 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop tech talk and it's tech talk. We're almost at a hundred number 99 99 episode when we first started doing this and where we split it off and started doing just tech talk That was it. It seems like it was yesterday, but apparently it was like a hundred and five plus years ago Yeah, it was a long time ago Yeah, no, it's a great time. What a great run Yeah, if you've got a question for us about your home voiceover studio problem piece of equipment Question about technique or how to do something throw it in the chat room right should you upgrade? Do you really need to upgrade? Do you really need to do that? Well, we'll see anyway That's coming up. Are you ready, george? I'm ready to go. Let's go. It's time for tech talk with voiceover body shop right now Oh Tech talk Brought to you by voiceover essentials.com the home of harlan hogan signature products Source elements the makers of source connect Voiceover heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites.com where your voice actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success And world voices the industry association of freelance voice talent And now here's your hosts dan and george Hey there, i'm dan lennard and i'm george woodham and this is voiceover body shop or vo b Tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk tech talk When you get jeff on just to get him to say that I know It was fun when we had a we were in the studio together. We had It's great to happen there with us. Yeah, we'll get back into the studio again pretty soon. Yeah, like yeah like next week Uh, anyway, but we're gonna see all these people at vo atlanta And we'll have already been there. So and we'll see who comes home. It was great. It was fabulous Yes We had a great time at vo Anyway, uh, again if you've got a question about your home voiceover studio Now would be a great time to throw it into the chat room because that's what george and I love to digest is your questions And your problems because we take your problems and take them elsewhere Hopefully to the right place, but you know at least not where you are right now You know, I was thinking about this the other day You know, we're always helping people with their home voiceover studios And the questions and the comments that we get from people Uh, it just reveals how little good information there is out there a lot of misinformation Somebody is like, you know, they were a voice actor for a year and they're like, I use this microphone You should too. Well, what gives them the you know, the authority to do that Uh, and and or one of my favorites. I'm using a dbx 286 a Why I'm using an re 20 why? Who told you to do that? There is just so long with you and radio Yeah, that's what I always ask And what station did you steal that from? Um Anyway, so You want to get the right answers You want to be able to make sure that when you're starting your home voiceover studio or improving it or upgrading it or You're moving and you want to get it right You need to talk to the two guys that have more experience at this than anybody Some guys are yeah, they're audio engineers Yeah, you they give you what they do And the fact of the matter is is if you've never done it You're not going to take the 20 years to learn what it was that they're telling you you should do Instead, how about two guys that actually know how to explain it? We make the complex simple which by the way is the definition of genius Um, is that true? Yeah, take that as a compliment. You know, I okay. All right If you want to work with us if you want to learn from the guys that Actually know what it takes to make your audio sound the way it's supposed to You can work with us and if you want to work with george who has More services than one can count and he's trying to shove them all into one website. Where do they go? They go to George the dot tech. Yes, we have a lot of services Because we've broken it down by software. So we've got a growing panel of experts including dan That can be booked on our website and they're all broken down by expertise So when you're looking at a service on how to get up and running with adobe audition You're only going to see technicians and you know tech coaches who know that software Very well and you're going to see their availability So you can immediately pick the right people Pick them on the time that works for you and instantly book it right through the website We've spent a month getting it tuned up and running on the new platform It's been quite a journey. We're still fine tuning things. It's kind of like a car That's not quite warmed up yet, but it's you can feel the power coming on Um, and we're really excited. So that's george the dot tech the site is Shockful of information and resources. So thank you and dan Your website you beat me to that you beat me to it. You got your your new website up a few months before mine and you're over at I'm over at home voiceover studio Dot com. That's right. That's what it says Uh, yeah, and I've got you know I don't I don't do a lot of the kind of stuff that george does I I primarily teach and consult And a lot of people who are beginners like what do I do? All right, let's look at what you need to do And and then we go from there. There's no one size fits all answer to A home voiceover studio every room is different every voice is different And and how to do it right really depends on you because I look at your lifestyle How does where we're going to set you up affect everything else you do? And because it's a home voiceover studio So if you want to work with me go on over to home voiceover studio dot com If you've got your studio set up and you want to get an idea of how good your audio is or how Um Be amazed at the stuff I hear um You can go over to the home voiceover studio dot com and click on the specimen collection couple And uh, read the instructions and submit it to your audio to me for 25 dollars I will give you a very thorough analysis of what is going on with your audio and and how to correct it Or if it's really bad, you know If if anybody who's worked with me knows I will ask a lot of questions and figure out what is going on with your stuff and then we fix it And then you don't have to worry about your technology You just hit record and be a voice actor, which is what I want you to do Anyway, enough of that even though we like promoting what we do because That's what we do Uh, it's time for george's tech update when when he talks about all this new crap