 Hey, it's Monday night. Time for VoiceOver Body Shop. Boy, did we have a great weekend at Nam. We're going to show all sorts of cool stuff, right, George? Oh, yeah. It's going to be a great one. We've got lots of cool video. Our guest tonight is the one and only Tom Deere. He is an expert on voiceover marketing and he's a coach and he's going to tell us how to better run our voiceover businesses. So I'll bet you have lots of questions for him coming up right after the intro will be right there. Two men, twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voiceover recording technology and the desire to make recording easy for voice actors everywhere together in one place. George Whittem, the home studio engineer to the stars, a Virginia tech grad with an unmatched knowledge of all the latest gear and technology in voiceover today. Dan Leonard, the home studio master, a voice actor with over 30 years experience in broadcasting and recording and a no holds barred myth busting attitude for teaching you how easy it is together to bring you all the latest technology today's voiceover superstars and leading the discussion on how to make the most of your voiceover business this is voiceover body shop voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials dot com home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements makers of source connect source connect pro and source connect now vo to go go dot com everything you need to become a successful voice artist voiceover extra your daily resource for vo success the vo dojo take your voiceover career all the way j michael collins demos when quality matters and by voice actor websites dot com where your voice actor website shouldn't be a pin in the butt and now live from their super secret multimedia studio in sherman oaks california here are george wittem and dan Leonard hi there i'm dan Leonard in the west and i'm a little bit less west not quite as west and this is voiceover body shop or vo bs slight non-synchronousity tonight but anyway uh well it's been an interesting weekend george and i went to uh the national association of is it music manufacturers or how do you say that close enough music merchants music merchants well they're manufacturers too i mean it was all manufacturers that were there anyway we saw all the cool gear and uh we're going to talk about that we've got lots of video to show you tonight so uh you know get your your appetite wet for all sorts of cool tech stuff that we saw there uh also as we said tom dear is coming up in about half an hour we're going to talk about the vo business and how to make your business more efficient and all that kind of stuff so uh stay tuned for all of that uh again if you've got a question at any time whether it's for george and i or for our guest or for the universe in general uh put it in our chat room where the amazing jack daniel is sitting here right at this very moment typing away and keeping in communication with you and if you've never been in our chat room why not all you got to do if you're on our home page is click on chat room or you can do the chat in facebook as well did i explain that okay i know you're you're over here oh okay thank you all right gotta remember it's the other way you're you're up that way okay anyhow it's now time for and now the voiceover extra v obs news the latest and most comprehensive voiceover industry news brought to you live extra news local marketing now most of you know dave kvassie if not personally like i do then online dave has been a person his has personally and virtually been everywhere in the voiceover industry for more than a decade he is currently though president of world voices organization or woevo a host and presenter at industry conferences writer of a daily blog on all things v o frequent contributor to voiceover extra and until last month he did all this part time when does he sleep i know for a fact that he doesn't dave is also an Emmy-winning broadcaster and former nightly news anchor at klastv in las vegas in december he said adios to that long broadcasting career to become a full-time voice actor and how is he doing i'm doing great he tells voiceover extra i'm plenty busy but now i control my time and no one else is driving the schedule it's liberating well dave was certainly prepared for the full-time leap and as always he continues to prepare us for his voiceover success with the wisdom of his experiences and he's got to teach me how to use this teleprompter in a recent article on voiceover extra for instance dave shares how to attract local media to feature your voiceover business first why bother well according to dave your local contacts may lead to the best paying longest lasting or even the most fulfilling jobs in your voiceover playbook it depends on the size of your marketing explains but there is a rule of thumb that your voiceover business though global should start locally and besides people are fascinated by what voiceover professionals do because of the mystique involved they really don't understand what we do or how we do it so the curiosity is high plus local producers learn about you through the media they may be relieved to know there's a seasoned voiceover pro living in the community it just got to get them to notice you so here are five ways that dave recommends we use to get local media to notice us one volunteer with a local nonprofit to voice their psa a pr video or a whiteboard presentation two offer to speak to any local rotary chamber of commerce or other civic organization about your work three approach your local community college about doing an introductory class on voiceover including time on the mic this is a visual that tv cameras love and of course you'll be available for the interview sharing your story and explaining that you're just there to help others by answering