 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk number 74 Tech talk number 74. How is it? We've done 74 of these and we don't run out of stuff to talk about we just never go in I mean, yeah, I mean there's always gonna be something new to talk about but Well, you've got some you got a few things in your tech talk up or your your tech update Yeah, rather than a whole laundry list of news. I was just gonna give a little update about my revelator IO 24 a new IO 44 that just came out that might replace my IO 24 and a More in-depth demo essentially which I'm using right now the Sentron's Portcaster so show that off and what that's about and who would want that? That's right, you know And I've got something people are always complaining about rumble We're gonna talk about rumbling and how to fix that and we're gonna answer your questions that you're now going to put in our chat Room so we can answer them anything at all with voiceover tech George and I will give you the right answer or at least convince you it's the right answer So stay tuned. 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 Whidham 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 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 voiceover essentials dot com home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone Voice actor websites dot com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes dot com become a hero to your clients with a word winning voiceover training 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 Well hello there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whim and this is voiceover body shop or VO be as Tech talk tech talk now you hit the right button tech talk tech talk All righty. Well, we're here to to talk about home voiceover studios Yeah, and again, you know somebody you know 11 years ago And we're gonna be in our 11th anniversary in just about a month believe it actually in three weeks March 22nd is marks the 11th year. We've been doing this. Wow. Yeah, and someone said who's gonna want to watch a show We're listening to a show about home voiceover studios And well luckily we find other things to talk about too. Well, that's true Fortunately But we're still here still doing it and we still love having you here and we love having your questions If you've got a question about home voiceover studio tech a piece of gear or a problem You're having throw it in the chat room and we will be happy to answer it in just a little while So stay tuned for that In the meantime, I guess if you're just joining us for the first time Boy, you've missed 74 of these or 73 You have a lot of catching up to do And of course our other show where we were interviewing great guests But George and I are home voiceover studio consultants We're the only guys that really do this full time. This is what we do I mean, I'm also a full-time voice actor and stuff and but George is an engineer I mean as the intro says he's a Virginia tech grad I mean, that's gotta be worth something. Isn't it? I have the paper to prove it on the wall I gotta get my my all my sheepskin behind me here, too and if you have a problem with your home voiceover studio or if you have no idea what on earth this involves and you need to talk to somebody who can actually Teach it to you from the ground up so all you have to do is Hit record and be a voice actor. We're the guys to talk to We make it simple. We understand the basics of what it takes to have a home voiceover studio people are so Intimidated by it and it's like it's technology. It's computers You talked to us. It's none of that. Well You know, if you know how to turn your computer on that helps but we're here to teach you how to do it properly and And We do it professionally and if you'd like a consultation with one of us You can talk to us personally and actually have us, you know, if you're in LA we can actually come to your house We love making house call But we can do it wherever you are I have preferred studios in Egypt in the Philippines all sorts of places just over zoom Because we're really good at it. If you want to work with George Where do they go? They head all over to George the dot tech and That's where all my tech support is you can check out the menu on the top of the site Yeah, currently the site is a little bit of a I like to call it a Greek restaurant menu of services There's a lot of there's a lot on there. I had to get up my bazookie now You know those restaurants are made they have like a 15 page menu, right of like what they make We do a lot of stuff If you're not sure what to do when you first get to the site I would recommend you start with one of two things either get a sound check And that's the way you just you just send audio to me And I give you feedback on the audio quality now you're acting and not you're processing but your audio raw audio and You can also really if you've got more than one question you need to answer just sign up and get a consult consultation It's right there on the tech services area. There's studio consultation and tech support click on that in the menu That's where most of you will need to start so we can assess what your needs are and really get a lot of questions Answered right in that first 30 minutes. I mean we make a lot of progress quickly Especially the more prepared you are the more we get done so that's how you work with me But Dan does a similar thing over at home voiceover studio.com and Go on over there. That site is almost ready. Yeah, it's like this close Removing the jealous. I'm just getting started. Yeah, we're rolling Yeah, this the specimen collection cup will be moved to the top so it'll be easy You go you go to home voiceover studio calm and we get oh, there's a specimen collection cup And what people come to me and ask me George. Do you have a specimen collection cup? Yes, but it's not for audio Right Yeah, it reminds a drop box Give me a sample of audio you're gonna click on it's gonna give you very specific instructions of what you know I want to hear and Usually, you know, it's $25 and usually within five to ten seconds I can very quickly determine whether it's got the right stuff or there are issues and Things that you can fix, you know, the fact that you're actually sending a sample means that you have the equipment and if you've got the equipment, that's one of the most important things because Of course having it is not the same as knowing how to use it And that's one of the things that you know that I do is I will teach you how to use it So you will not be intimidated by it. You will love it and go. Oh Record where's the script and do your thing and that's what I like doing so go on over to homeboysoverstudio.com and All your problems will be solved at least when it comes to your voiceover