that's coming out and has So much to do with voiceover And you know if you're a gearhead. Yeah, but There's lots of different things going on out there and george keeps track of it. So what do you got this week? Yes, well, uh, the first thing out of the gate is the thing I can't talk about which makes me crazy Talk about it. I can't talk about But by the time this airs, I maybe I can talk about it. It's complicated, but While hopefully at vio Atlanta, I'm gonna be I'll be able to announce a new audio interface product that I've helped co-design And I'm I'm really excited. This is something I've wanted to see come to light For over 10 years So it's it's exciting, but I can't I can't say exactly what it is and who's making it until we ink the contract Which is going to happen any any day now. We have it in the inbox Just it's the problem with a group of people designing something it everything takes four times longer But we're gonna be able to announce it at vio Atlanta and by the time you see this You know, it'll probably be public. But anyway, uh, I don't okay moving on Um, next up, I think that I maybe have mentioned Dan that I already talked about the road nt1 fifth generation We talked about it briefly last week, you know, I and people are asking me about this Is it? Well, it's got it's got a lot of a lot of buzz for a good reason. First of all, it's it's 250 dollars So it's it's 20 dollars cheaper than the fourth generation road nt1 What that does not have a built-in 32-bit float ad converter, right? So it's a real head scratcher that it's actually less expensive I don't even understand it. How are they ever going to sell another nt1 fourth generation? I have no idea But the fifth generation's out. I'll I'll tell you this about road They do a really good job. I think of explaining their products with their videos on their site Or on their youtube channel. Check out the road youtube channel watch the videos that where they explain 32-bit float recording with the nt1 And it was it was a great demonstration It kind of bends your brain when you're recording engineers like us and you know that Clipping is bad, right? You cannot record audio Where the waveform goes beyond zero in the conventional sense, right? This product breaks that convention and now with with the road nt1 when you use the usb Interface There is no more needing to set gain. So that means Sometimes the levels are going to be low. Sometimes the levels are going to be Extremely high like literally clipping like wave right off the edge of the screen, right? And you're just going to think this route this audio is ruined But because of this 32-bit float technology, trust me go to the website read I am not going to bore you not even going to dream of boring you with the details about 32-bit float recording But check out the website and watch their videos explaining how this technology works And what actually happens is if the waveform goes above zero you can take the entire clip And just normalize it And that's it No more clipping No more distortion The audio is just corrected at the levels that you uh, you know optimal levels And it's done. So, um Needless to say 32-bit float's gonna get a lot more buzz lately and this microphone definitely Has put it in the limelight because of its affordable price point. It's built in Yes, you will plug into a pro audio interface, which I think is the way most of you still will want to use it But this secondary functionality of being a usb interface with 32-bit float is kind of interesting And if we all learn how to kind of work with it and use it you might find it to be the ultimate mic for recording video games and animation because no longer do you have to worry about Clipping at all. Yeah, so this is a really interesting new tech And we're just we have to figure out how to work it into our production workflow and see if it's really the way to go I'm still a little skeptical Um, but with those videos I've seen from road. I'm starting to become a little more convinced Um, I can't wait to try it myself. I think I'm gonna buy one and give it a shot It's at that price point where it's it's something you could just say, you know I'm just gonna buy one because at 250 that that's a pretty reasonable price And it's also, you know, it's still a what they consider the world's quietest studio condenser mic. That's a tall order It's very close to a couple others, but at 4db self noise. It is an incredibly quiet mic It's a very clean and accurate mic and um Geez, there's very hard to find to really fault with that mic So even if you're never going to us to use us use the usb To have that in the mic as a secret weapon or a backup or throw it in your bag Plug it in when you travel. Is it is a compelling thing. It's really interesting. Yeah Yamaha has had the ag03 and the ag06 mixer audio interface gadgets for a really long time I remember seeing them in amma maybe maybe 10 years ago And I was really impressed. Well, they've since released the mark II versions and they're just all the better now I set up one for a client last week and it impressed me. It was clean No noise, etc. Well, they've they've decided to take that same form factor of the og ag03 and the 06 and grow it up a bit to the ag08 And what makes the ag08 interesting? I don't know. It's I think it's kind of less about the hardware and more about the sound drivers and and again I haven't seen it long enough to dig in and really understand exactly The way the sound drivers actually work, but if I was to dare Share my screen, which of course because the browser tab is on the wrong Browser, I can't share it easily. Let's see if I can fix that real quick I'm going to put this browser tab over on this browser boom and then I'm going to go back here and Share that tab there we go So here's the ag08 So it kind of looks like an ag06 or three just with a lot more stuff going on more buttons There it is more everything. Hopefully you're seeing that. Yeah, we are. Yeah, excellent. So yeah, it's an it's a interface It's still the fascinating and I think this is an interesting choice from Yamaha. It still only has two microphone inputs So what they've done here is where if you're looking at the roadcaster pro Which has four mic inputs the task cam Competitor has four mic inputs the zoom has four mic inputs They decided to say look the vast majority of people producing podcasts are not doing them in person, right? Maybe they're lucky enough to have one co-host, but mostly Mostly it's done remotely. And so what they've done is