 Hey, guess what? You've tuned in to voiceover body shop tech talk number 81 81 Where is that? There it is 81. All right In case you were wondering about that. Yeah, it's another voiceover Body shop tech talk. We just keep rolling with these I've been going through all of the all the promo things I've been doing for that. It's like God. They just keep adding up tech never stops Industry based around selling tech We'll have to keep talking about it. Most of the time. We're probably gonna be telling you not to buy things Yeah, I think it's mostly what we do. I'm most of the time Anyway, if you've got a question for us on your home voiceover studio tech anything at all We will be happy to answer it throw it in the chat room I know that Jeff Holman is still in there Taking all your questions down and we will get to those in just a little bit What do you got in your update this week? Well, I'll start off with something that none of you will probably buy unless you just had a heck of a good year Um And that is I'll start with a neve 88m. So this is a usb audio interface and Here's the thing. It's $1245 So think of something that looks a heck of a lot like And works a lot like a scarlet 2i2 And you got the neve 88m now I'm I'm you know I'm short selling it a little bit because of course the price is on another scale that we're not accustomed to We'll talk about it But uh, it is it is a really really high high quality audio interface That they want to basically Say look we know the ssl2 is out there We know that you're all getting getting by with scarlet 2i2s and everything But we want you to have a neve preamp in your studio So they wanted to make it accessible and so they've shoved two of their 88 series 88rs series console preamps Into this box. So It just looks like a you know, like I said, it looks like a scarlet, right? It looks like a just a two-channel interface But the quality of the preamps that's quality of the functional switches and pots and knobs and all the things inside the box are Of console like big big console quality I don't know I don't really know who it's for because I think if you're going to spend this much money You probably already have several outboard preamps at this point an avalon or something I don't know don't need but and now we don't have to talk about it because we still have to do the intro to this show We do we do did I get that excited that I went right into the news? Absolutely. It's time for voiceover body shop tech talk right now 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 widows the engineer to the vo stars A 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 lennard 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 vio 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 dot com home of harlin hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites dot com where your vio website isn't a pain in the butt Vio heroes dot com become a hero to your clients with award-winning voice over training jay michael collins demos when quality matters and voice over extra your daily resource for vio success And now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in sherman oaks california Here are the guys Well hello there i'm dan lennard and i'm george widdum and this is voice over body shop or vio bs See now that was nice talk Tech talk no but see if i jump it just a little bit you hear it at the same time see that's my trick just fine Yes, so After now we don't have to even talk about the never thing because you just rambled on about that totally forgot where we were No, no, i got more to say Anyway We're here to help you out with your home voice over studio because You know 20 years ago who had a home voice over studio 10 years ago A lot of people had them for the pandemic changed all that and now everybody has to have one Despite the fact that we've been telling you you needed to have one 10 15 years ago, of course if you just got into voice over You didn't know that but now you do and you should have one Anyway, if you got any questions for us throw it in the chat room We will be able to answer those in our next segment, but we got lots to cover here But you know It's important to remind you why did george and i even do this? Why do we do voice over body shop tech talk? It's to remind you That you know, it's not a lot of guys out there that really understand it now If you're on facebook or linkedin or some of these places and everybody has their little section Yes, i'm an expert on home voice over studios Nobody's been doing it as long as we have we have seen it evolve From you know, all right. I won't go from reel to reel, but we we've seen it evolve from dat to People, you know the in the mailing out that xing's dat tape surround yeah, that xing dat tapes And you know to the the internet age where we could send mp3. You don't realize mp3's Made what we do possible I know we got a question a little later on about formats and and all that kind of stuff But if you don't understand it when you're getting started and people get really intimidated by it because I think it it's computer stuff It's a cassette recorder guys. It's actually much simpler than that Our job stumble into a forum where they get so much Information and suggestions that it's they're just completely overwhelmed. We just want to cut through the noise That's what we're as far over here. Yeah, and we we try to do it not too noisy so If you've got if you've got a problem with your home studio Or if you need to learn how to build one properly or need someone to build it for you Uh, that's what george and I do And you can't do any better than the two of us and I don't say that to toot my own horn Except that that's why we're here. I'm tooting your horn. You can That's right. You two and then that we get off the hook that way. That's right. Exactly. Thank you very much Uh If you want to work with george, all you have to do is go over to uh, george the.tech is my place on the web and uh I too have a new website coming mine will probably be coming in the fall But uh, it's a huge rebuild after having the same website for 12 years But we'll have a lot of hopefully easier to use Content easier to find better organized etc. Um as that site rolls out And uh, you can get a sound check. That's what dan does as well My sound check is called sound check, but dan's is called a specimen Collection cup and his is over at home voiceover studio dot com and now it's on the top of the page So when you go to home voiceover studio dot com, it's right there and for 25 dollars I will analyze your audio if your if your studio is set up and you got your mic and you got your interface and you've set up and In your closet or wherever it is that you're recording And you want to make sure that it is up to snuff that it sounds what it's supposed to sound like Go over to home voiceover studio dot com. See it's actually right there on the top of the page Which way do I wait? Yeah, that's that's right that way bump the mic while you're at it. There it is there it is Yeah, I'm I am so proud of this new