questions about your most interesting vocation ps make sure to let the local media outlets know about these higher education events and offer your audio engineering marketing or social media skills to a local community college in a guest seminar for read out loud in book reading programs at local schools libraries churches or even senior homes this may not sound very exciting but such acts of service or favored topics for local journalists seeking to tell the story of how a local business person is giving back to the community and five create a relationship with any of the local reporters watch their programs or read their publications to find out which reporters have a heart for local news features and stories a good ploy sometimes is to get a trusted friend to speak to that reporter for you so you don't have to toot your own horn also begin following those reporters on facebook twitter and linkedin get on their social media conversations and let them know you exist on a day when their assignment editor expects them to come up with a new story from the community they might remember that voiceover guy or gal to call for a good feature local reporters are usually desperately seeking story ideas from the community but can't know everything help them see your unique business dave sure knows that side of the biz and you can learn more about all of this in dave's article now at voiceover extra dot com your daily resource for voiceover success so we have to wish dave good luck you know and i know he's in the chat room there somewhere he's gotta be like dave yeah i mean this is a guy that had a great interior as a as a as a news anchor in in in uh in las vegas and uh yeah he is watching tonight good um and and by the way just the superist of super guys just a wonderful person and great advice so and great writer and and a very long writer at that uh anyway what's up in tech well while we were walking around the trade show floor at nam we did see a lot of cool stuff that we shot video of and you'll be seeing a little bit of that tonight but we'll have a lot more for you just for the next couple guys that roll out the video they'll be up on our facebook i believe our facebook and our youtube pages yep for those that one or the other or both stay tuned on those places for more footage but there was one thing we didn't cover because it well wasn't a vendor at the event it was just something i ran in we stumbled on that's right at one of the booths um and this is a company called versari or verser they make all sorts of office dividers and flexible partitions and things like that to use you know mainly in in commercial spaces office spaces schools things like that but i i've seen this stuff for a while and it's always looked interesting but this one particular thing that was being used is there is their versa panel room divider and it's all being used in a totally different context in fact one of the videos we're going to show today which i think is the company fluid has it set up you'll probably see it in the shot as we talk about the product you'll see it set up in the context of a voiceover booth but what's cool about this room divider is it's it's segmented it's totally flexible you can bend it in a u you can make it more of a rectangle shape you can just sort of make it like you see in the picture right now which is just sort of a partial room divider um this really cool and seems extremely low and though each of those sections that you see is very thick dense acoustical material i don't know what product it is i did squeeze it while i was there i'm always the guy poking the acoustic stuff don't squeeze the shaman yeah but uh it was very dense and it felt very substantial um so it seems like it's probably a pretty good absorber and it absorbs equally on both sides well what people don't think about is when you have a product like that that's open to the room and it absorbs equally on both sides it's even more effective because whatever sound does escape from that enclosure that makes it into the room is then even further damped by the back of the panel so it's an extremely uh flexible and it's daresay cost effective solution it's certainly not one of the cheapest things i mean you can't be the the low cost of some moving blankets on some pvc pipe but if you're looking for something a little more attractive a little more flexible a little easier to put up and take down this thing is pretty cool i believe it's around 650 bucks 660 uh as in it's eight feet long and it's shipped for free they ship they seem to ship everything to be for 48 that's pretty cool that's over at versari.com that's the versa panel and then i was searching around today and somebody was asking about products from audi mute um i have a client in canada and so we were trying to find vendors that are canadian or canada friendly and one i know for sure is called prime acoustic they're a canadian company but this other one audi mute apparently also ships and sells in canada and they have a kit that is a complete absorption kit to treat as they say specifically in the listing or a small voice over booth and what's about this kit that makes it kind of unique is that's it down there it's the one that has some gray some tan and then some tape rolled up next to it there uh susan if you want to click on that one um what's cool about it is it includes a variety of products not just absorbers it includes the absorbing panels it includes a product that's much more dense for doing isolation that you could hang over save the doorway to a closet and it includes some weather stripping and a seal a door sweep for the door so that would be a little bit more of a comprehensive product includes all the stuff that's the one and um it's pretty sweet and it's 450 bucks so that's a pretty high bang for the buck ratio there for if you have