off with I think one of the things that I hear a lot from people is how do I set a noise gate and Should you set a noise gate? So what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, so noise gates noise gates are are incredibly powerful and incredibly destructive to your voice over it if you can be yeah, how you set them up and Well, you're hearing one right now We use one we use them quite heavily in our processing for this show Because we've got a few mics open in a big open room. We've got an air conditioning system. We've got computers It's it's a live on-air studio. There's it's not a voiceover boost so we're using them quite a lot here tonight and They're very tricky to get set right if you don't have the for example Well, let me tell you what one is first of all Let's define what it's noise gate is noise to gate is something that when the volume of the sound in the recording Drops below a threshold. So whatever that is and you just a certain sound level, right? So if normally you're speaking at minus 12 And you stop speaking in the noise floor is say minus 50 You want to have a threshold somewhere above that so that when the sound drops down towards that The volume can then be controlled by the gate Yeah, and what you mean by below above that means below that Because you were talking in negatives. Yes, we're talking to those of you remember eighth grade man Your voice sound is here your noise is here and the gate is somewhere in between That's the threshold setting. That's the trickiest part because where that somewhere in between needs to be is Extremely critical and what elfin happens is Some of might get it all set up. They'll they might maybe they'll have it on a dbx 286 channel strip Oh, or they'll have it on their new fancy UAD console as a plug-in And the thing is it's very very dependent on the input level So if you set it up so it one day the day you dial it in Your levels are coming in and let's say minus eight or whatever. That's kind of where you're peaking And you set your noise gate Well, guess what if you come back in next another day and record with levels coming in around minus 12 The noise gate is gonna start gating at the wrong time and cutting up the beginning of words It's gonna you're gonna lose the f's and it's gonna be a ball instead of football In fact even tonight, you know Harlan was coming in on zoom and zoom has Trying to zoom's whole thing is trying to make it clear So there's tons of processing on zoom compression and gating and you could hear it doing what it does which is drop-off bits is a word so Be very very conservative using a gate now a gate shouldn't necessarily be an on and off situation either So if your gate is just simply when it drops below the threshold muting the audio Definitely don't want that that is terrible. We want it to drop the volume a certain. Yes. Yes We want to reduce now you can do that with a ratio setting And with a ratio setting do we have doll view working Sue? I don't remember we didn't get to test it before but if you see the twisted wave window give me a high sign if it's working But with a threshold setting you have that control as to when it kicks in but with the ratio setting You have a control as to how much the volume is reduced And so I find that using it conservatively as a way to go like a two-to-one ratio That's what I use. Yeah, it works pretty well generally if I ever need to yes Yeah, now the key is to get as low a noise floor as possible right you want to do everything you can Physically to get your noise floor under minus 50 to minus 60 or so you sure because the quieter It is in the background the more seamless a noise gate will be yeah another thing It's really helpful with a noise gate Is especially if you're working from the road is if your room is very rumbly Or if you live in an apartment or condo Your microphone is probably gonna pick up a lot of rumble so it's really helpful to filter that out first using a high-pass filter That's just an EQ that takes everything below a frequency that you have to set out Men maybe 80 to 100 women maybe 100 130 something in there But then the noise gate doesn't get opened enclosed constantly by that rumble and that really helps to yeah I have found though that a gate is not so important to use at all on Stuff with very high dynamic range video games Where you're yelling yeah, you're yelling and stuff Why because in order to record that stuff without clipping yeah, you have to set the gain a lot lower You know you might have to lower a 10 15 DB well what that does is guess what it just lowered your noise floor 10 to 15 DB whatever you turn the gain down by the noise floor drops by that much so You generally don't even need one I found that when people send me files for that kind of work I just turn off the gate completely because the noise that the mic's picking up now has been reduced so much Right because you've had to reduce the game right never a good thing to have it on a front end Yeah, it's it's always do it and post it you know use any plugins you have or about you're gonna show it Can we do have dov you here? So what I was gonna show you was you know what that threshold setting