website all your questions can be answered there You can contact me there. You can send, you know your audio and I will be thrilled To analyze your audio and talk to anybody that's done that with me. I'm very thorough Making sure that you sound the way you're supposed to sound and that's really important Anyway, let's get into your tech update this week, even though you seem to have drifted into it already But yeah, you'll notice that on the promo from last week that we had no being crumby What was behind us it was the nev 88m usb interface that was i'm like that's 1245 Yes, that is an expensive This is the 1245 dollar usb interface and it it pretty much does what you think it does it has two microphones that go in It's got a a volume controller for headphones. It's got one for speakers That's pretty much it that might remind you of another little cute red box that many of you have in your studio So what are you getting for an extra 1200 bucks? What are you getting? Well, you're getting the spirit of rupert neve Who's probably rolling around in his grave right now as he watches his mic preamps end up in a usb interface I seriously doubt that this was something that they could have ever released until he passed on got in a rest in peace Um, but he's he's one of the most renowned mic preamp designers in the history of audio recording Um, and you're getting his legacy in a little box It also has usb, uh, um usb interface, of course I said that but it can be a standalone mic preamp as well So if you don't want to record through the usb it has in and outs on the back So it can act as just a normal standalone mic preamp as well It also has adat inputs on the back So what does that mean? It means it just gives you some expandability So that means now if you need to branch out into more elaborate production You can plug in eight channels of preamps and turn it into an a 10 channel interface. So it's it's overkill I know but this is what people ask about all the time. Have you heard about the new neve? Um, you know, it's i'm sure it sounds incredible if it's built as well as it should be at this price point It should last for many many years and again Because it can be just powered by usb, but you don't have to use the computer Even if the you know, the digital interface technology evolves beyond this thing in 20 years It will still be a usable mic preamp. You'll still have a neve preamp. So you know, there's something to that Um, moving right along The next thing on my cue, uh, let me scroll around here. Oh, this is just a little sidebar thing My my assistant was noticing that uploading to Google drive or dropbox the usual ways that we might transfer files around was really slow for her And I expected that because she's on a cable modem. So her upload speed is Throttled like 20 megabits per second But then she just she sent me a we transfer link out of the blue and I was like, oh, why we transfer She said I don't know why and I don't know how But the files were able to upload to the we transfer site much faster For her now. I don't know if this was a coincidence. I don't know if it was timing I don't know what happened what magic was but anyway, if you find that sending files over these other methods is really slow for you I guess give we transfer a try. Maybe that will make a difference to you because I don't know again. It doesn't make any sense Your upload speeds are limited by your internet bandwidth at your studio But for whatever reason she said it was much faster So who knows what kind of interesting thing gets going on there? But you might try it if you want a faster way to send files um Another thing that came down the pipeline after uh all the hub hub blue hubba blue hubba blue Of uh nam music trade show there's a lot of companies started releasing new products But these products were are becoming more and more web streaming live casting or what they're generically now calling content creator friendly And this is one of those things. This is the uh frameworks Didn't expect that to get bigger when I clicked on the x expected it to get smaller And i'm trying to shrink it and it ain't happening. I'll click. Oh, that's not an x. That's a get bigger button There we go. Um the frameworks content creation desk mount stand says coming soon Looks pretty nifty. Um, if you are doing more and more and more stuff where you're being directed on camera Well, it's got a built-in light if you want to have your phone at eye level because maybe you read script from it Or you use your phone as your webcam because many of us know the best webcam you own is actually your phone It's got a place for that. It's also got a place for a tablet computer or this looks like you could also hold a script Um an actual printed script or a book. I think it's pretty freaking cool myself I think it's a great looking design and I use gator frameworks products and I have their mic arm right here It's built really really well. Here's the the business end of it. So you can see you can hold scripts It can hold displays It can hold all kinds of stuff and it reminds me. I have a dentist appointment this week It's a bit like that Except probably the dentist version would be 11 000 dollars. Yeah, there is that right So Anyway, I think it's a cool. I love I love rigs like this and 170 bucks is Shockingly affordable for for the amount of features that thing comes with so that's something neat that I've seen coming down the pipe um, another thing is I was just told today that um by Jeff Cohen Who's a regular in my uh, I have I have a clubhouse for clients of george george the tech specifically george that's how I say my name um and Jeff is a regular in there and and he mentioned today about recording into iphone and ipad is easier if you're using apigee meta recorder My problem with recording with ipads and iphone stand is Most of the apps at least twisted wave doesn't have a clear delineation of what you are actually recording Is it recording the usb thing you plugged in? The usb mic you plugged in or is it recording from the mic on the computer? It seems like until you hit record and play it back. You don't know Um, but meta recorder actually does have a prompt It's telling you which input you're recording from Which if you want to rely on recording to an iphone or ipad might be a really helpful thing for you So if you mainly just want to have a great way to capture audio You're not concerned with doing a lot of editing. Maybe you're just going to drop box it to your Desktop for editing later or something Meta recorder looks pretty cool. It has a cool trick up its sleeve too You can record on four phones or four ios devices And it keeps track of I guess some kind of time code So all those files will be in lock sync later automatically when it comes comes time to edit So I thought that was a pretty cool thing. Obviously it's for video production people But it's a cool thing nonetheless. I thought was worth mentioning Thanks again, jeff for mentioning that and lastly and I will not go into gross detail much detail I just got one