a small closet or walk-in closet you want to treat that might be an all-in-one solution for you so that's some of the cool stuff that's popped up on my radar again radar other again again other than the stuff at nam yeah there was a ton of cool stuff in nam we'll be yapping on about that a lot and god there are so many people there it's uh in ten thousand plus i believe was right i heard yes and i think we met each and every one of them some of them dressed very strangely and some of them like regular people anyway we're going to show you some some some stuff coming up from them in just a minute so uh stay tuned tom dear coming up in a little bit as well talk about your voiceover business so stay tuned we'll be right back before time began there was vlbs.tv watch or else you're still watching vlbs is 2018 going to be the year you take your voiceover practice to the next level if not you can go back to check in your email while this message is airing i also think there's some leftover tieway in the back of the fridge over there somewhere anyway if you're serious about dramatically upping your level of success i want you to go to a very very special url vio the number two go go dot com forward slash v obs that's vio to go go dot com forward slash v obs uh if you want to get the best stuff you can out there and have a great job as a voice actor this is the place to go join hundreds of voice act join them they're there i swear join the hundreds of voice practitioners around the world who have decided to invest in themselves for this new year learn voiceover from the ground up or from where you are to where you want to be vio to go go dot com forward slash v obs let's make 2018 your year as a voice talent you have to have a website but what a hassle getting someone to do it for you and when they finally do they break or don't look right on mobile devices they're not built for marketing and seo they're expensive you have limited or no control and it takes forever to get one built and go live so what's the best way to get you online in no time go to voice actor websites dot com like our name implies voice actor websites dot com just does websites for voice actors we believe in creating fast mobile friendly responsive highly functional designs that are easy to read and easy to use you have full control no need to hire someone every time you want to make a change and our upfront pricing means you know exactly what your costs are ahead of time you can get your voice over website going for as little as seven hundred dollars so if you want your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options go to voice actor websites dot com where your vio website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what hi dan and george are here at nam which stands for the national association of music merchants all right and all the stuff that we use in voiceover of course is made for music we just adapt it so we're here where all the manufacturers are and we're going to look at some of the stuff that you guys drool over right that's right i got a list of vendors we're going to see from senheiser neumann to urlan microphones centrants the makers of mic port pro we get to see the mixer face face in the finally yeah a lot of great new stuff and stuff that we've seen before but things that we're going to focus on stuff that you guys in voiceover with home studios really care about right so come with us and we'll have a great time at nam we're here at nam 2018 in anaheim and we've been waiting george and i have been talking about a product but you might be familiar with the centrants mic port pro which a lot of you are probably still using because they're a great product but we're talking with michael goodman michael the president of centrants and they have a new product that we've been waiting for the rollout for some time the mixer face tell us about it yeah um thank you for stopping by dan we're very excited to have you here we love our supporters in the voiceover community we love the work you guys do and uh obviously we're always envious in how you can speak and how we can't speak um this product right here mixer face r4 is our newest member of the mobile recording interface family what this product does is it connects to a phone and it turns your phone into a mobile recording studio so a door essentially right if i pick a phone here you can connect the mixer face to a phone they're about the same size and then now if you have a door or some kind of software on the phone like for example twisted wave which i know is used a lot or some other software you can do all of your recording on the phone and post processing on the phone this is what's different from a typical situation when you use a recording interface and you record to computer or even if you use um you know a location recorder of which there's many different models what should you have to do with the location record is you have to take out the sd card at the end of the session move it into a computer then open up a post production a session and it takes a lot of time it's not ideal so this allows you to do everything in essentially one session because you can record to the phone you can do all of your editing all your process post processing and send that recording off to a ftb or email etc right and if essentially you're done you can finish post processing in the back of the cab we're saying you know on the way back from the gig and you're done this thing is very lightweight it connects to android phones iphones computers mac and windows right it has an eight hour battery i will turn it off here you just push this button very similar to you know some of our other products this is your battery indicator so it shows you how much battery is still left and then it's got two high quality mic freeze with um high z inputs and high