looks like so obviously it depends on the software You're using so if I record a little bit of audio a little bit of audio 1 2 3 4 5 5 4 3 2 1 give it some silence All right, and I do have some processing on the mic. Well the room tone but if I check this area for the level and I'm just gonna do I don't have my keyboard shortcut setup, but if I go to file analyze I'm gonna see the level of my room tone is Roughly minus 55 db peak so that would mean if I want to reduce that room tone I'm gonna load my I'll put the plug in in the window so you guys can see it because right now it's off the screen Let's go ahead now the one that it comes with the Apple system is called Dynamics processor. It's not showing it, but it's on the other window, which is now hidden behind a drop-down menu I love it This this menu popped down and now you cannot get to it That's some software designed for you right there. Maybe if I wait for a minute. Okay, if I sneak Got it Okay, I think that was still still not seeing it still not seeing it now Well, I think I have to reshare that window cuz cuz the scan converter wants to only show us one window at a time Let's try Nope, I ain't working here. Well, we gave it a shot. We'll fly this in later. Maybe But the point being is that a noise gate is very handy for reducing Low frequency or very low level noise But be very cautious in how you set it and use a more conservative ratio And if you're using low gain for very high output recordings like yelling Animation maybe even some audiobook styles. You don't need it at all. Yeah There you go. All right What's up with air turn now that air turn had this thing where you could it was a foot pedal that you Yeah, it would move your copy and stuff like that. Yeah, they make new stuff now. Yeah, we discovered them And many years ago before man was like at voice 2010 or 12. Yeah I mean, I don't know if anybody out there informally watching this use something called an air turn to read scripts It's basically foot pedals. You can use to change your script pages. I thought it was a cool idea But I'm not a voice actor. So if anybody actually uses it for that, let us know I did when I was doing audiobooks I'm I want one of those. Yeah, and it was a very useful trigger page change page changes and it's silent. No click But I just happen to notice that they make a portable mic stand Who knew? And it's really cool because it folds up really small. It's about 18 inches. So that would fit in most Suitcases some carry-on bags, but it folds up it folds down as a portable stand, but you can actually Fold it out to a full like 54 inches tall. It's pretty close to the size of a full-size mic stand and That's pretty sweet. So if you really want to be able to work from the road I have something it fits in your bag But stands on the floor and still sturdy enough to hold a mic that thing's cool Oh, it's just something to stumble in always best to have it on the floor not on a desk Definitely, this is why this is a really good idea cool in the world of mic arms We talked about the blue compass. We saw it at NAMM Just a little warning about the blue compass arm This thing was made really with the the blue Yeti mic in mind And if you know what the blue Yeti is it looks like our 2d2 and it weighs as much as our 2d2 probably does It's very very heavy microphone And so that arm was designed to hold it if you put lighter weight mics on it like a Senna's or 416 It doesn't want to it tends to just go up in the air and just floats up to the you know It's high setting it does have controls to tighten it down, but you have to tighten them extremely hard It can be difficult so I would recommend putting some kind of an extra weight on it Hmm, I used to know of a little brass weight that was designed specifically for that Maybe you can get some fishing weights Or the ABS that that Harlan makes oh the boom strap. Yeah, it just strap that thing down Couldn't hurt you could just put a strap between the end of the arm and the base creating like a triangle just to To hold it in place so it doesn't float, but just be warned It's a great arm at a great price, but it can do that cool now You have a problem with audacity Audacity so the audacity they mean so well over at audacity No, I mean it's this is a software that's totally free Developed by a community of users and constantly is evolving Adding new features the latest thing that we you know, it's a lot of people were happy about was punch and roll They have the ability now to not start recording on a new track every time you hit record Which is kind of nice. It makes it feel like other DAWs that are out there Um, but something that if this is an open letter to all the developers that happen to be watching this and working audacity Please do not arbitrarily change the name of either plugins or features in the software for Just for arbitrary reasons maybe because you want to have a can more conventional naming System or something like that because what happens is A lot of folks are using the software and then a feature that they were relying on maybe in an audacity chain Is renamed and now every time that chain is loaded that feature High-pass