of these this is if I It's too much light. I need a I need a product camera so you can how about that? There we go This little thing which doesn't look like much at all is a marvel of technology This is called the ear cleaner with camera This is basically an endoscope that you can use yourself at home No, it is not for going internally. It's just for your ears, although I guess it could go in other openings Don't even go there but It is amazing because a fear for a few things one The camera on it is razor sharp crisp like a macro 1080p camera right and it's inside A teeny little tube. It is very small. It is quite amazing. It has a light So obviously you can see where the sun don't shine And it does it really well And it has a little scoop on the end. It lets you extract things that you find Which I did today Let me tell you and what did you find I found more than I bargained for But you really might want to consider this now You got to be really really careful because you are literally sticking a metal object into your ear canal You have to be super careful, but I was blown away with how well it worked. It's even wireless. You don't even have to have a core It's wi-fi video from this to your mobile phone So you have the phone in one hand and you got this thing in the other and you're manipulating it like you're tuning a radio antenna You know and it is the craziest thing And to top it all off $22 amazon prime. How is that even possible? I don't even Understand it's crazy. Anyway, that's that's all I got to say I'm not going to show the video that the app captured of my ear cleaning today But just trust me do it yourself and entertain yourself endlessly and anybody else who finds Extracting things from the human body entertaining and I know there's a lot of you out there Yeah, man who enjoy this and find it very satisfying See nothing more exciting than watching a gallbladder operation It's kind of like doing it is the closest any of you are going to come to operating on your own body It is very very interesting All right, and on that note You're going to talk a little bit about acoustics I'll try to talk a little bit about it. You know seeing as we're talking about Ears you said determining that is a that that is a challenge. How do you Measure or determine what sounds good? Measure who measures? I know you measure you go in with all sorts of stuff. I really I honestly I don't okay good to hear that I use my ears. Yeah, that's what our ears are for the fact of the matter is is George and I know what it's supposed to sound like as we were talking about the top of the show When I go into somebody's Closet or they're like, can you help me set up and I go in there? I like to say I sniff around um You know, I I I did a lot of home a lot of home visits the last couple of weeks And uh was building, you know one person had a great walking closet, but it's totally bare There's no shelves. It's just and it was kind of an odd shape. It was a blank canvas. It was a yes, exactly And uh, you know and they had a lot of Not the prime Uh type of you know, acoustical foam. It was you know the the cheap stuff And and I looked at it and I'm like, all right And I will what I will do is I will talk and I will move in a bunch of different directions And I will listen to what the reflection is And then we set up You know the the the uh the foam we set up all the things that I know Basically should work and then I listen again And I listen for nodes and you a node is basically where you you hear some bass reflex or something that is You know, it doesn't sound like you're outside. Uh, there is there's something that doesn't sound quite right And you look and see where are those things? Do you put a bass trap there? Do you just put some more foam up in that spot? the thing that I find that that generally It will affect the the acoustics more than anything else Aside from getting the foam on the walls and stuff like that or moving blankets or some of the the higher quality stuff is the ceiling And a lot of people don't get that You know, if you've got like an eight foot ceiling and you're five feet tall You got a big echo chamber above you and that has to be treated One of the things that I will do And and george does this as well is we create what's called a cloud Something that lowers the acoustical size of the room and the height of the ceiling without Moving the ceiling, uh, and I've been I've been building more and more of these clouds. They're really easy to do um But what you do is you create a frame that will fit inside the closet or in the room you're in And then you lower it until you find that you have a nice Neutral sound and what is a neutral sound a neutral sound is one without any echo. All you hear is your voice And not anything we're going around. No, right boomy muddiness sound exactly Exactly Right, and it's still a matter of turning and turning your head and going Well, what does it sound like over here and what does it sound like over here? Here's another one What does it sound like when you stand up? And what does it sound like when you sit down and as you stand up? Does that change anything and by doing all those things you find the sweet spot in your particular room for How it's supposed to be set up and even after I'll hang a cloud it's still like All right, where am I going to turn and where does it you know? And you just find this sweet spot where there's nothing coming either way No measurements. It's all done with your ears and what's between your ears, which is your brain Uh, it takes a little bit of experience and that's why it's important to work with somebody who actually knows What it's supposed to sound like which would be me or mr. Whidham who's over there See now sue could change these and I'd be pointing in the right direction And then I'm there now. Yeah, you're you're you're you're over there See now if I just never use my left hand and point to the lot So, yeah Yeah, it it's we generally use our ears and don't have you know, we're not acousticians Is that did I say that right? I think so acoustic Acousticians I'm actually met acousticians. I think it's actually just acoustician. Okay, whatever. Yeah, I've created an entire new ology here That's okay. I love it. Yeah. It's and that's essentially what you do But you also, you know, you're building, you know, some of the voiceover palaces around here But how do you do what what's your what's your method? No, I I guess I've tuned enough for these small spaces that I have some kind of formula formulaic I wouldn't say formulas, but I just have systems that work but The hard part about the ceiling if you're doing it yourself is it can be a little more difficult than just putting things on the wall Right, there's a little bit more if you're going to DIY a ceiling system It's a little obviously it's just a little harder hanging things on a ceiling, right? So, you know, some of the companies do include or do have an additional ceiling mounting kit And that's what you want to look for like a ts acoustics, for example Has an accessory