technology So why don't we proceed now What's with your tech update this week? Not a lot of stuff But I think you're probably gonna talk a long time about a couple of things as opposed to a little bit about a lot of things Yeah, a little bit more in depth this this week I thought I would because I got something new and you know, it's nice to Use a product. It's nice to receive products to review that we can really really actually use on the show Not just use for demo, but really put to the test in a real-world situation And that's exactly what I'm doing tonight. So First of all, be real quick. I'll give you a little update on my revelator I am we're talking about the revelator again. I've had issues with the revelator. I started googling You know getting tech support I've reached out for a ticket with personas in the meantime found out that they pushed out another revelator called the IO 44 and The IO 44 seems to be more like the product I'm about to talk about the Sentron's podcaster and That it's still using all that software DSP. It has that fancy mixer on board But now instead of two mic preamps that has one and second channel where it would normally have another mic It's just a line input, but interestingly it also has a headset input So on the front the headphone jack is actually a headset jack Meaning it's TRRS So you could plug in a gamer headset or a lav microphone Set up or even just an Apple Apple headset now I don't know what production scenario would be where I would use this It's just another interesting feature built into this unit and just that the line input on it to alone It's gonna make it a little bit more you but that's the IO 44. It's coming at some point. I haven't gotten a test it yet But if it has a fix for some of the oddities that are happening with my IO 24 If they you know push this new one out with a better firmware, whatever it is I'm game to give it a shot, but in the meantime a Totally different direction on how to create an audio interface mixer recorder phone patch all-in-one device is the sentrance portcaster and Michael Goodman who Dan and I have known of and known really for a really long time because quite a while over 10 years ago He came out with the mic port pro We it's just such a well-loved device because of its sheer simplicity Super portability and sound quality right and it just became a staple in everybody's portable kits I still have at least two of them that are still working and in various locations like depending on what I'm doing But anyway that thing has evolved and turned into new products and eventually he came out with a mixer face Then a mic port pro 2 the mic port pro 3 and now the centreds portcaster, which comes in just the same Basic plain cardboard box Simple cardboard box You know nothing fancy here right nothing all what's fancy here is what's on the inside of these things, but you get a you get a really The original gear came out with a single-sided or two-sided three by five manual This goes a little bit deeper. It actually unfolds. So here's the whole man a couple extra pages there That's the whole manual right there It covers almost everything you need to know But there's still a few little things to unlock and that's what you're gonna learn by using it But anyway, I see if I can pick it up without creating actually interrupting the show There it is so far so good the portcaster so It's got two microphone proper XLR balanced pre-amped and fan and power available microphone inputs That's similar to the mic mixer face But it also has an additional input. It's called the phone input now. It also can just serve as a normal a Normal line input, but it also works as a mix minus Not really legible, but it says that in tiny letters mix minus explain what a mix minus is for those. Yeah, so a mix minus is here's something we're all we're all used to Skype and All and and and these phone conferencing apps that try to remove the loop, right zoom Remove the echo, right? So they're doing all this fancy Signal processing to remove the echo that that's the sound of your voice that goes out and comes back to you If they're set up has speakers, right? But in the pro audio world, we do not like echo cancellation. We don't want anything like that We just want it's pure audio with no funky processing and that's where a mix minus comes in that allows you to send audio out or Actually more accurately receive audio from someone on a phone call or a zoom or whatever and then send your audio back But making sure their audio isn't being sent back to them This is really important for for a clean phone patch type sessions where you want them to hear you And here and then and you hear them, but nothing get mixed together. No echoes things like that So this does that and the the key element is that you need to plug in a headset Device that has a headset jack. So in this case, I'm not using a phone Although that's probably the primary thing most of you would do is plug this into a lightning adapter And plug it into your iPhone or into the if your phone still has a headset jack If you have a phone with a headset jack type it in the comments below Yeah, a razor a flip phone it has an actual head so Jack's iPhone 5 or something This this will plug directly in but most of you will need a lightning adapter so that what that does is now your phone is the actual phone patch and What's that mean? It means you can make calls receive calls hear them in your headset and And they can also hear you through your professional microphone But that also means you could be running zoom on your phone or Skype on your phone And then now that separates the Skype and the zoom feature overhead or complexity or whatever from your workstation so if you're using Especially Windows users are gonna love this because man we have had endless glitching Conflicts etc. Etc for anybody who's trying to use Windows With Adobe audition or something else and they're trying to use zoom at the same time it has been a Nightmare for you guys, and I apologize. I wish I wish I had the ultimate Secret weapon to fix these problems and it as far as I can tell it doesn't exist So the closest thing to that is a forecaster because now your audio pro audio app is the only thing That's using a USB interface And then your built-in headset jack on your laptop can be through This secondary foam patch cable right here or actually on this side right here So it it lets you separate those two worlds out now the thing. It's amazing is I thought well Every time I've tried to hook two cables to the same computer. I get interference You know if you try an analog connection and a digital connection or use there's always seems to be something weird Like do you hear that sometimes Dan like the the USB wine or that just weird or