filter being the one i'm thinking of no longer works And basically everybody that has a chain with high-pass filter has a broken chain All because it was simply renamed And you know could have been somebody else was programming at that day. Yeah, I mean that's a thing Audacity is developed by a team of volunteers and if you look at the credits It's a huge it's a list of names and they all work on different things so It's it's really important to be aware of when you're developing software Do not change something that can break something else because you get the domino effect right that happens And the other little thing is they change the name of chains to macros And I was told why that happened and the reason is totally sound. I totally get it, but again Now something that people were look used to looking for is not there anymore And a few other things about where the chains are located has moved things just broken under the hood And it's annoying to me as someone that sets them up for people and trains people because now every piece of training material I've ever done is now No longer accurate and I have to redo everything and I have to reteach everybody how to use this feature So please when you make an awesome software like this and things are working If you're gonna add a new feature just add a new feature. Don't Wrap another one into it or rename the old one. I beg you please Okay, that's my audacity rant. Okay. I wasn't too nasty. Not too ranty I wanted them to listen. I don't want them to feel like I'm an enemy. Oh, okay. Well, that's cool Yeah, I mean, it's an it's an open source thing. I mean, it's not easy to communicate with them It's probably, you know, a bunch of guys who has speak various languages. There is a good facebook group I don't remember who started it, but there's an audacity facebook group. I think it's for vio Specifically but doesn't matter and then one of the developers in there of audacity is in there regularly No, so if you're looking to be able to communicate with somebody, it's a good place to go Okay, good Now we got a few questions coming up But I wanted to briefly touch on something because as you know, George and I are professional consultants and engineers that help you with your home studio That's what we do And it's amazing the stuff that we get is questions. I mean on this show and our inbox is always like, oh great Or we go on social media and there's several different forums and people throw out this stuff And all these guys are experts in one studio their own Every voice is different every room is different and everything responds differently. You really have to think about your own specific home studio and What we try to do when you can you can add to this We try to find out what works best for you. We ask the questions. How are you using this? What are you doing audio books? Are you doing commercials? Are you doing promo? Are you doing just e-learning and corporate narration? All of these factors go into How your studio works and how you're going to set it up? So we ask you these questions because the the answers to those really give us the creative edge To do this because what we do I mean as voice actors we're creators But as the people we are because we're the top two guys in this business to do this We're creative because we have to think everything that we know And rearrange it fits into what they're doing what they're doing Which is you can't create something from nothing creativity is synthesis from everything we know and you're talking to guys here that have Almost 50 years of experience doing this stuff combined not you know, I mean, I've been playing with microphones since I was a kid But what's your general philosophy of when when you're you look at a at a fresh situation or somebody's already set something up And it just sounds like crap Well, I mean I get the equipment lists, right? I find out about their space Are they in a home? Are they in an apartment building? Are they working from a closet? I try to find a little bit about the space they're dealing with and we spend a lot of time focusing on that the space Um, because that is the source of most of the problems. Um, it's much more rare that it's just like a technical flaw of the mic Right like very very rare that mics break or a thin sounding mic Or it's very very rare that just the mic is bad. I mean that it happens But less I maybe once a month is where I go. Oh your mic is screwed up. Go buy a mic. It's so rare So we focus on that very very much focus on the room the room the room sound and the amount of noise And what can be fixed at the source And what can we then fix in software, right? Some people sometimes sometimes people will order a twisted wave stack or chain and when they send me the audio if it if it's just like Okay, I can make it sound okay But if you'd really would just pivot on this and fix a couple little things like your mic placement Right, you know, that's gonna make a big difference. That's a big thing mic placement The distance of the mic the distance from the mic Huge right or huge difference or how loud you talk. Yeah, I mean it's it's amazing how the volume of your voice how much