ceiling mounting hardware kit and yes, you could go to the hardware store You could gather all these bits and you could do it or you could just get a kit that has everything in it that you need And will probably make it easier for you like allowing you to help you level it Change the height of it. Um, etc. I just find using very long zip ties It works very well. I just run a big long zip tie loop And hang the panel from that and that lets you find the angle and stuff and I don't find i'm saying i'm hanging a cloud down more than maybe six to 12 inches from the ceiling Rarely more if you have a high ceiling and you're sitting down you can make it lower like dan said you can make it pretty low um, but uh, the biggest problem we have was low ceilings when people are in a Have normally low ceiling space Like a whisper room really anything that has that low ceiling. That's our biggest challenge we need to get you away from that ceiling and uh and sitting down or even Leaning on a stool or something like that might be the best the best thing but dan nailed it when he said there are sweet spots in there You you i'm amazed how good a booth can sound if the mic ends up in that sweet spot Right node that's the that's the tricky part finding that but uh if it works out for your mic placement Boy, it really can sound amazing Yeah, you know and then when i'm when i'm working with people and doing audio analysis I'm like what direction are you facing? You know is there noise coming from a certain direction? in which Like like a motorcycle going by um If you know if if the noise is coming from behind you Your mic is here remember it only picks up from one side Try turning the mic towards the noise And that that can get rid of it I mean there's all sorts of little tricks and stuff like that and those are the things that we can help you with If you don't understand them, we're happy to consult with you and make sure that uh That it sounds the what it's supposed to sound like Anyway, we're going to take a quick break right here and get to your questions Of which are starting to pile up here, which is great If you've got a question throw them in the chat room Jeff Hulman is still in there writing down all your questions and relaying them to us So we can answer them here on voiceover body shop. So don't go away. We'll be right back after this important message Yeah, hi, this is carlo zellers rocky the voice brocco and you're watching voiceover body shop It's travel time and whether you're relaxing on a beach Sweltering in a car or waiting for your group nine to board that already delayed airplane Nothing calms one down like a good read Why not read the best real life story entirely about voiceover from harlan hogan Celebrating his 46 years as a card carrying sag after a member Reflecting the quantum change that has occurred in the way voiceovers are recorded and cast in recent years This updated second edition describes the advantages and disadvantages of auditioning and recording from home studios for clients around the world There's useful advice after every chapter dealing with harlan's journey from terminally shy kid to voiceover legend New and expanded session stories from the trenches how to make professional recordings at home and on the road How to create demos and auditions that win jobs how to market yourself all about agents unions and fees voiceover tales and techniques of a voice actor Autographed and it makes a great present at 1995 only at voiceover essentials.com Everybody it's time for our spot with source elements the creators of source connect I'll tell you the pandemic has come and Well, it keeps going. That's not it's not gone. Oh, let's not fool ourselves And this is really a critical tool for being able to catch those really The big not the low hanging fruit of the business the The high tree the of the voiceover business the best work It really a lot of it is being done on source connect And now it feels like there's a connection between agents and source connect in a way Because they're the ones that tend to be telling folks. Listen the the casting one source connect the production one source connect So get source connect. So if you're not working at the agent level Source connect for you might be something you want to aspire to or even at least Sign up and get a 15 day free trial and practice with it Learn how to use it understand it's the idiosyncrasies of setting it up And be ready add it to your skill set of things that you know how to do you may not need it today You may not need it any year But when you do you're going to be really glad you're familiar with it because it is the Number one way that studios like to record voice actors From afar it works for their workflow. It fits into the production It just makes everything work the way they like to work So check it out head over to source dash elements Dot com And tell them we sent you we appreciate it. Let's get to those tech 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 smartphone But it's so much more. It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs What time is hockey practice? Check out this song. It's the end of the road for ring When hope is lost the i8 from bmw Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish Hey, it's j michael collins. I 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 dan will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv And we're back With tons of questions about home voiceover studios Which is what we talk about Anyway, just adjusting my volume just a little bit making sure it sounds the way it's supposed to sound like Anyway, let's get started here with uh, ali hurley voiceover alchemist Does that mean she changes everything into gold? Well, if she turns her wallet into gold doing voiceover then there we go power to you. All right. Well, you were talking about this you take Uh, she says I have an iLok access online. Can I still get a portable one and can I have both? Who I could do a show on iLok. There are so many weird things about iLok So here's the thing with iLok. They have three places that The license can be stored right one is the computer itself Two is the iLok key which looks like one of these Here's the newest addition of it. It's very small and sleek. This is an iLok key looks exactly like a usb thumb drive It essentially is it just has an encrypted layer that makes it secure that you cannot copy and move The iLok license without their software, right? What the whole point of it is is to make the license transportable between systems But very very secure for the vendor so that source elements Isn't having their license stolen duplicated and spread around the internet. Believe me. This happens a lot to a lot of companies So that's the point of it now. So I said you could put it on your mac. You can put it on the iLok The third way is there's an iLok cloud now and the thing is not so not every application or plugin supports The cloud storage Unfortunately source l source connect does not yet support the cloud version. So You can only really