you might get a grounding noise Or something like that, you know like, you know if actually if you touch the the headphone jack on that we're getting that If I touch this Yo, yeah, or if I touch or if I touch the headphone jack No, no, no the the other one that one beam. Yeah, you're getting a buzz when you touch that, right? So this I'm not gonna touch anyone this this eliminates that and also because another reason that helps is because it's self-powered It's running on battery Which is an interesting point to make the fact that it's on battery and it's saying that it's running low It's flashing at me. Ah, so during the next break. I'm gonna be plugging it in but But anyway, this allows you to have that separated audio signal just for communications Zoom and whatever and then your pro audio recording software is gonna feed from the USB And the thing that's even more interesting is it not only does that mix minus But it also allows you to play things back Which is nowadays become extremely common. Can you play that take back with this? You can you it's built in the ability to do that now There's the ability to control the mix of it whether it's in stereo versus mono You can control in your earphones how much of yourself you're hearing versus how much of there is coming back to you All of this can be controlled with these six knobs on the front and with a little bit of practice It's really easy to operate. I've been using it all night and It's been a really good user experience, but all that is amazing, but it also is a recorder So and it records and wait, there's more Yeah, so you stick a micro USB card in this slot right here You can see the power lights flashing saying dude, you're running out of battery And that's the thing this thing needs battery or it needs to be plugged in all the time over here And I didn't find my power cube. I got to go plug it in during the break But it's all built in but you can pop a memory card in hit record and now it's also recording everything Internally and that's huge that means you've got backup all the time real time while you're recording no matter what happens on the computer loss of data Digital glitches whatever wackiness happens on the computer end is not going to be affecting what's going on inside here And I think that's a really great awesome secret weapon. I know a lot of you may never use this But it's just so nice to have that peace of mind It also has a high-pass filter and Limiters on both inputs so anybody who's used to having that feature on the mic port pro 2 the mixer face So the mic port pro 3 that's here as well So if I really hit my input hard, you'll actually see a blue light light up. I see that hey now Hey, man, I even clipped a little bit right there That blue light says you're hitting the limiter. I don't know if you can tell I'm hearing a hitting a limiter I don't know if it sounds like I'm hitting a limiter But it says I'm hitting a limiter so Anyway, that's that's a real quick overview of that porcaster There's more to unpack but it's it's it's a very impressive device for its size I think at the $500 US retail price. It's an interesting sweet spot. It's a lot more than a scarlet It's a same as an Apollo solo, but it doesn't require any Control panels no software no firmware updates none of that crap. It just it just works like out of the box It's all soft. It's all it's all hardware. It's physical knobs. It's mix. It's I Love that it just there's just none of the monkey business that it comes with the Apollo console or any of those control panels and I I think that's really Pretty awesome. I love the feeling of hardware that just works the way it was designed to come out of the box Yeah, so those of us that came out of radio are used to that sort of thing I mean what you were describing with the mix minus this is basically like broadcast Which is what it's designed for it's designed for podcasting, which is a workflow You know for broadcasting as opposed to voice over which is hit record do your thing and that sort of thing It's a podcasters tool that also does voiceover type production really well, too, right? Yeah, especially if you're you're doing things remotely Yeah, and and the and the mix minus is what we used to refer to in voice in in radio as you know the Q Channel You know I get it and and I know this is totally dating myself now. I'm getting an echo too Yeah unplugged that yep. Yep. Yep It's still doing it Yeah, well if you want you're gonna queue up a record, which is why I was going to date myself You know you put the needle on the record and you'd have that in the Q Channel while you were listening to some other song and I think the batteries going on that George the battery did dial nothing. Ah Doesn't doesn't take much to fool me but You know I'm gonna talk about something I'm gonna give you a chance to get the the power block for that in a second But are you hearing a little bit of a electrical? Oh, I'm hearing lots of that. Yeah, see now Make sure you want to charge these things before you seven straight I mean, it's a happy accident because I want to demonstrate if you try to charge this unit from the same computer That you're using for the audio and everything else. This is what you're gonna hear So you cannot charge it from your USB hub on your desk like I'm trying to you need a separate power supply So I'm gonna switch that out in just a second. Okay, go while you continue your Yes, well, I was talking about queuing up records and you know You could go Get the record queued up and you'll see DJs do this too and you know in clubs not that I've been in a club in the last 20 years Or more Okay, and now it's gone. I switched to the built-in USB. Ah, well, there you go I'm not using the the phone patch connection anymore. It's purely digital all USB. And is it clean? Well, it's it's only coming from over here. Oh Okay, so I'm and not from over there. I am panned hard left right now. Yes. I turn this knob right here And there you are You can mix it from stereo to mono by a knob on the front of the unit so fun with but is it clean still? Yeah, now it's clouds great. Oh, okay. Well, that's good to know So you can charge it on the same USB bus on the same hub While it's being used for a nut UI use another port for Recording so that's a great. That's great to know. That's good to know you can charge it While it's being used noise free. Just don't use the headset cable on this The the phone cable the TRS on the same computer. That's one too many connections The same computer so just use one of these it makes things so much easier. It sure is simple. Yeah It's this is this is not a simple device but it's it's a Goldilocks between Going the software way where everything's on a screen with a touch screen and all this stuff and