you project Is determined is well, it's how it affects the acoustics in the room Yeah, if you talk in a normal conversational tone It's not going to reverberate as much the louder you get the more you project You know the more you try to sound like an announcer, which a lot of people do, you know, and sometimes you like Settle down. Yeah Yeah, that that affects the acoustics. Yeah, so with me it comes down to the acoustics of the room How much sound is coming in how much reflection there is Mic placement mic technique and setting proper levels Yeah, all that stuff before we even talk about the mic the preamp the converter All the other stuff all that stuff all comes fifth and sixth. Yeah, all right So it must at least sound like we know what we're talking about Uh, if you want to work with either of us, uh, making sure that your home voiceover studio is sounding the way It's supposed to sound like whistle um You can work with me or george if you want to work with george You can work with either of you can work with both of us, but if you want to work with george Where do you go? You can head on over to george the tech dot com and you can schedule time one on one Or you can do flat rate services that you send your files and I send everything back call it virtual engineering Get a sound check if you need to get your audio checked on and all sorts of stuff even designing studio It's all at george the tech dot com and dan also does tech support and helps you out and he's available over at voiceover studio dot com pretty easy to remember Uh, yeah, I've got a contact there. I love talking to you. We uh, you know, I do consults I will teach you how to do it if you're here in the los angeles area I will do a house call nothing better than sniffing around or somebody's apartment or a house saying here's where you go Here's how you do it and getting them physically set up to do what they need to do to get their auditions out or do production work out of their house and It's not hard, but you need to have somebody who really understands a home studio Uh, it's a very different environment and you know, I've been spending years studying this and working with hundreds of people all over the world And uh, mostly I love teaching And getting people to do it as easily as possible for them so they can concentrate I'm being voice actors and not i'm being audio engineers. So try not to buy and you know, give me a buzz Anyway, we got your questions coming up here on voiceover body shop. So Stay tuned or clicked in or whatever you call it on the internet. We'll be right back Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Well, it's that time of the show where we get to talk about our great sponsors source elements Yep, you've heard of them source elements. They make source connect and that's a tool You need to have in your toolbox if you're a voice actor who's you know, really working at home You're making a living now You know, it's starting to go, you know, you're transitioning from from being a part time to full time Maybe you've landed an agent Maybe you're joining the union all these things kind of stuff that says i'm working at a higher level Source connect is definitely something you should have ready to go Um, what's cool with source connect is you don't have to make any investment right now You can get go sign up get go through the hoops of setting it up There's a few things to deal with with using an iLock account You don't need the iLock key, but you have to have the account set up Just a few things to to jump through and get it up and running But once you do just get the demo going you can get a 15 day free trial Once you have it ready to go it's sitting on your machine. It's installed. You know, it works You're comfortable with it Then when the client comes and says you need to have source connect Activate the license right on the spot. You can do it online You can do a buyout license for one fee or you can do a monthly subscription type pay Um subscription means you get ongoing support and upgrades for the entire time you are subscribers So it's a pretty smart way to go Um, anyway, if you want to go check them out and go to source dash elements dot com Sign up the source connect It's the best most solid most reliable and best sounding way to connect your studio To other studios around the world You should give them a try All right, we'll be right back here with tech talk here on voice over body shop. Stay tuned Yep, this is v obs proven anybody can have a show these days Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice 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 rick This is your name rick 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.com. Now if dan will stop waxing this mustache for a minute. We'll get back to the show Fabulous. Well harlan it is always a pleasure to talk to you whether in person or on our show here And uh, thanks for the great deal once again. What's the big deal that you're doing with the uh, the water boats If you order the ported booth Plus 4.0 the new one because we have none of the old ones believe me. I'm like one Uh, you will get free The carry-on travel booth bang