baked in a lot of capability for Having multiple streams of audio coming in Remotely, so it's got multiple usb. I'm assuming sound drivers Or channels. This is the part I'm not clear about I have been throughout the show In the last show reading this web story trying to wrap my brain around the audio routing portion It is not entirely clear to me yet exactly how it breaks all these channels down Experiences so they don't create all these circular loops I don't know yet, but if it does it the way I'm thinking in my head They did it it could be killer tool, but we'll have to see it's pretty expensive at 630 bucks Well, they I don't know what this extra 831 prices. That's the made-up full price. I guess But it's it's pretty pricey Compared to what the roadcaster pro 2 does that dan has Or the actually dan has the one but the two has even more capabilities But here's the thing what I like about it is that it doesn't it's what I like about is what it doesn't have It doesn't have an LCD It doesn't have an LCD screen, right? So that means it doesn't have a tiny little menu and a million touchscreen buttons and Lots and lots of things to get lost in underneath the hood It's all physically on the face of the unit and I am really big into hardware that gives you that kind of Access to all of its features right on the face of the unit and that's why it's kind of expensive for what it is It's more expensive to have a lot of buttons and switches and buttons that light up and all this kind of stuff Then it is to just have a single touch screen. So anyway, that's the ag 08 If you're interested in and getting into more of an interview podcast or live stream scenario And you like the yamaha stuff I do This is something you guys might check into and take a look at moving on. Um Um Audio Technica one of my favorite audio one of my favorite headphones for studio use Um the athm series they have the m50. That's kind of like their That's they're like, you know, this is our magnum opus headphone for studio use, right? I think they maybe have one above that with like leather and some other You know really high upscale features, but the athm 50 is definitely a uh What do you call it a benchmark headphone? It's just extremely extremely popular Well, what they've done was they've added a headset microphone boom to it And not only does it have a boom microphone on the headset It's understand the actual same capsule from an at 2020 So now you've got a really good sounding great studio grade pair of headphones With a entry level studio microphone built right into the headset Which I think is really impressive. Um, do you think it has the same electronics as the the at 2020? I don't know. I I saw I saw a reviewer who claimed that it's the same capsule as the at 2020 I didn't see that on the website So that's some kind of proprietary knowledge. I I can't verify that for myself, but That means you've got a good decent quality condenser capsule on a headset mic And I think now that's going to allow A headphone mic to become more useful and I would say For sure audio books or really long form stuff where you want to be able to Physically move around and have a little bit more comfort in your in your work Without having to be in a microphone sweet spot All the time the mic's already already in the right spot So I I'm really curious about it at $200. It's a pretty reasonable You know the headphones without the mic are 140 150. I think so It's pretty fair and they also they also have a usb version and frankly for me That's probably the one I would get Because I'll use it with my laptop whenever I'm doing zoom sessions and everything else. So It's very compelling and it's the ath m50 x s t s Oof what a mouthful But check that out. It's got xlr and it's got quarter inch xlr for your mic and quarter inch for your Headphones very interesting little product ssl has a driver now for the ssl 2 it used to just be plug-and-play You know there always was a driver for windows But on the max side plug-and-play But now there actually is a driver you can install for the ssl 2 Which adds a loop back? But unfortunately that loop back is not the kind of loop back that we need in voiceover For playing back a take This loop back is really meant to be a way to record two additional tracks Of audio coming back to your computer So it would be perfect for somebody who's a voiceover actor And wants to dabble in some podcasting because now you can record the return from zoom or Riverside or source connect or whatever the remote end is on And it'll record it on two additional tracks in your DAW So if you're using adobe audition multi-track You can have your mics on one and two And your guests come up on tracks three and four and that can help in production getting a better mix and all that And that is just built in now It's it's just a feature that you can add at any time by upgrading the driver and that's cool I like this trend of hardware companies adding a feature Just by giving you an update now. I get really nervous about firmware updates I'll be very honest when things go wrong with your equipment. I I've got one right here on my shelf When things went wrong with my equipment that drove me absolutely bonkers on more than one occasion It was because of firmware updates on this little guy and that's why it's sitting here on the shelf Because it pissed me off after after a couple of times You put it in the time out and I'm back on my Apollo Which uh, certainly isn't immune to firmware updates, but I've never had it create completely unreliable performance. So anyway firmware makes me nervous So if you're going to try a firmware update, make sure you know how to roll back If you don't like it and never do it in the middle of a critical critical production time Okay, lastly from audio technical also I mentioned this to sue because she was looking for a good little My headphone not headphones but speakers To use just like is a utility speaker not for mixing records. Just a little thing. They have the at sp 65 XBT Speaker now it looks a lot like many of the other usb Portable speakers. It doesn't look all that special right, but it's an audio technica So I would think that it has a pretty decent natural Realistic audio reproduction, but important to most of us it has an actual line input jack It's not just bluetooth. So you can plug that directly into your Studio rig and use it as a convenient way to do just a quick edit without headphones Or do that punch and roll style recording also, you know without headphones. So Um, it