The simplicity of a scarlet. It's kind of like right right in the middle between Alrighty, well, I'm I'm gonna let you go find a power block while I talk about what I'm gonna talk about here for a second Okay, well, okay, we've we've talked about this before I think But George was mentioning, you know on that particular device that there is a high-pass filter and I get I get a lot of audio from people, you know in my my specimen collection cup and If it's in a home studio if it's done in a closet or You know or a you know like a PVC booth with moving blankets There's something that is constant in People's audio and that is low frequency rumble. You can't necessarily hear it I mean you can hear like the fan from your furnace if you're for your air conditioner if you're close to something like that but When you're when you're recording That sound is is in there and you will see it on the meter and we want to keep our noise floor Like under minus 60 and something like that is going to Raise your noise floor even though you can't hear it, but I'm gonna demonstrate something Because I can We're I'm going to share my screen here. Let me remember how to do this in Streamyard any noise coming from me now that I'm plugged into a not power you not Thing okay good share screen. I'm going to share This screen and then I'm going Okay, very good Just this okay. Are we just seeing my my audition screen here? I'm seeing the audition window floating over your other. It's we see your desktop. Okay. All right Rumble is easy to find you know in audacity you can find it very easily. It's always at the it's down here and You can see there's a scale over here that shows us The frequencies that our voice is at and a spectrogram, you know, you know, you'll find this in adobe audition and in Rx7 The reason these things exist is so you can see things that you can't necessarily see When you're just looking at a waveform. I mean, I mean if you look at the waveform Yeah, you can you can see the rumble You know over here where because it's you know, there's a squiggle in line that line should be absolutely flat but if you use the spectrogram and What the spectrogram is because a lot of you are staring at this right now going what on earth is that it is a graphic representation of the the the difference in volume in different frequencies So are the human voice exists essentially between all we'll say 80 Hertz and About 10,000 Hertz, you know, some people a little higher than that But our voice really does not exist below 80 Hertz the rumble that we see and if I play this Not that over here You can see in the VU meter that the noise floor is well above minus 45 Let me go back there. I mean if I just highlight that and play that You can see in the meter above that it's about minus 45 way too loud So we're talking about a high-pass filter. What is a high-pass filter? It's generally it's really really simple It's called eq. So you go into your effects and you get the graphic equalizer Oh, that's right. You got an audacity. You got to highlight everything So I'm going to highlight everything here And then I'm going to go into effects and then I'm going to go into graphic eq And as you can see I have it set like this all the time Since your voice does not exist under 80 Hertz, especially women's voices, which you really started about a hundred Hertz You can cut off all the frequencies below that and tail it off a little bit at a hundred here And then all you have to watch what happens to that little red line Underneath at the bottom of the spectrogram when I click okay suddenly It's not there anymore. And if I hit play and you look at the output level here Suddenly the noise floor is well below minus 60 and that's how you get rid of rumble Now if you're if you don't have a spectrogram if you're just you know If you're not in audacity and all you're looking at is this you'll now see That over here that this line is now much flatter and if I played again again look at the The meter is not showing us any noise floor so it's an inaudible noise floor that you're that you're trying to get rid of and Using eq. It's nothing sophisticated. It's simply what it is stop sharing screen It's amazing how often that is just the primary issue in a sample like that. Oh, yeah If they say I have a TLM 103 I almost expect there to be rumble unless they Happen to have an interface a mic preamp that has that high-pass filter switch like this porcaster I can turn that on internally and Preemptively remove a lot of that so without a defecting voice at all exactly Alrighty well, we got a pile of questions out there. Oh my gosh I mean it just they just keep piling in we like to see that so we're gonna have a flash round of answer the questions Right after we take this break on voiceover body shop tech talk. Don't go away This is Arianna Ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Whidham vOBS.TV Spring is coming and despite what major league baseball decides to do it's high time You got your authentic VO baseball cap Top quality fabric and embroidery with an infinitely adjustable strap tells the world just what it is that you do do voiceover essentials VO gear baseball caps are 100% cotton chino twill garment washed Unstructured caps manufactured by style master and feature sewn eyelets Pre-curved visor and a metal adjustable tri-glide buckle on the adjustable strap Available in black with their exclusive VO voice bubble design embroidered in red and white on the front and a bright red as Heard on TV logo on the back side show the world or at least the people in your town what your profession is They're always a great conversation starter voiceover essentials VO baseball caps get yours exclusively at voiceover essentials comm Hey, I wanted to tell you guys about source connectors I'm typing a text to my girlfriend I'll let you know how important source connect is to your Studio life if you're a professional voice actor Who shouldn't get source connect first of all? I would say if you are still using like a USB microphone If you even have like a basic studio at home and say a closet But you're in an apartment building and you've got sound of neighbors that you're often finding yourself working around If you find yourself stopping waiting for the dog to stop parking or the noise from the neighbors or noise from your own home Then you may not be ready for source connect source connect means that you to have a tool like that Your studio is has quiet on demand. That means when this time of that session comes The clients are waiting listening into you recording. They're being recreated being recorded by a studio Somewhere else in another city halfway around the world sometimes That whatever they hear from your mic is exactly what that microphone hears and that