You can't beat that deal. All right harlan. Thanks for being with us. Hey, thank you You guys are great. All right, we appreciate you and you and thank you for being our sponsor for all these years May you continue to do so for another eight to ten years? That would be great All right harlan hogan everybody This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv Welcome back to voiceover body shop tech talk And we are talking tech For what the heck because you guys might have questions for us And we'd like to delve right into those and let's go to our first question from when guillere Oh, but I got that right She says like the cheese I it's exactly the spell the cheese Good. All right. Anyway, how do you feel about dedicated electric outlets compared to regular electric outlets? Also Is a high price power conditioner? Does it add value to the signal chain? Thanks guys from greenville, south carolina Hey greenville and people there it's a great question because I think we probably both agree You really need a power conditioner and To really clean make sure the power is clean And power conditioners are all over the map in terms of price and what they actually do Right. Do they protect you in a power surge? Do they have a surge protect most of them most everything has some kind of surge protection, but In terms of a power conditioner I mean I have a story about a power conditioner. I installed one very expensive one for donald fontain many years ago Making oh boy. I hope this gets rid of the buzz i'm hearing Every day when the lights start coming on in his house Only to find out that that $1,500 power conditioner did absolutely nothing Because the source of the noise was actually The dimmers for the electronic dimmers for the house the entire house We're directly behind his mixing console like here's the wall. Here's the mixer. They were right there But behind wood panels. I didn't realize they were there And every day in the afternoon the lights would start coming on in the house as it got dark And the monitors start buzzing more and more and more So it's not a fix all depending on the source of the noise But clean power is always a good thing. I find rarely is it a game changer Now dedicated outlets is a whole different thing like sometimes they call it hospital power, right? If you're in a hospital, you'll see You know a socket on the wall and it's orange And that's how they differentiate the clean circuit. That's not shared with the Refrigerators and the air conditioning system and everything else and traditionally you'd you'd put those in a recording studio also Um for a home studio. I don't know if a home studio needs that kind of stuff I when I when I design a studio from scratch, I will tell them make sure the outlets in the studio Are a dedicated circuit breaker that they're not Plugged in it's not the same circuit as their refrigerator in the kitchen some basic stuff But um generally if you're using a nice simple home studio system with a mic An interface and a computer a good power bar a good power bar is probably really all you need You know, it's not worth over investing if they only knew that all of this stuff this entire studio Except for the lights is running off one outlet But it goes into a power conditioner and and distributed that way and Well, that's important. I mean if if you do have a lot of gear We have a lot of gear way more than a typical studio You really do have to have everything come off one outlet because everything has to be from one point of ground Right. Um that gets that creates all kinds of hum So if you have a computer in another room with you know a mic cord going through a hole in the wall And then you know got something else plugged in at the other end and their own different outlets That's when you really cause problems. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. Keep everything on one plug Home studio gear is not going to blow any circuits. You're not drawing that much power. So yeah, keep it simple. All right next question from ed michael Love the show. Hey, that's awesome. Thanks, man. Uh, thanks for the continued support to the voice over community. You're welcome Uh question. I am looking at upgrading my travel rig. I'm currently using pro tools in the studio Okay, and I'm considering purchasing the apollo twin duo mark 2 For travel My question is will it play nicely with the latest version of adobe audition cc? Um, I've looked at the ua website Doesn't say windows or mac No, it does say it says I'm running a mac book Oh, thank you for reading It says at the end in the park that I'm supposed to keep reading Yeah, I've looked at the ua website about support about supported daws However, audition is not in their list. Um, well, I will I'd be able to track in real time using their unison plugins with no problems Um, is it going to be problems? I'm using a mac book on high ciara Um, yeah, I found that the list of daws a digital audio workstation softwares that they list on the ua website is pretty limited because they're they're a bunch of music and audio engineering people And they're focused on software that's designed for that so I love ua, but I hate that they