could be a good little companion for those in a small cramped booth type space All right, that's it for tech update Dan. All right. Well, that was an awful lot of stuff though greens I know I came in saying I don't know what I'm gonna talk about sure enough There's always something to talk about always something yes So I here's something I want to talk about. Um, I think I'm gonna start calling this segment Dan's basic basics Sure Because it's we're you know, generally I'm going to talk about stuff that is You know, it should be blatantly obvious to you but because there's so much misinformation out there And uh, and everybody's got their own way of doing things I figured let me at least give you my take my years of experience and and on technique and doing voiceover and recording and fixing other people's stuff You can trust me Anyway, let's talk about Pop screens Um, you know, they make great fly swatters except, you know, the the arm on it can be a little flimsy and stuff You see so many pictures of voice actors You know and if indeed they are voice actors because a lot of them if you type in like looking for pictures of voice actors They're all singers. They're all got headphones. There's a and they're really working the mic really tight like that That's great if you're a singer and you're trying to be like, you know, maybe not like Adele who tends to really belt out stuff Or say someone like Billy Eilish who talks like that or sings like that Yeah, I may be old but I still like Billy Eilish. So anyway Pop screen What is it for? Generally when people ask me my standard answer is it's to prevent Celine Dion from spitting on a $10,000 microphone Uh, they make them and the fact of the matter is Again, like most equipment that we use in voiceover. It's not designed for voiceover. It's designed for making music because voice actors have to be You have to sound like you're at an actual distance from somebody when they're doing music Whether it's rap or pop or, you know, whatever when they've got singers working in a recording studio They may be working the mic really close and they want to have something. It's going to protect the mic and Perhaps prevent plosives, but as you can see this thing Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers It sort of helps I'm of the opinion And I've I've been roundly criticized by numbers of people for this, but they're wrong Uh, including my agent who wrote in uh In facebook a couple of years ago is is there's some idiot out there saying you don't need a pop screen And went into all of this stuff, you know, maybe it'll help that hitting that um And and i'm like my agent is saying this about me And so I immediately texted him and I said what are you talking about? Why would you go out there and say i'm telling people something stupid like that? And he's like no, no, I wasn't talking about you. It's somebody else if I was talking about you I would have said some walrus face dufus was saying this So he may have been talking about me and he didn't want to insult me, but There look there's lots of different techniques To how you use a microphone. You'll notice that I don't use a pop screen You'll notice that well george has one on there, but it's more for decoration. I think than anything else Uh spit guard is spit guard. It's a spit guard. Okay, because that's an expensive microphone. Those are our It says you have yeah, that's right We we had those made a few years ago and uh, they were great for for a specific microphone But the epigee mic it's right the epigee mic right which is a plosive magnet It is it is not a very forgiving microphone for sure anyway To me it's all about mic placement I can go peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers on You know in perpetuity And I will not get a plosive nobody complains about plosives. I you know I My recordings have no plosives on them and I don't use a pop screen Why do I have it set like this? We've talked about about mic technique many many times And but if you have it that the mic upside down like this Why people say I gotta do it up right at right side up this again It gives you free view of your copy you can move your arms And you have the mic at the top of your periphery your upper periphery and you can talk and not think about being on a microphone whereas This guy reminds you that you're on a microphone And is very distracting and reminds you that you're a voice actor and you have to talk a little bit louder Which isn't even true Psychologically, I say take your pop screen and again use it as a fly swatter Um And uh, you know, how many people do we know that have made them out of pantyhose? Yeah, that was your hand um The fact of the matter is unless you're really producing music and you're like doing some heavy Vocalizations and stuff like that. You really don't need a pop screen Uh, I think one one reason you might as if like if you're using a 416 for doing promo work Which very few of you are doing you might want to have one on the end there And then there's those foam things everybody's like putting foam things on their microphone thinking. Oh, it's a windscreen. It'll stop It's called a windscreen for a very specific reason and that is For using it outside when there's wind You know because you'll get Otherwise So there's no such thing as a pop screen. It is something to protect your microphone Now you can all write into me and say you're full of baloney, but guess what? The proof is in the the placing And the proof is in the placement Your thoughts mr. Woodham Yeah, no the proof is in the placement. It is really all about mic placement. Um Yeah, there's no doubt some mics are really really plosive sensitive others are not as much um It's interesting. I I'll I'll I'll preach the same thing to my clients all the time with a katella 103 or whatever And some of them still manage to pop it. I don't really know how I'm not physically there with them usually I don't know if they move their head a lot. I don't know if they have a tendency to lean up towards their mic But whatever it is some people still catch the occasional plosive As was happening with me with this this oc 818. So for me this little very Very unobtrusive pop screen Was was helpful at catching those but I would never use this as a substitute for mic placement ever It is just I look at it as a spit guard just like the saline dion thing Dan said it's just a spit guard Um to catch something flying out of my mouth and not hitting my 1200 microphone capsule Um, and that's the way I look at