choose to have it in one of two places either the iLok or the computer itself And um, you cannot have it in both at the same time That's the thing you can't just make a dupe of your license a duplicate and have it in both because now you'd be able to Give the license to somebody else So that's how it works. It only can be in one place at any one time And uh, unfortunately the cloud method is not one of them yet I'm sure it will be but it isn't yet Works works for me. I mean I just type it in and It turns on or need my iLok anymore. Yeah, it's licensed to your computer. Right. Yeah, that's exactly how it works Yeah, moving it to another computer It's not that hard. I've had to do it for folks. If you know how to do it. It's well It's easy if you know, well I've got to ask you a five or six times how to do it It takes like two minutes But if you haven't done it once in five years you go, oh my god, how am I gonna do this now? It's not that bad. There's a thing called iLok manager It's automatically installed on your computer when you install source connect. You don't even know you have it But it's there There's a little quirky, you know user interface once you understand it It makes a lot of sense and it lets you move the license From one computer To your license storage area and then another computer you can go grab it and put it back on the other computer It's I know it's annoying, but that's that's how iLok works All right another one. Is this a follow-up? Uh, can I have both? I was told not to stick Oh, here's another question from ali on a different topic altogether. Yeah, you want to read that one? Yeah, sure she says I was told not to stick your foam directly on the walls To allow a bit of space between the foam and the wall Maybe put a thin piece of wood strip on the wall first and stick foam on the wood. Well, that's one way I mean Sticking it on the wall is annoying if you have to ever take it down again Yeah, I mean and it and here's a there's a there's a variable here. Do you rent or do you own? Uh, you know and putting foam on the wall now, there's a number of things you can do now They they suggest you use the spray adhesive which will destroy your wall That's why you would use wood or cardboard or cardboard or something as a batter. Yeah, exactly And you you create a bunch of different panels using the foam using the adhesive And that way you can hang them on the wall Non-destructively as we like little nails or yeah with nails or a thumbtack Or those those 3m command strips which are which are really great You get the really heavy-duty ones though because those you can you know They're they're hooked down with velcro and you pull those off and you just pull the strips and they come off And they don't destroy the wall And it gives you the ability to move the panels around a little bit to make sure that you can You know acoustically set and tune the room the way it's supposed to be So yeah, you don't glue them right to the wall How many times george if we walked into some place where it's like well I gotta move the foam and then it's like you glued it to the wall Yeah, that's what they tell you to do they tell you to buy spray glue or this foam tack adhesive That's like liquid nails or something and when you take the foam down What you get is like these squiggles on the wall where the glue is With the foam that that peels off the back of the foam has got big hairs in it It is it is a mess. Yeah, I learned that lesson a long time ago So that's the reason why we say to put it on something wood or whatever it is First, you know when I first read the question. I was thinking wait, why would you Let's see acoustical reason for doing that. Oh, no, it's not an acoustical thing. It's a it's just a practical That's medic thing. Yeah, absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. No, I you know foam core works great Cardboard you buy a new tv save the cardboard or a refrigerator. Those things are great for making You know your sound panels then, you know, and you can like like I said, you can put them up there And you can move them and this reminds me one time somebody ordered one of those uh oral x Acoustic foam packages, you know, it just came in a big cardboard box right they don't compress their foam Right, they like their foam to be intact and then the box turned into the backer It was enough cardboard that once I cut it no bunch of pieces. It's great. It was included with the box So there there you go. That was value-added. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, really it comes in that big box Why didn't anybody think of that? Anyway, next question from play the voice real kids vo family Why does some clients want wave files a different sampling rate and resolution bit? How big of a difference does it really make? I think that's more of a question of who's on the other end and and you know if The different bit rates the different bit rates and stuff generally has to do with whether they're doing video or audio and stuff like that Because in video generally they like 48k for doing that. Oh for the sample rate. Yeah. Yeah, like video is 48k typically right 44.1 kilohertz is other audio medium. That's right. It came from cds Back in the 80s. That's where those sample rate numbers came from right cds were 44 one Dats and video was 48 and I don't know the reasoning why they went two different ways, but I think it's a geeky thing. Oh, it sounds better. I don't know anybody out there that can tell the difference Unless you're going down to 8,000 or something like that. Yeah, really low sample rates or really low Bit depth. So like if we would do everything at 16 bit, right now, we're encouraging you to go to 24 bit But eight bit you will notice an audible difference immediately. You'll notice there's a lot more noise in the audio and Or you'll sound like you're on the phone Yeah, it sounds pretty it sounds like The crappy samples of music instruments from the 80s. It doesn't sound good. So, uh, yeah That Higher than that though higher than 24 bit 48k Is really unusual and I think that's really going to be for like video game producers who are particularly picky people Particularly picky people and they really want, uh, very high high high bit rates and high sample rates because They're hung up on numbers Right and not I can't hear the freaking once it goes about 44 one I'm telling you you don't you cannot especially on a single track mono voice Yeah, which is a voice right and it's far more dependent on the acoustical signature of the room You're in and your levels than anything else. Yeah, if you're recording a concert piano, okay Oh, yeah, if you're recording a drum kit, okay Huge ranges of frequencies and volumes, but right it's overkill if you're recording, you know yasha hyphids Who I don't even know if he's still alive playing violin Yeah, I mean yeah, we want to get all yeah all every little bit you can So does it make a difference? Yeah, I don't think so. Yeah, no 16 bit 44 one you can get away with it We prefer 24 bit 44 one or 48 kilohertz pretty