is The good and the bad so if you're going to get source connect be studio be have a studio That's ready to work on demand that you can produce quality professional audio on demand and That's something you might want to talk to Dan and I about let's make sure you're ready to go And then when we give you the green light when we feel like you've made the investment and found a place to Record you're ready to go with source connect and you're ready to enter the big leagues because it is used by Productions all over the place because for the producers that record and engineer your sessions It saves them time the audio goes directly into the Pro Tools timeline on their studio and they're Be able to work and turn around things quickly and They're able to get client approval on the fly of whatever. That's just been recorded And that's huge. Anyway, if you want to get a demo head over to source dash elements calm You can get a 15-day free trial there and give it a try for yourself. Let them know that we sent you and Thank you source elements for your support. Let's get out of these commercials and get to this huge list of questions Well, hello there, I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big-voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat This is virgin radio. Well, okay. We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies cuz 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 red 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 I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email. It's J. Michael at jmc voiceover dot com Now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute, we'll get back to the show Before time began there was VOBS dot TV Watch or else Oh, you caught me command right there. Yeah, boy better listen we got lots of questions here and And lots of answers which is why questions are so good Why don't we start off this humongous list of great questions right now one from Terry briscoe He says he says, okay, I'll be switching over from a USB mic to XLR Any advice on how to make the transition smooth and to how do you find your ideal IQ not your IQ my IQ is already ideal the interesting I was I was I produced a podcast for some folks and they had a an actress on Who was talking about how she's also a voice actress and was telling people how to set up their home studio and she's like Well, you need one of those Cable the musician cable with the three things in it Mission cable Like if you're gonna have people are gonna talk about home voiceover studios to other actors Send them our way that would be a lot easier because you'll never find a musicians cable to me a musicians cable would just be a G string Anyway any advice on how to make the transition smooth You know USB mics, you know George It some of them you can set the levels on them from the actual device itself and others you have to set it from inside your software The most important thing because item number three on my you know, what makes good audio is setting proper input levels and You have to learn, you know as we say always in the green always in the yellow and With an occasional flash of red or I say if you're in the green or little lean Yellow let it mellow. That's right So but you should be seeing both of those So learn to use your meters and that's probably the only transition you really have to worry about when you're using an actual interface If you're going from USB mic to interface Get a really simple one to operate so you're not adding a ton more options and features that you're not familiar with right? scarlets are great Steinberg you are 12 you are 22 We're we always skip a few brands, but there's others audio the persona stuff the audio box I I oh it's called the I oh one or I yeah something There's a bunch of those simple to channel or even one channel interfaces that that's the direction to go for you And then microphone wise, you know, we've talked a million times about the Harlan Hogan VO1 a that's a great starter mic It's a great pro mic to be honest really if you want to save a little bit of dough I have got an old-fashioned audio technique at 30 35 here. It's been replaced with a 20 35 $150 still that mic is still only $150 in it Every time I hear it it blows my mind that it costs that little so you don't need a big investment Don't don't over complicate it. Yeah yours doesn't yours isn't the head isn't bent on yours like it is on mine We both have one of those somehow managed not to drop it too, but Those things are made to hammer nails Yeah And finding EQ that is well that is the part that is the Golden years part that's that it takes a while to get the skills together to have the engineering Chops to know how to use EQ to tune not only just use it, but to hear the subtle differences But Dan, I mean would you say just start with a simple what they call a graphic EQ? Which is one day and was just demonstrating Yeah, I wish I was showing you sliders and just start going from frequency to frequency to see what it does up and down Yeah, especially up start by going up because you'll really hear that frequency boost and you do that for a few Five ten years and you know Finally you finally figure it out Eventually memorize all those frequencies start figuring out where to move what it's just and that's just a basic place to start But that does take quite a long time to tune your ears for that Yeah, and an EQ is not something you really want to make you know drastic changes with your audio Yeah, the thing is is the idea is not to sound great The idea is to sound like you which we say all the time and when you're starting to play with EQ and try and maybe make your voice a little deeper or something like that to me that's intellectually dishonest You are who you are you get hired for your ability to read copy Not for your production ability or your technical skills as long as it's there's no background noise There's no reflection as long as you're not popping your peas Popping peas. What do you mean by popping peas? I like have getting plosives You'll notice I have no pop screen and there are no plosives because Proper my technique which is I remember to number three is setting your levels right So if you get all those things right Generally, you're not gonna need to change anything in the EQ except maybe using a high-pass filter And if you do the little tiny changes that George is really good at and adjusting to get the sound you know to make adjustments for the room not so much for your voice and You know, but there are some people that know how to use it really well And they're doing promo and stuff like that for an e-learning thing. You don't really need to be using a lot So anyway, Jeff Holman's got a question here Type in building while he wanted us to see it. That's