Give you this impression that their thing is not supported on audition or twisted wave Or audacity or soundforge Like none of those softwares are on the list of approved programs But I can rest assured all of them will work with audacity with i'm sorry with um, apollo They all will work with apollo because I've set up the apollo to work on every one of the daws that are out there at this point So you really should not have any trouble and on mac it's even more trouble-free Because on the mac the apollo works just fine with web browsers chrome ipd tl source connect now Session link all the stuff that runs on chrome works perfectly with the apollo Not so much on the windows side The apollo team kind of punted on the windows drivers. They're not that great But on the mac side, it's it's rock solid I'm not a big fan Of all these plugins that people are using because I get a lot of questions You gotta teach me how to use the plugins fomo. Why fear of missing out? Yeah, there's a lot of buzz about this stuff People are like, I gotta have yeah people aren't getting work because they're using plugins They're getting work because they're good voice actors. Yeah, and their sound is trouble-free as opposed to Futs together to sound better and You know now you you you do the the stacks with people and those are for minor little corrections for maybe a little resonance in a room A slight adjustment for a microphone Correct those sorts of things, but those are things that you can really deal with with technique Um, you know, some people are in a situation where it's like well They have to do this because you live where you choose to live Oh, they do affiliate stuff or the or the absolute traveling and they have to do it now Right no matter what now now now and it's got to be a certain sound for affiliate work Or the big professional guys if you're just doing auditioning All these plugins do not change the way you perform copy guys uh, so stop Looking at this guy. I want to learn how to use this. I want to learn how to use that Fine go play with it, but it's not going to change your voice over career unless you're doing full production And that takes years to learn how to do So Concentrate on your voice over work Yeah, all right. I mean if if it ends up in your arsenal, you couldn't resist Definitely give me a give me a shout out. Yeah, because I I will get it up set up properly for you the first time Um, keep rolling his question. Okay, and she says uh, she loved the thing when we put the way back machine The way back machine when we showed the first episode last week, which was a lot of fun It's like my we've come a long way You know one we're in the same room, which is kind of cool Uh, two we can be in any booth we want as opposed to our you know, your old office and my crappy studio In the basement back in Buffalo But much better and out of focus and stuff But that's here and there she says her mac book air crashes when she has twisted wave open And disconnected her ur 22 solution When in do reboot I was going to say You go to the doctor and say doc when it hurts when I do this and the doc says don't do that So don't do that Why are you doing that? I mean, honestly, you you don't want to unplug an interface That's in the middle of talking to a program like twisted wave. Okay, so it's just generally bad computer hygiene to do that okay, but If you have to do that for some reason it shouldn't it still shouldn't crash Um, the steinberg that happens to be the steinberg ur 22 and I happen to know steinberg has their own sound drivers That could be maybe part of the problem. They may have an updated driver For your system For a mac for a mac. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is one that this one does need a driver for mac Yeah, and we're used to that for windows, but this one There's a mac driver. So go check and see there's a new driver I would do that first because that's well, it's free to click away go to steinberg's website Um, if it's not that then I would say, um Make sure uh, I don't think twisted waves at fault here I don't think but make sure you're on the latest update. It's 1.21.6 or 7 or something like that. There's a mismatch there somewhere something is not quite right I don't know if it's a bad usb port a bad usb cable try a different usb port on your mac book air. There's two on each side Um, yeah, it could be a lot of different things But I would start with the driver and just see if that if that helps also load audacity free program See if that crashes on audacity You know for sure it's not twisted wave you can troubleshoot that way and or try a different interface Like that's good reason to have a mic port pro or some extra have a backup See if that changes it is because if it does then you'll it gives you a good clue as to what it is and get a different brand too Like out the ur 12 is great also, but it's the same driver same brand Get a focus writer mic port pro or some other thing. Yeah, this just in Got an actual question on paper far out man It's on paper Um, I have a friend it's it's from pilar who doesn't want to talk anymore I have a friend who travels with a different mic than the one she