it. You don't want anything that's obscuring the mic making it larger God forbid a big round foam ball that makes the mic the size of a soccer ball Now you have to work that mic instead. What a nightmare really you want you want something unobtrusive and it doesn't get in your way and pop screens Get in the way most of the time. Yep. Absolutely Alrighty, we got a ton of questions tonight and you have no idea how happy that makes us because it makes the next half hour even easier Anyway, we're gonna get to all your questions and there's tons of them Uh, again, if you want to throw one in there, please do in one of the chat rooms because we are on facebook live We are on youtube live and now we're on linkedin live And I know somebody's watching because somebody on linkedin sent us a question or a comment or something like that We're everywhere. So stay tuned. We'll be right back with your questions here on voiceover body shop tech talk. Don't go away This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george wittem v obs dot tv Have you noticed the specific demands of clients regarding our home vo studios? Are they at a professional level to record for broadcast? And what does that mean? To me it means it doesn't sound bad I've seen several now demanding cardioid condenser microphones Some are great and cheap ones not so great. So how do you choose? It's like standing in the checkout line at the supermarket deciding which candy or mince you want to buy So which is right for you? Make it easy on yourself and get the harlan hogan signature series vo 1a The first and only mic designed for voiceover performers buy a voiceover performer The vo 1a faithfully captures deep tones without sounding bassy and has a silky smooth top end That's never harsh a perfect sound palette for both male and female voiceover performers Order yours by mayday and you'll get an abs strap free to protect your mic from oops Go to voiceover essentials.com where you'll see all their great products made just for us voiceover people Hey everybody now's the time when we get to thank source elements because they support our show still Years and years later. We thank them because of the consistency and the success of their main product source connect Which has been set up in studios now. I don't see the first time I set up source connect I think it was for some voice actor promo folks who wanted a backup or a way to extend their studio When they were out of town, but still wanted to connect to isdn So my friend steve made this thing go to an isdn to source connect bridge I think that was 2006 the rest is history source connect has been Consistently used for very very a very long time and that consistency and track record has made it a tool of choice for producers around the world Yeah, it's not free. It is not free. But here's the deal The reason it's not free is because of the support and servers and the technology behind it That make it work as well as it does, right? It's not just about creating a clever product a magic box Or a very free or inexpensive software It needs support and that's what they give you source elements support is fantastic Really really is they know their products and they know a lot of the things that you're using too So they can answer some basic studio questions as well if you're really stuck So get set up at source dash elements.com you can get a 15 day free trial You can even just get a two-day license for that occasional gig It's really not as unaffordable as you might think Thanks so much. We appreciate their support. Let's get on to those questions right after this Right. So I've taught thousands of people how to be successful at voiceover And before I start teaching them, I always ask them What is it about voiceover that makes you frightened or keeps you up at night or stops you from doing it? What are your concerns about voiceover and more often than not what I hear is Accents and dialects. I'm not good at them. I don't know how to do them. I don't know how to build one from scratch I don't know whether what I'm doing is good enough for professional vo work. I get it. I absolutely get it And I don't teach accents and dialects Um, and I've never found a class that I could recommend to people that was really fantastic Until now when I saw Jim Johnson Teach a sample lesson from the accents class, which he and dano day have put together. I was just blown away Amazing. It's it's creating a toolkit that lets you build any accent you want from scratch And they're great. Like I do pretty well with accents and dialects I'm gonna take this class. I'm not just gonna recommend it I'm gonna be in the class as a student right and I'm not getting it for free I got a pony up just like everybody else you want to take the class with me I'd love to have you and I've arranged for a discount if you act fast So go to the url you see on the screen vo heroes dot com slash accents And register for the class do so before tuesday night You'll get the 300 discount if you mention my name in the comments box On step three. So when you get to step three, there's a comments box to say, hey, I love david I want to take the class with david I want to sit next to david in the class whatever mentioned my name You get a 300 dollar discount if you act before tuesday night And i'll be right there in the class with you. I can't wait to see you succeed At accents and dialects vo heroes dot com slash accents and i'll see you in class Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great Yes, we are back with voiceover body shop tech talk the stuff you guys love to hear about now, so At voiceover at lata, we you know people are always coming up to us and asking all sorts of questions And I use this and I use that and we generally come up with the right answer because the answer is something that is Something that we probably dealt with before But we got a lot of questions tonight. Uh, some of them are kind of left over from last week with uh, uh, with scott brick And well, we'll start off with uh patricia andrea She says I want to give audiobooks another try and would love to know how how scott organizes his files Organizing files is not a big deal. I mean, it's just number them And keep them in the folder with that particular project um And and then she's to ask what format are there and are there any presets that you recommend She uses an apollo solo in twisted wave, but planning to switch to adobe audition Good idea for audiobooks Twisted wave is great for audiobooks because it doesn't take up