much across the board these days If you leave your settings at that and record absolutely everything at that setting No worries You can always resample or resave or convert to anything else from there And no one's going to know uh that you started with a different sample rate So don't worry about converting or saving it as another version. They're not going to tell Yeah Now this is an interesting question from jonathan grant who's joining us on youtube. Hey jonathan He says i'm finding that my 416 not his mkh 416 his 416 is very sibilant It's not the mic and it's driving me nuts And it's kind of the mic Yeah, okay, when I mean if yeah, sorry. Sorry. You finished sorry. Okay. Well, we'll discuss when adjusting placement I find myself either off mic or increasing gain due to distance which opens me up to some room ring Okay, well, we got a couple of different things going on in there You've got an acoustical issue if you've got a ring and it also means that you're probably over projecting a little bit Uh, and you know the louder you talk The more the acoustics of the room come into play Yeah, you can really hear the room now. Can't you? Yeah But not yeah, not when you're at the proper distance from the mic and you're using your indoor voice Uh, I find that sibilance You know, it's just me and I in george may have a slightly different take on it Sibilance tends to be from over projecting and over using all of the elements of your mouth Uh, if you if you relax and now either some people that are sibilant Yeah, maybe they just had the shape of their tongue is just a little bit different from everybody else I mean everything's different on everybody So some people can be a little bit sibilant Is it the 416 that makes you sibilant the 416 will pick you up as you exist that's what it does And if you're sibilant, yeah, it's going to pick it up. Well adjusting the mic direction changed that a whole lot I've never found that but george and I agree on how a 416 should be placed Your turn go. Well, this is not a 416, but it's a stand-in for one. It's a load NT It's a visual aid. Yeah visual aids. I'll do it from the side If you if you're speaking with the mic pretty much right down the barrel just slightly off so that you don't pop it This is where you're going to get the most sibilance You're going to get the most everything right? It's going to hear the most mouth The most mouth noises and mouth clicks if you start doing this and bring it up at a higher angle It will still clear clearly pick up your voice, but now the mic isn't pointing inside the mechanism You know the when the when the when the when it's pointing into your mouth It's picking up the mechanism of your voice the jaw movement All the mouth smacks and clicks and and likely the sibilance too. So Starting to rotate the mic upward You're going to get less and less of the pickup of all those things But yeah, it's it's a bright mic, you know It's meant to pick up voice clearly over background noise And cut so that that voice can be heard And so when you compare it to the say a u 87 or more of the flat studio mics, it definitely will Sound seem noticeably more sibilant, but the mic isn't sibilant You are and that's just that we all are we all are to a degree and it takes practice to Tune the sibilance out of your performance, but it can be done and great voice actors Yeah, great voice actors know how to to control that and prevent it from becoming overbearing Yeah, now he says interestingly, I don't have the same issue with the TLM 103 to totally different mic and Now the 103 tends to be A little warmer a little bit. It's a little smoother at the top end Although I find it to be sibilant on other voices So it really has to do with where the bumps and the frequency response of the mic are now, right? So The 103 maybe has brightness at the top end and the 416 more at the upper mid-range and I I just happened to have my 416 oh no way. Yes. Yeah, look at that So you see how the 416 has a pretty broad wide boost at the top end If you have any sibilant issues anywhere in that range Then that mic is going to add three to five db more of that Chances are there's something in that range. You don't want to be louder So thanks. That's really cool to have because the diagram on their site is really tiny Every time I look at it. It's like so tiny. I have no idea why I shove that in my desk there But that's handy. Oh, that's really handy. Show that. Yeah, no the one of threes feel a little smoother a little flatter And just a different mic I mean they in some circumstances they can sound really similar Based on where it's placed a room acoustics and other times as as you're finding out They sound very very different right and one's a large diaphragm Condenser and the other one's a small diaphragm condenser, so but there's the 416 is a totally unique beast It really is. Yeah, this is the closest to a mean. I would say a knockoff of it In terms of sound quality. It's an rf designed mic rf capsules technology Rf meaning that it uses radio frequency to modulate the sound waves I don't know all the technique, but this uses the same technology here. So this is a pretty similar mic but It's also 78 grams it weighs almost nothing. It's kind of bizarre But anyway that if you're gonna hold a mic on a boom pole 16 feet long you want a light mic. Anyway Moving of course, he's not that not that heavy either. No, uh run m George did a not doby audition primer last year Now he's done twisted wave advanced guide to recording external trash I think something got into the message that wasn't supposed to be there, but I like it Yeah, recording recording external trash got it. Okay. Okay. Um, when will george do an advanced guide for adobe audition? Uh already been done in fact dan. You were the guest on it. Yeah Dan and I guessed it dan guessed it on that with me last year um, and it's on the same site if you go to uh, George the dot tech slash Webinars scroll down and you'll see it in the adobe section. We did an advanced one Yeah, no and and we we enjoy doing them. I you know webinars are fun You know, they take preparation and it's teaching a class And doing them on zoom is you know, or however we do them Is it it helps to be interactive with the audience and stuff like that But these are all you know, we do these webinars on on different, you know Dawes to show you that they all sound the same It's it's the workflow more than anything else with most of these packages in these platforms Uh, you know and we find that adobe audition was designed For doing what we do which is voiceover It's why it's called they originally was called sound booth and then they mixed it together with uh with audition which was made for music But you know with the spectrogram and all the stuff in there It really is a wonderful tool for doing voiceover You know it has the right workflow for doing that as opposed to pro tools when people say well pro tools is you know The industry standard Of which we're not talking about the same industry if you're a recording engineer doing a lot of