uses at home She does eq on the recording to match her home mic. What do you think? Not easy to do You gotta really have you have to really know what it's supposed to sound like Uh, you have to be in the same environment. That's some serious engineering jobs Yeah, yeah, if you don't know how to do it Don't do it. Yeah, that's serious engineering Pilar actually now wants to chime in to tell us about her friend It is a friend. Okay, actually it is So the reason I ask that is because I am trying to find ways to lighten my load. Yeah, and I have So I travel with my Sennheiser. I have a focus, right? Uh a little eye track solo And the first time I traveled because I was really Uh freaked out about the doing something to the Sennheiser So I traveled with the box that the Sennheiser comes in Oh, yeah And the the MacBook Pro and so this the MacBook Air and it was really really heavy So I wrapped it like a baby And I lightened that load Um, but it's the whole thing is still heavy And so I'm trying I was trying to find ways to kind of lessen it. So I thought Well, maybe I could try and the Sennheiser is not heavy Um And I was thinking well, maybe I could use an iPad and use that as a control surface for adobe audition And then maybe I could use I know exactly nothing I'm telling you there's nothing that sound that's easier to use and more productive and just efficient In my opinion than a MacBook Air and the 416 because Everything else is like well, I need this but then this doesn't work or I could use the iPad But then it doesn't run real twisted wave or it runs these ios versions which are annoying to use or Then I can't use a stack or The iPad pro or the iPad weighs a half a pound less than a MacBook Air and I don't have a keyboard Like there's every time I look at it finding ways to like not have a MacBook It just the MacBook just seems to make sense Especially like the the MacBook the 12 the little one the 12 inch is It's really light. Yeah, they're making a lighter audio interface like of the 875 a mic port pro or a mixer face or Something yeah, my port pros are super lightweight. Uh There's not I don't think there's anything smaller and lighter than a mic port pro and 875 are that's a microphone. Yeah That's this microphone over my head. There's another one. That's not a mic port pro Do you know what interface? Oh the assure the sure youtube that's it x2. Yes, that's the one Yeah, the x2u is similar. It's actually a little heavier than the oh really? I mean we're talking Yeah, it's it's not not it's a little bit heavier if it's about the same yeah, and they work the same and they're both great Yeah, both go to 96k. Yeah, why? You know, I said you're recording, you know the berlin symphony or something like that. It might might be useful to um, yeah, no, it's And it's hard to improve on it. I mean, I've seen people say like at an iphone in a taskamp Uh ix So some kind of little plug-in mic, you know a little tiny mic, you know like look at this. It's amazing Right and yeah, that is like the perfect keeping your glove box. I'm in a pinch I can't do anything else But if you're really traveling if you know, you're gonna be doing some work when you're on the road um a 416 into a mic port pro into a macbook or some other laptop is It's very hard to improve on that right stay as consistent as you can to make sure you can match the sound When the ipads finally have a file system Many rant rant mode on The ipad is an amazing piece of gear the ipad pro is really amazing Apparently, it's so powerful. It's as powerful as many desktop computers The ipad pro is an unbelievable piece of gear hindered by a horrible operating system called ios And it's so annoying because it could do so much if the ios 13 comes out or 14 or whatever comes out It has a file system finally Um where you can say Your the files are here. They need to go here not the Way that the ios system works. It's going to be that's going to be killer and I'll be able to finally say iPad microphone. You're good to go. But um, we've only been saying that for eight years I've been waiting since the ipad came out for them to finally do this I think a lot of people are too especially the ipad pro pro means I'm using it for professional use and that means I need to have a file system so When's that coming apple? Next version maybe well, we'll see all right. Oh, that's enough tech talk. That was a lot of good stuff Yeah, that's what this show is about great questions. You and gau are all totally enlightened And we'll be back to enlighten you with some final thoughts right after this This is bill ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv 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 voiceactor websites.com like our name implies voice actor websites.com just does websites for voice actors We believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use You have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change And our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time You can get your voice over website going for as little as 700 dollars So if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voiceactor