a lot of resources of your computer So you can go on and on to do a half hour chapter or 45 minute chapter Uh in an audiobook and it it doesn't affect the computer course Computers now have so much memory and and are so fast They can they can generally handle just about anything adobe audition is again I to me it's the standard For what you would want to use for audiobooks or any voiceover recording. It's got the only Workflow I think for uh for voiceover and so use it that way and uh You know somebody told me that I don't want to pay the 20 bucks a month. I'm like the news audacity if you're gonna be cheap You know, it's It's worth it. It's totally worth it to have something like adobe audition, but you know Yeah, I mean I I teach workflows for recording audiobooks from soup to nuts um On adobe audition and twisted wave and Those are the two main ones audacity. Yeah, that went to and yeah, you can use either Twisted wave works fine. It is all about file organization It's about storing all of your raw takes in one folder your pickups in another folder Your edited comps or your final edits in another folder Um, you know, you you just put things in folders stay organized as you go And you'll always have redundancy because you've saved copies of your files As you go along what people like about some more sophisticated Dawes digital audio work stations is their non-destructive editing Right, so what they're doing is they're always keeping a copy of literally everything you record no matter what you do It's always stored and it's fine. The thing is there's more File and data management that's required with those because it makes a lot more files it fills up your hard drive faster and There's a more it's a steeper learning curve to learning how to work with these non-linear non-linear editors non-destructive editors, I guess I should say and so there's a pros and cons to everything but Um, I think twisted wave is still quite viable for audiobooks And I know a lot of folks that do use it for that in terms of processing presets Um, I that's something I do like I set up processing presets specifically For whatever you're doing. So if you're doing an audiobook and if you need to do the mastering side of things Check that out at george d.tech. I have a whole thing about audiobook mastering and I will set it up on whatever Platform you're using depending on your DAW in terms of the Apollo solo The processing I would use for an audiobook is literally just a high-pass filter. That's it I wouldn't use any processing at all. I would set the gain so that you're not even close to clipping Record a 24 bit wave file And you're good to go you don't need any special settings on the Apollo solo itself Good and that's the thing that what the Apollo was for is it It gives you all those plugins and that's why people buy it because I mean, it's I mean, it's made by by universal audio and theirs They make great stuff It's you guys reliable. It's complicated It looks the thing about is it looks unassuming, right? Friend the little box with a knob and a few buttons Yeah, it's right. It drives people crazy getting to learn how to operate the thing. It's got a very complex software audio interface a software interface that goes with it It's you know, if you use it for nothing more than basic audio recording and playing back in your headphones You paid too much. Yeah scarlet scarlet'll do that. Fine Uh, you know for a quarter of the price So just make sure when you're buying when you make sure understand why you're buying it and then get some help to get Optimized for your use case. Otherwise again, it is definitely a big waste of money. Yeah, I mean it's You know having great equipment is is worthless if you don't know how to use it And having it doesn't make you sound better. It's knowing how it makes you sound better and what you do with it So every time someone says yeah, you got to use this great piece of equipment Think about it and go is this something that is going to change the way I read copy? And it's not uh, if you've got your setup right You can be using a microphone that is not $500 or an interface that's $800 or $600 you can go a lot less and it will sound the same Believe it or don't Okay, well carrying on here christine dunford asks George, can you give us your opinion of waves clarity plug-in? Thanks. I don't use any of this stuff Yeah waves clarity is for when you're recording in in crappy environments So You've got noise that you can't stop today because you're just extremely unlucky that your deadline is today And this is also when your neighbor is putting in a new sewer system Or a pool or a pool and there's machinery and jackhammers and or You're traveling and you're trying to pull off something that you you know normally shouldn't or be shouldn't be able to do Um because you're in um an invert urban environment. You're in a city and you can hear car horns Well waves clarity is probably the best Arguably the best audio processing tool at removing that kind of noise You know It can do the kind of noise removal that nothing else can do at this point pretty much across the board Because it can remove those random sounds and do it almost perfectly like eerily good At doing that and it's because it's using a neural network. It's just a sort of a form loosely of AI technology and So, yeah, it's pretty good. If you want to learn a lot more about it I've got numerous classes about waves plugins Including the clarity plug-in Um that you can learn a lot more about it and see a demoed over at george d.tech slash webinars check out the Stuff about waves. I have a lot of content about waves plugins, but the clarity plug-in It's pretty impressive especially if it's still 29 or 39 bucks It's kind of a no-brainer if you know, you're gonna have to deal with situations where the noise is going to be Really really killing a gig, you know, it's like I got no choice. I don't have another friend's studio I can go to on a short notice I'm traveling and if I don't get this job in the client's going to bail and I'm in italy And I have to record in the middle of the day or the middle of the night. Who knows That's that's what this tool is for. I would not make it part of my every day processing. It's a it's a special Sort of secret weapon. Yeah, you know, if you live in a noisy place, you know, otherwise Try and isolate yourself as best you can Yeah, this is this is an interesting one. Uh, george, could you demonstrate? I might be better demonstrating this How to use twisted wave to edit a video