multitrack recording Yeah, pro tools is fabulous for that If you're doing one track, what do you need 10 000 tracks and all the other stuff that it does It's not going to change the way you sound It really isn't and people are like well, I'm buying the most expensive one with all the most expensive stuff Therefore it's going to be better I can tell you that also doesn't work out for computers now I mean, yeah, really the new max are all pretty quiet But I remember people buying these supercharged high-end video editing monster Mac pros mac book pros etc and the fans were making noise like crazy Trying to keep these things cool down pcs too these gamer pcs. Oh, I bought a gamer computer It should be amazing for recording voice over High-end overkill processing gpu etc etc ain't going to make a better recording when the fans can't keep it cool Exactly remember we had the beast here. We had a pc running the show for a while. It had a liquid cooling system I'm like, wow Of course it had a little neon light in it so you can see all the Yeah neon or led but yeah, I think it a leds or something. It looks like a gamer's compute pc Yeah, it was like a frankenstein's lab in there Yeah, there's stuff moving around Yeah, uh, let's see here grace newton you get this one. Oh, man My mic has been getting a buzz But only when the power supply to my mac book air m1 Is plugged into the ac outlet Well any ideas Um, wow, it sounds like you've got some pretty dirty power at your place Um, I don't know what else is plugged in that's the other the other thing is Do you have anything else plugged into your mac through usb or otherwise? That would also be eventually plugged into the wall So if there's multiple ways that power is interconnected to it that can cause it But if you literally have nothing plugged in except your interface To usb and your power to the wall and now you get buzz You've got some pretty dirty, uh power in your home and you might If i'm plugging the power while you record is is irritating to you Um, you might need to get a power conditioner Um, those the ones that are actually true power conditioners that actually have all the filtering and everything inside They're generally going to be 200 dollars minimum And up, um, just a surge suppressor power strips and stuff. Don't cut it You're gonna need something with power conditioning. Um, so that may be helpful to you Um, but there may be something on that circuit like a refrigerator or Something that's making noise, um on that power Circuit I might also suggest because I had this one last week someone was like I got a buzz at my mic I'm like Change to the usb cable Hadn't thought of that Is like, well, I got to do this and I tried that i'm like, have you changed the cable? How did that work out? I solved the problem. Awesome. There you go. Like boom start with the cheap stuff while I was having lunch I'm like, yeah change the usb cable. Oh, okay I love it I mean sometimes the cheapest thing is the is the fix So Dan was a good pose a good point replace cables And everything else before you go buying two three hundred five hundred dollar boxes magic boxes. Oh, yeah, yeah for sure Yeah, do I need a new interface? Well, let's let you know. What's the algorithm of what's the the troubleshoot on this? Okay, what what goes into what? Try this. Okay. Let's is it the microphone unplug the mic Plug in another microphone. You're still getting the buzz. Okay. We know it's not the microphone You know, and if the outlet tester she's talking about is one of those little things with three little lights on the back That tell you whether you've wired it correctly That's not that that's not a test that's going to be helpful to you Grace that's only going to tell you that your electrician Wired the outlet correctly. Yeah, or but that's not going to tell you much about spurious noise rfi Junk on the electrical wiring itself. That's not going to help you there. So yeah A lot of that has to do with the installation on a cable and stuff like that and that's why I was thinking Well, maybe the usb cable is gone. You know, I mean if you look at your the usb cable you power your phone in your car with It's amazing how that gets twisted and burned out really quick. So it could be something something like that She also said she got a mac hyperdrive dock that I got at the same time as my macbook A lot of these docks have power delivery. It's called. So this says on the package PD So if it has that your charger for your macbook doesn't plug into your macbook It plugs into the dock So it goes power into dock dock into mac If you didn't try that try that also and see if that stops the noise or makes it worse Really good luck. Sorry grace. That's frustrating. Yeah Okay, uh douglas voice guy. Great to see you again Which usb interfaces allow you to bypass their internal preamps using another preamp between the mic and the interface Well, see now my question be is why? You know, I I think that you know, I think george will probably agree with me the the reason that you know What's the difference between interfaces? is generally the preamp in it And we find that even you know for 150 bucks you use a uh, you know a scarlet, you know by focus right or anything the yamaha's or the Seeing the brains that steinberg. Thank you. Uh They're preamps are fine. You they're quiet. They they have lots of game the new ones Every generation seems to have a whole lot more game to them. Was it the the new uh, uh The vocaster Yeah, the vocaster audience makes one that they have like 70 db a game Right of quiet game. I mean that if that's anything that we've seen change over the last five six years That's one of the things and if you got a lot of quiet game Uh, you know off off something. It's less than 200 dollars. What else do you need? You know, but why would you do that? But do they do that and generally because I just happen to have My a 2i2 sit in here. See I keep all this stuff handy. Yeah Um, yeah, we'll that and a few other ones. They've all gone into a big box now, but uh If how do you bypass that? You can't the thing is on the scarlet. You can't truly bypass the preamp. It looks like you can because there's a quarter inch jack Yeah, so it looks like a line in but it's still passing through that circuit It it will work And it will work fine You just have to ask yourself is the preamp you're plugging into the scarlet adding anything That the scarlet would take away like is it doing something magical to the sound? That would be lost by going into the scarlet probably not Um, and are you going to hear the difference when you use that magic box that you're plugging in? I just it just depends what you're doing with it. Um to answer your question in a more direct way. Yes They do exist and yes They tend to be much more expensive because um, they're Especially specialty tools You know all these scarlets that are printed in batches of 10,000 or however many they make Are marketed to songwriters and everybody is a songwriter, right? They're made for voiceover and podcasters. Everybody's doing