right. You go for it Jeff says I found my old moran's receiver cleaning out my closet I used to hook up my turntable and taped back to it back in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up It is basically a huge paperweight now or Can it be used for anything practical these days? You know, there aren't audio files who find that some of those 70s moran's receivers are still desirable That they just do what they do really well that there's some purity to the analog circuitry That it's still really a great piece of High-fi equipment so if you have room in your home to set it up on a table or a shelving unit And have that hooked up to a pair of some decent two-way speakers You might still enjoy listening to a record on that thing because it it can sound great Other than that it you know in a studio situation Again, you could use it with a pair of decent quality speakers and have that be your monitors But I probably wouldn't recommend it It's probably too much too much going on there. Yeah, now I I picked up an old Yamaha receiver At a garage sale sort of my dad meets his guy one like a month ago. Yeah, I mean people are like throwing them out I'm like, okay fine. I'll take it away. Yeah, and what I've done is I have It's the music system in my studio not my monitoring system I use Yamaha H2 studio monitors, but when I'm listening to me when I want to really listen to music I'll use that it also is the audio for the TV in here and we found that if you're sitting in here watching Jeopardy It sounds amazing on a But my music system is is my old You know RCA radios back here and I and I listen to you know streaming music on that and you know It goes to two different radios so it's in stereo But an old an old receiver if it's still if both channels are still working and you can still Listen to the radio or streaming music on it. They're great. You know, they have a nice sound to them You know anyone's about it. Yeah, you know, especially old ones with tubes tubes are great for listening to music not for voiceover Grace Newton asks I'm upgrading my shock mount meaning I'm getting a I'm getting one period Anyone's any anyone's to avoid and or recommendations Shock mounts, you know, they're not expensive They haven't been different sizes for different microphones, you know, there's this one that they came with the the road mic You know, who makes this one? This is called the oh I can't remember who makes that but maybe road makes it right in the shock. Yeah on this one That's the right coat right coat. I mean they're making their own in-house. They probably licensed it from yeah, right coat But that is a right coat shock. Yeah shock mounts are important You know, it it isolates the mic from your noise The best way to isolate from a lot of noise is to make sure your mic isn't mounted on your desk You know that can be a problem So don't do that make sure it's either floor mounted or mounted to the wall But not to desk where your computer is But you know, they're they're simple ones I mean there's the one that comes with the Harlan Hogan one that you know You just squeeze these two things and the mic, you know comes loose And most mics will you know, most good mics will come with their own shock mount So but you can go to Guitar Center or one of those places or on Amazon type in shock mount and Generally, they're all pretty good. I like the right coat design the lot They're called they call it a liar Because they they don't elast they don't have elastics, right? So the elastics don't start sagging and right. It's like a it's like a hard sort of a plastic material But they don't wear out. I like that nice Good to know the cable for this thing's gonna come eventually Talking to the people at Sweetwater and they're like yeah, they should probably ship the cable for that mic with the mic But road didn't do that. Yeah, isn't it just a normal usb cable? No, it's a it's a usb-c to lightning Oh that cable. Yeah I mean, it'll it'll work. You know usb-c to usb-c But it's it's a special lightning cable that is not the charging cable. It is an auxiliary cable How about the camera adapter does it work with that work? Well, it's supposed to work with the camera adapter, but my camera doesn't have any power to it. So Oh, okay, that's not a self-powered one. Got it. Anyway, uh, there was a second part of that question and It's about uh from from uh grace. Oh damn What do you always say about performing better to get better equipment? Rather than getting better equipment to perform better or was that however you said will you please reiterate that? Okay, here's the original quote that I've been using for about 10 years You don't Get great equipment to get work. You work to get good equipment and you know learn how to use the stuff that you have To the best of your ability And then when you upgrade to something else, then you get to see why Something's more expensive or anything like that, but we're not about getting expensive stuff We're about keeping things simple And if you get your environment right and do all the things that we tell you You know having a great microphone is fine in dandy But as george was saying you have a tlm 103 and you're in your closet You're going to hear everything else going on in your house. So More sensitive the mic the more you're going to have other other problems. So don't go hog wild on a microphone Just don't buy a cheap one So that's the actual quote You don't buy great equipment to get work You'll work to get great equipment because if you're working they're going to hire you no matter why Right. Yep. All right. Dave g's got a question your turn. All right. Oh a question this one under Quote if it sounds good, it is good, right out of curiosity. I bought a tlm 103 clone How do you know? Yeah? How do you know? I recorded some auditions sent them out and it booked a few A nice space helps a lot But still it says more about the space than the mic And the technique Yeah, I have to agree with that completely We're still pounding it into you guys that the acoustics of the space your mic technique All of that has a lot more to do with that Great recording quality you hear than which mic that they the actor is actually using But a tlm 103 clone i'm very curious To know more about that company who made it and is it truly a clone Or is it just a mic that just happens to sound somewhat like a tlm 103 Good question. Yeah. Yeah, the 103. It's a great mic. I had one for a long time, but you know it really does You know it reveals everything it's a noemen for crying out loud You know, you can hear people skateboarding outside as a studio mic for For great super low noise high accuracy recording We don't often have that in a home So it's hard to get a great sound and really take advantage of that's