clip? Well that I haven't done Specifically how to cut and paste room tone Over a click or a pop sound in the video Please um, well, I didn't get chance to prep so I don't have a video hand Well, I'm sure I could pull one up But maybe if you want to go to the next question and I could prep for this while the next question's being Dealt with and then maybe I could pull off demo demoing it Okay, well gloria mason martin asks or as she says I've been in my studio since 1999 With owens corning 703 on the walls. Hopefully covered up Assure ksm 32 a wonderful microphone and uh an interface with sound forge Since the beginning of time in other words. She's a pc person I'm now getting ready to move and what are some things to watch for in a new space and keeping the ksm 32 That's not too tough. Look for a place with a walk-in closet not an 18 inch sliding door closet Those are by far the best things to have one because you can close the door behind you and actually move And and two especially if it's an interior closet that doesn't have an outside wall That gives you insulation from all the outside noise. It doesn't stop all the noise from inside the house But uh, it can help a little bit and uh the ksm 32 is just a great microphone It's going to hear a lot of stuff But if you isolate yourself really well that does a whole lot to improve your sound on the back end So uh, look for a place with a deep closet Uh, I've been working with some people that have had some great closets to work with and we've had Fantastic results with that and using stuff That you wouldn't think of, you know, it's like I don't want to spend a whole lot of money Do you have any duvet covers? Do you have any heavy curtains and we've used them and it sounds just as good as any one of the studios If you do it right heavy massive. Yes. Yes You know go go to good. Well, they probably got some old drapes sitting there. They may smell a little weird Yeah, watch out for the smell, but yeah Okay, you're you're gonna help jeff holman now with this question about using video in twisted way You got that set. Yeah, I think I have a way to do this now. I'm going to I'm going to share a window and chances are it's only going to show that Uh, the main twisted wave window and not the video window. Yeah, you guys don't see the video window I knew that was going to happen Maybe I can try sharing it one different way. See there's a video. This is a video right now That's what I have open on my screen. It's a video, but it looks in twisted wave Just like a regular audio file Because you know what I'm doing here is Let's see. Can I do a window? I can't do a selection of a window. I have to do The entire screen, which is a massive screen. Okay, fine. I'll do it. I'll do it anyway entire screen There we go And then I'll just make this bigger. Ah, there you go. That works There's the video window right there, right? So I've taken an m4 v file That's just what I literally the first video that came up And it looks like this so the video file is floating right over the audio file Um when I hit play you're gonna you may not hear it because I don't think I have the routing set up yet But if I did you would hear the audio. Let's see There it is There they are right down there blowing and I can't hear a thing That's a client of mine boasting about his how soundproof his studio is which is always, you know It's always a good feeling when you get someone telling you how good the studio sounds that you designed so Okay, so this is this is not the greatest example But what he was asking was how do you do the room tone paste technique in a video? Well, it's it's the exact same technique as if it was just an audio file Just that there happens to be a video Attached to the audio right so if you want to replace something with room tone, let's say you want to remove That door sound right And so you want to select this piece of room tone over here copy it You want to select the room you want to select the thing you want a magic erase right the door sound And you want to use special paste Just make sure special paste options are correct should be on replace Check all the boxes and make sure attenuation is all the way down And now when you hit command y It'll replace the length of the thing you don't want With the thing that you do want which is that piece of room tone, right? So which doesn't interfere with the sync of the video it doesn't screw up the sync of the video exactly it in here Now he's breathing in that room tone. You can hear him go So that would be bad room tone. You would not want to paste A breathing room tone over and over But you get the idea that's all it is once you have a clean room tone sample copied Command y will let you paste over and Like there's a little click sound there. Yeah, I'll just magic erase that with room tone Right, it's just it's just gone. So that that is that's how you would do it So it's just special paste just yeah with the video now when I go to save this file save as It's just going to save it in the same file format that the original was in I can convert it if I need to But I don't necessarily have to and I don't have to mess with any codec settings. Just save Give it a new file name and Move on that's it. All right. Yeah. I mean, there's other ways you can do that as well I mean in editing the you know In in twisted wave, but that's that's an interesting feature to have that, you know in adobe audition You can throw in a video window and you can completely sync things up that it's it's really fabulous. Yeah You get the next one from max goldberg All right. Um, what mic is george running into the apollo and is there any cue or processing on the signal? It sounds nice and full. Well, thank you george is nice and full Yeah, yeah. Well, I had a nice big neruza lunch today. So yeah, that helps. Um Yep, I am processing and you know why because I'm doing a live show and I want to sound as good as I can Um, so what am I doing exactly? Well, this is an an austrian audio oc 818 multi pattern large diaphragm condenser mic It's running in hypercardioid. So that gives it a little bit more of a A richer fuller sound. I don't quite have the pipes of dan so you know getting all the help I can get Um, and then I'm going through Uh, api vision channel strip, right? That's a plug-in that has a compressor a high-pass filter A an expander And an ecu, right? So I'm running through all of that if I turn it all off Then I sound like this, right? This is with zero processing whatsoever a whole lot different And