this stuff. So they're selling by the bushel But somebody that wants something that unique and specific is much much less Uh, much much fewer people are buying them So they're just so few of them out there like the the app the Apollo for example Has a way to bypass or disable the preamps completely The apogee stuff I mean, he wants a better existing preamp. So like an avalon, you know an avalon It's not going to change the way you read copy as bow weaver used to say it looks really cool in the rack Do you know what bow weaver records his all of his work through now by the way guys? A 416 plug directly into a scarlet 2i 2 It is true. We have video and audio proof of him doing it But an avalon looks really cool and it's got really big knobs on it and it lights up and I I get it it And you know to to a verified rarefied air of you out there that can hear it then good on you Um, it's the point of avalon preamps is not to add distortion or coloration by the way They're designed to be accurate And that's what the preamp and the focus rights designed to do So it's not going to sound all that different if at all really isn't we've done shootouts and comparisons and on and on It's such as it's it's such there There are 50 different ways to make a bigger sound difference than the preamp One of those is how far away from the mic are you speaking at that particular moment? Exactly. How are you more off axis? How how are you tilting your head? um What's the humidity? This stuff all likely has more of an effect on the sound. It's your dog growling in the preamp Yes, your dog growling at you There's a million things in your home and your studio and your environment that have an influence over the sound More likely audible than the preamp. So anyway, sorry to burst your bubble But we but that's kind of what we've discovered having done this for for a long long time, right? Alrighty Uh Okay, well that's going to do it for all your questions this week the ones we have time for Anyway, thanks for uh for all your questions If you have a question for us by the way, you can write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv And uh with that We can do the you get priority if you write in during the week with a question It goes number one in the queue always always so but we also appreciate people watching the show live and giving us those questions Anyway, thank you for all your questions That will do it for that particular section And we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back to wrap everything up And I can let mishka in the in the room right after this Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Hey there, I'm david h. Lawrence the 17th and With my company vio heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent We guide voiceover Actors along their journey and you may be watching v obs here Uh and not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching you may not even have started yet And we actually specialize in helping you do just that so if you're watching all the stuff going on here on v obs and going I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know but I really want to do this I'd really like to help you. Please go to vio heroes dot com slash start That's vio heroes dot com slash start and you can take our getting started in voiceover class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again vio heroes dot com slash start. 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Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else All righty. Yeah, I love mishki and she's been very clingy lately She was like crawling into my pockets yesterday. I'm not quite sure what because it was father's day. He's like, oh daddy I love you so much anyway Next week on this show Uh, it's gonna be the fourth of july so I think we're just gonna run this one for two weeks So you can have lots of joint chances to watch Go back and review That's right Or we've got this is this is number 81. You can watch all 81 v obs tech talks That's what I mean in case you do the concept. There's a lot. There's a there's a lot there. It just goes Cripes we've been doing this 11 years You know, you can see the change in technology. You can see my my mustache get grayer. It's it's pretty Anyway, uh, who are our donors this week? We have robert ledum Steven chandler kasey clack jenner Sorry, jonathan. You're watching the show and I said your name wrong jonathan grant grant tom pinto Shelly evalino patty gibbons greg thomas a doctor voice antlain productions uncle roy and martha con who I know is out there watching and asking lots of questions tonight as well Uh, hey, uh, go on over to home voiceover studio.com and check out the new website Uh, I mean, it's the same address. It's just you know, it's been updated and actually works now Not that it wasn't working before but now you can find the specimen collection cup at the top If you want to go work with george, you go over to Uh, george the dot tech and check out the webinars page. That's slash Webinars, uh, we've got the twisted wave advanced coming up in just a couple of days june 28th Actually, that's tomorrow if you're watching this played back Almost out of time to catch that one and we do have a 20 off coupon code for any bookings and webinars v obs fan 2022 you can apply at the time of your order. Alrighty. We need to thank our sponsors as well mishka and harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vo heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and and jmc demos Let's see if they mean but that was synced up. Who know? Anyway, our thanks to uh, jeff holman for doing a yeoman's job in the chat rooms tonight and getting us all those questions when Lots of them. We love getting them sumer lino From her office in burbank Directing us from remote Next time we next time after the fourth of july break. I think we're gonna be back in this studio Stranger things to have positive anymore june 11th. I think july 11th. I think 11 I think we're we're gonna get together and we'll make a party at it And we got a good mind a guest who promised us once we went back in the studio He would come so anyway, will there will there be mixed nuts? Uh, if you want them, okay, okay, all right Yeah, I mean, I mean the three of us will be here. It'll be mixed nuts anyway And of course, we need to thank li penny for just li penny that's gonna do it for us this week Running. Yeah, maybe four or five minutes over. Sorry, but that's fine. Uh Look, this is a very difficult business aside from being an entrepreneur and being a great voice actor You gotta have the technology down and that's why we're here to help make sure that your technology is really good And that your ears are nice and clean Anyway, that's gonna do it for us this week. I'm dan lennard and i'm george widham And this is voiceover body shop or vo BS and remember if it sounds good It is good And this is tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk. We've been doing this too long No, we haven't we'll continue doing it. Have a great week everybody later