of its quality It's $1,200 price tag. You know, it's it's tough to get every ounce out of that one Yeah All righty, uh jahoris black Asks hey, george. Can you show the position of the webcam? You mentioned that it sits lower So it gives you better eye line for zoom sessions. This is from jahoris black. That's part number one answer that one. Okay Um, I let me see if I can make this work. So the easiest way to show the position of your webcam Is to use another webcam to show And it happens to be working at the moment. So I will do this. So I'll put this back here. This is my pov Wow, this is a this webcam has a sharp picture and a horrible color It's it's It's just the colors wacko in this thing. Anyway So right now I've got it right here my my proper the one I use for the show It's really hard to see I see it but it's right between we trust you Yeah, it's right between the split of the two monitors So I just moved my two monitors apart and I lowered it down because I'm sitting about six inches lower than usual Normally, it's a but it's actually normally Up there above the monitor, but it was so high. It was really creepy and weird. So that's where it is It's uh, it's between the two screens and And that and that can get decent eye line if you take your um Your the the window of whomever you're speaking to and just slide that right up to the edge of it When I'm if you're talking to someone looking at their eye line It almost looks like you're talking directly to them Not quite, but it's still better than doing this and talking to them like this the whole time It just it's not quite as natural So right well, that's what the little light on there is you talk to the light and you're talking into the into the camera Yeah, I mean if you're speaking If you're on tv you're used to training you're trained and used to speaking into the lens like i'm doing right now If you're having a a conversation That feels weird you you want to look at who you're talking Now I don't know what it is about me and maybe this is true for you the hard part is to stop looking at you To stop looking at you. I understand that but I don't know why I look at myself way too much I'm not that good looking I don't know what that's about But yeah, no you want to look into the lens whenever possible and slide If your lens is near the top slide the video image of whoever you're speaking to Directly below it. So your eye line feels close to the to what you're exactly Uh, let's see hit a part two. Hey, george Boy j. Horace black likes to ask you questions. George. Hey, george. Are you still doing the the tiktok fridays for previous clients? If yes, what's the time and how does it work? Um, maybe someday I'll get on tiktok. Uh, I'm not on tiktok yet um I don't have a strong gravitational pull towards tiktok, but um No, there is a clubhouse. So if you're you're you're on my mailing list on my website Then you are getting an you've gotten a subscription You've got an email that gives you a con the info on how to get to my Let's see monday at 10 30 a.m. And 4 p.m. Is when I do my client only tiktok So uh for some reason you don't know how to get access to that Send me an email george at george the dot tech Uh, and I'll get you Alrighty a question from daniel brit Says, uh, do you recommend using a small curved pop screen on the 416 for spoken voiceovers? I've never heard of a a a a non-spoken voiceover. I mean, uh kind of a Shouted with a shouted voice over. Yeah 416 is a very interesting microphone. Um, it can be used in many ways I mean, it's it's designed to be a video microphone From a as a standoff microphone for for video on set Um, but they also discovered that if you use it close up It sounds great for promo if you use it fairly close and at the right, you know At the right angle about 45 degree angle pacing, you know facing You know pointing towards your chin or your chest and you have it, you know at this height Maybe I could demonstrate with this one better take off the clown nose It should be at about a 45 degree angle in front of you like that And don't talk directly into the Into the diaphragm Um If you don't talk directly into the diaphragm that you don't really need a pop screen a lot of people, you know They'll they'll put one of these on there Except of course this thing is called a wind screen not a pop screen And the fact of the matter is is it's not windy in your studio unless it is Um, because that's really what it's built for it doesn't really stop plosives all that much Uh, tech mic technique does a whole lot more for uh dealing with plosives. So, uh I would say You can get one of the hook studio triple triple screen ones if you're doing promo when you're talking directly into the mic And you need you need to that plosive control, but uh for the most part And of course there are people say absolutely you got to have a pop screen Fine go use your pops Your turn, all right somebody just peeled out around the corner. Whoa I actually actually meet it all the way over here. I heard that Um Two more questions. We'll slip in here real quick. Um, mike max golberg says I recently picked up an irig pre two For podcast interactions and such not for voiceover, of course What do you guys think of that unit? Um, that's made by iK multimedia. They make all kinds of little interesting gadgets and most of them I've always found to be missing something I needed something about either sound quality proper monitoring Or something. Um, I have not I have not demoed or used the irig pre two. So I cannot speak on its quality Or features. So I'm sorry. I don't know but um You know if it does everything you need everything you needed to do and it doesn't have a lot of hiss It's probably a good unit. I just haven't used that particular one. So yeah, I came multimedia makes good stuff I mean, yeah, I mean the original stuff was like, yeah, it was like, you know a cheap mic port pro and Yeah, and they would be hissy, but their later stuff was was a little bit better. Um It's gotten better. They get their quality is upping is is getting better all the time. I agree All right, our final question tonight from and chris. This is a great question Because it's like, okay, I know who this is and it ain't christ. It's an grice with a g with the oh, okay fix that And I know because she's my client and I know the mic that she just bought And we're not gonna have time to unpack everything about this mic But I have a simple answer. We'll try. Okay. She says I just got my new mic in akg c414 That is an excellent Studio mic been standard in in modern recording studios in the best places 40 years for years great microphone I don't know why all the different configurations figure eight snowman snowman. Do you call this one called a snowman? Oh, oh the well, that's