websites.com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know, what? Hey, if the words accent and dialect make you nervous or not even want to audition for a job Listen to what david h. Lawrence has to say Once again, you can take the class with david for 300 dollars off Go to vo to go go dot com forward slash accents and drop his name in the comments Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voice over career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voice over audition It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com Okay, who are our donors of the week? Alrighty donors of the week. Yeah, I made a ballista right here Um, we've got donations from ant land productions uncle roy shana penny named baird joseph valentine any valentinity, sorry joseph, uh, stephanie sutherland dina bertsall petty gibbons Patty patty does a petty patty patty gibbons amanda fellows george wittem. That's my dad Uh, shelly avaleno voiceovers make shelly. Uh, great st. Shelly this weekend in san francisco. She's she's the life of the party She's goes way back with us. Thomas pinto brine page tremaine mosley philips appear cj ringwalt voiceovers sarah borges michelle blanker Wasn't she the uh Winner of the unicorn. She was she was at v o atlanta and a doctor voice Thank you very much a doctor voice a doctor voice. Yes. That's nathan carlson. I I figured it was dr carlson Hey show us your booths. Yeah Who is this this was uh jim hawthorne or Mike hawthorne mike hawthorne sent it to us In landscape. It's a perfect example of what we look for for the show We want to see what your booths look like and twisted wave. It looks like yeah, no, that's that's Audition now. Yeah, that's audition. He's got the spectral view. Yep. What else is in there and lots of foam Which looks like an iron maiden mackey monitors Uh, I can't quite see the mic, but okay. Cool. Very nice. All right. Once again, you want to work with george You go to george the tech dot com And if you want to work with me go over to home voiceover studio Dot com, but yeah, and we talk to each other every now and again. We dare announce who's on next week We do because well not next week next week, but in two weeks the next Next live show we will have david h. Lawrence the 17th will be joining us And uh, he has lots of cool stuff to talk about He's entertaining guy entertaining great actor a little scary looking. Um, and that's the guys he plays on tv Uh, that's right. Uh, let's see remember we're on on alternate mondays now We'll be on in two weeks, but we'll have tech talk on next week The interview with harlan all this week and that's that's important Uh, if you want to be in our studio like lovely polar here is just write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv And tell us so There she is. Okay, good. Look how comfortable she is. I know Oh All right, uh, we need to thank our sponsors, of course harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Uh Source elements to go go voice actor websites dot com and j michael collins demos All right, also sending us money He did because they like what we like what he does he likes what we do and you guys all love what he does You guys must be telling them You guys must be telling them where you're where they're coming from Because we you know if that's what you're doing. We appreciate it. Yes that that really helps our sponsors stick around I know I just cut a new demo with michael awesome, and it sounds awesome. What kind what type and it's an announcer demo Way coming back to him like you know Well, that's out of your roots. They they keep saying it's out. Well, it's then it's a niche So I might as well try and fill the niche That's a very good point. Yeah, and that was kind of like I think what uh Harlan was talking about jack asked him about yeah You know if you stick around long enough and be good at something All righty We also need to thank the dan m rc lennard foundation for the betterment of live webcasting Our producer kathryn curtain who's out for a little while But you know we're making do for the time being mike marlino on chat room duty I'd get a great job tonight and of course his mom who is our director sue marlino Are doing a great job of making it all perfect tonight And of course lee pennie for being lee pennie. Well, that's gonna do it for us this week uh Join us every monday or whatever you want because you can watch any episode anytime on our facebook page on youtube On just go to our home page and the podcast version and of course, which is now any of you listen on podcast Which is now on spotify we stuck it on there. I haven't even searched yet, but supposedly it's there Okay, look on your fall you wrap up the show and a look and search right all right Well, that's gonna do it for us here on voiceover body shop. Thanks for joining us And uh roar. This isn't an easy business the technical part of it. We want to help it make it. We want to help make it Seamless, so you just hit record because when it sounds good It is good. All right. Have a great week everybody. We'll see you next time here on voiceover body shop I'm dan lennard and i'm george woodham and this is voiceover body shop or vo B s See you later