then if I turn off the la2a, which is also Kind of like a lift in the shoes turn that off now that's off. So now that is truly flat now. So that is mic Apollo preamp Directly into the system completely. That is all it is The thing that sounds funny in my headphones is I think when I'm using that processing It changes the way I sound on my headphones in a dramatic way And I don't know if that's from phasing or what it is, right? So when I turn off all that stuff I sound a lot different to me Um, but I may not sound that different to you guys Maybe you sound like you which by the way is what you're supposed to sound like Right exactly because we don't talk to people through all that processing And if they're trying to capture you right naturally as you exist You don't use all those things. I mean, I I like it because it does let me be a little lazy I can get loud and never a clip but doesn't distort I can speak more softly and it will bring up the quieter stuff It allows me to be a little more lazy on the performance side because I have so much Processing in there to level things out I'm also using the expander to hide the fact that I'm not in a very quiet room With aircraft and vehicles and other crap from my neighborhood and my building So I'm doing everything I can to clean up the audio and that's uh, that's the magic sauce that I'm using Alrighty we got time for one more question because it's the last question that's here In regards from Ed Moskowitz In regards to the 32 float discussion we're talking 32 bit. I imagine In film and tv post and production. It has been debated for quite a while with manufacturers like sound devices Having the option many of its studios The option many of its studios were perhaps that has changed now Not capable of dealing with the 32 bit float. So the question is What do you want? What is he talking about? I think most of you are going quiet So the question is Are more for your questions guys. Yeah before you Yeah, our our more studios now ready to utilize tracks recorded in 32 bit in production at this stage of the game A lot of filed recording of effects are done in 32 bit your opinion Uh 32 bit is yeah, well you take part of this and I'll well I mean we don't dan and I don't produce right? We're not doing the actual production A little bit here and there. Yeah. Yeah, but we're not like in a production workflow for tv film, right? So we don't know what is needed at that stage of the game But yeah, it is all about workflow and if it doesn't fit into their workflow, they're not going to use it When will they adapt to using 32 bit float? I have no idea. I mean You're deliverable the file that you're going to send to the client ain't going to be 32 bit float Right? It's purely a capture and process format. It is not a Deliverable format and you're going to send out a 16 bit 48k or 44 one wave Maybe a 24 bit wave for some of the more picky Producers like the video game companies and that's that's it for the foreseeable future That's all I got to say about that. I don't I don't know I don't know anybody who has 32 bit float audio in their production workflow yet So don't know yet Edward. That is a good question. Yeah, so we'll find out Alrighty, well that does it for questions this week a lot of good ones and uh, we really appreciate it You know, you can get to the front of the queue If you actually if you have a question during the week and you're like Maybe you can't make the show when we do it live every other week And you want to ask us a question you can write to us, you know Like typing on your computer and type us an email to the guys at v obs dot tv And if you write it in I put it first in the queue for questions and tech talk next week Can I make a correction real quick because jeff caught something and I didn't catch it because I was I was focusing on the audio, right? so that whole Special paste thing I was doing right in twisted wave. Well Jeff was paying attention. He noticed that what happens is when you do that special paste Whatever a room tone is that you copy and then you paste it later The video goes with it So So now you are pasting in that clip of video over and over and over again, which is No bueno, don't do that. So um, so that's a that It's very good question. It's very relevant and it's As far as I can tell Not yet possible to do that exact technique with video That's that's a great question jeff. I I hadn't even tried it until we did it right here on the show I wasn't watching the video so I didn't see it. Thanks for thanks for noticing that and it's a good question for um Thomas, yeah, absolutely send him an email and say here's a workflow I use and I'd like to be able to Resolve this how can I do it? um, and he's he loves to make his tools better and this is not a free tool by the way that the video function is not free It's a it's a 40 or 50 dollar upgrade to twist a wave. So he would be especially Open to hearing I would say some feedback on that Um, whereas if you're in a multitrack system like adobe audition multitrack with video that would not be the case It's actually a lot easier in audition. Yeah, it would not be the case. So that that is a good Point to that's one of the things where you're going to be feeling a little limited with twisted wave for editing video Absolutely. Alrighty. Well, that's all the questions we have But we have a little bit more to talk about when we come back on voiceover body shop tech talk So don't go way quite yet. 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We speak for those who seek for a living This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard in george widham v obs dot tv All righty I want to quickly close the loop on that last thing go for it one more time because in our chat Amazing chat room jim mc nicolas pointed out that to turn off the You have to uncheck the video edits follow audio edits function in the video menu of twisted wave If you uncheck that now you can cut away your audio copy paste mix paste And it will not cut the video as well. So thank you jim for mentioning that All right Next week on this very show which will be april third We will be live and of course you can watch the replay all week. We have another great guest I got a couple of people lined up and you're going to be thrilled and of course We were a vo atlanta last week. So we asked a whole bunch of people. So we'll be booked up till probably august Anyway, uh, we need to thank our donors and you can be a donor too. 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