the figure eight for crying out loud. I think that's the I think that's the hyper hyper card Yeah, yeah a big circle and a little snowman. We're calling it snowman for an yes, okay We yeah, we try to simplify things so it's easy to understand Uh cardioid and another one which I think is probably on me. Yeah, uh, also on the back High z db buttons. Could he please explain? What do you see now? This is the thing You explain the high z and db and I'll explain the pattern, okay High z well hz hz hz. Oh it hurts. Oh, that's well. That's the that's the that's the pad Yeah, that's the that's actually the high pass filter. We were talking about earlier Uh that you can cut it off at 80 hertz and below and I'm not sure what the 414 has got multiple it does like uh I'm trying to remember because they've changed that mic so many times over there. I think it has a 40 An 80 20 it's got multiple different settings. I mean you'll actually find a 414 on stage Uh in a lot of places. Uh, yeah for live stuff, you know, normal You might not normally do that for with a studio condenser mic, but the 414 Does that and you will see those it's it's a swiss army knife mic aka It has a lot of functions because it's used for a lot of different Right and and the db button is is a 10 db pad. There's probably multiple db pad That reduces the sensitivity of the mic so you can talk louder, right and then the pickup patterns Change the way it's like changing the lens on the camera You go from a super long telephoto for a lot of reach To an arm to a wide angle lens. That's omni and that's to hear or see as much as you can And that's what those different patterns do and which one to use That comes down to if it sounds good if it is good you had to try them all Record all of the all the different patterns and find the one that found sounds best in your particular situation It's probably going to be cardioid hyper cardioid and in some cases Figure eight is probably going to be a good is going to be one of those likely that will work well with your voice and your studio and your acoustics and your mic placement and your setup Outstanding we got through all those questions and all the right answers Can you believe it? And we only went a little long a little long, but not too long. Alrighty. Well, we're gonna wrap things up We're so glad you're with us tonight and we'll be right back to wrap it up after these messages. So don't go away Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Hey, it's david h. Lawrence the 17th and we talk a lot in this business about moving forward with our career Getting more information We often don't talk about Simply getting started It can be one of the most immovable objects In in our life getting out of our own way and just simply taking the first step And if you're watching this podcast voiceover body shop For some tips on how to get started in voiceover or to change something about your voiceover career or to increase your knowledge in a certain area Check out vio heroes comms getting started in voiceover If you go to vio heroes comm slash start, you'll get all the information It's really cheap And I give you a lot to get started in the business But you might also learn something if you've been in the voiceover business for a while vio heroes comm slash start That's vio heroes comm slash start In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites comm Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites comm Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites comm has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voice over career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites comm where your vio website shouldn't be a pain in the you know, what? This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widdum v obs dot tv Well another hour has gone by like that And now that I have a more comfortable chair to sit on it's been a lot more comfortable to be here for that hour You were in standing and the preceding two and a half hours before three hours or whatever I'm enjoying my x chair so much. It is so comfortable Anyway, uh next week on this very show we have David k will pay You know who's uh, I just fixed his old radio And you just built his new studio. Oh man. I he keeps me busy that guy. Yeah, he's got a lot going on It's awesome though. He's gonna be a lot of fun Yeah, uh, and then we'll do tech talk number 75 the week after that and then martha con is gonna join us and talk about We getting your kids to uh Be in voice over. Let them pay the rent for crying out loud. Hey, how's my audio? You haven't mentioned anything. Is it clean? It sounds great sounds great. So now I've switched back to the headset jack on the porkcaster pro Yeah, right no longer usb and it's charging but this time it's charging from a power cube Not from the computer also. So that seems to work great. Just there you go. You got to find out In real life if that will work. So i'm glad to see that. Alrighty Uh, our donors of the week we have philips appear We have thomas pinto shelly avaleno george a widham brian page patty gibbons rob writer greg thomas A doctor voice ant land productions shanna prentin baird martha con Don griffith Trey moseley diana bird salt. We miss diana. Yeah, and sandra manwheeler. Alrighty Well, that's gonna do it for us this week. We need of course to thank our sponsors too harlan hogan's voiceover essentials Oh, we've have a voiceover extra source elements Vio heroes dot com voice actor websites and jmc Demo's can I slip in a plug real fast? Please go for it. Thanks. I'm doing a webinar on isotope It's march 8th. So by the time you hear this there'll still be time Just enough time to sign up because it will be tomorrow if you're watching it The recorded version if you're watching it live it's next week. Uh, it's march 8th at 3 p.m. March 8th 3 p.m You can sign up at george the dot tech slash webinars you'll see the Sign up link on that page and uh, hope to see you there. Alrighty Uh, we need to thank jeff holman doing a great job getting all those questions into the uh, the chat room tonight and of course sumer lino our crack Technical director getting it right doing all the things that need to get done and of course lee penny for Just being lee penny come visit us lee Uh, that's gonna do it for us tonight. You know, this is not an easy business. Everybody's intimidated by the technology Look, we're here to help you out. Make sure that your your sound is good because if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan lettered and i'm george widdon and this is voiceover body shop or vo b Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk Jeff you're early that time. Come on. All right. We'll see you next week guys. Have a great week. Good night. Thanks for listening