pass filter in case you're doing a interview maybe outside and there's some wind noise that you need to cut out we use that a lot right so these mic mic freeze are very low noise low distortion there's two controls these are essentially zero latency monitoring control which is not available on mic board pro but so many people were asking for them we added them in this lets you adjust the balance of your own voice or the sound that's coming back from the computer so if you're narrating to a music bed or you know some pre-existing track this allows you to balance how much of that or you're doing a skype guide in a skype session yeah you don't hear less of them more of you exactly this is inputs three and four which is also amazing for some music applications but also perhaps for voiceover you can feed and second stereo track into this thing and essentially narrate over that as well so you can create a little monitor mix for yourself headphone output line level output and most importantly built-in recorder there's a micro sd card that you put in and then this recorder records in the wave file at 1648 which is perfect for you know most work that you do out there so you can actually record to two places you can record to an iphone or ipad a computer etc and you can in parallel create a backup safety copy inside of this machine right nice does it also act as a usb interface it does act as a usb interface so when you record to the phone you're using the usb interface portion of it but at the same time there's a second tape machine i'm going to use the old term right that's inside of there it's a backup it's a backup exactly it's a failsafe recording mechanism we also have a third recording mechanism in a way of a analog output jack so you can record to camera if you're doing some camera work right sure and then you can technically print three different mixes which is amazing right price point on something like this we're currently thinking of a price point of retail price of 299 without the recorder there's going to be a model without the recorder in case you just want to print to um to the phone that's great and then the recorder will add about 50 bucks we're also looking at a couple of x y microphones that we're going to be announcing as well those are prototypes yet and they will add another 50 bucks to the price of the product depending on the kind of customer somebody may want that somebody may not want that i think most of the voiceover customers will still want to use this like they use the mic port pro meaning a short cable and a professional microphone that defines your sound i think that's going to be the most popular use case i think the backup recording feature in there is super valuable for people that do audiobooks or really long form i get an email every couple of weeks i hit stop on my doll or whatever and i lost my track or i had clicks and pops because my hard drive if that was recording in the background you'd save a huge amount of frustration viewing how to have that backup recording thank you we believe that you know people are people people make mistakes it is it this gives you peace of mind and i would appreciate if i was doing a session and i had a backup track absolutely congratulations thank you very much george we were we're very happy to see this finally all right yes looking forward to shipping a whole bunch of these very soon how soon is it coming out about two months all righty thanks for being with us thank you very much then thanks margill thank you for having talk about fun i mean we had a great time there i mean we met people that we hadn't met before people who have wanted to meet for a long time like like geermo and miguel at that studio bricks and uh... and and and michael goodman there who we met from a centrance who i've you know talked to many times and you know used to a centrance mic board pro and uh it was kind of interesting and of course you were talking to some tuba guy as i recall man i tell you i wish i could split into ten pieces so i could have one guy walk the horn brass hall one that walks just pa one that walks the instruments because there's so much stuff to see there and just the small time we were there dan how many people we went into that i knew you well at least three or four people yeah i mean yeah now i know i'm a local yokel and i'm actually running into people i know what these things so uh yeah i mean we said you saw some engineering friends of ours you ran into somebody who was a an old an old buddy from your live music days and uh and we and we met uh ron night uh so some people might remember and a bunch of other people that was it was really really nice uh it was not as overwhelming as my first time because it was a it's a total assault on the senses yes absolutely it's a huge assault on this it's just my first yeah there are times now maybe eight or ten times and the first few times i was there i mean wander the halls almost aimlessly because you just have no clue what you're going to see there and it's just all new to you so this year you know came in there with a pretty clear idea of what we wanted to see trust me we didn't see nearly everything now that we did not want to see let alone everything we didn't know about that's how big the show is i mean north hall is the size i mean i don't know know how many of you've been to aes that's a trade show that's specifically pro audio nothing else this show is like that a hall is the size of uh the aes show and there's north hall um upper story lower story and then there's abc d and e every one of those halls is twice the size of aes yeah it is an unbelievable yeah and if you've ever been to nab it's about like that too which is huge it is it goes i think that one hall is two football fields long at least it is i wore out a pair of shoes in that one of course there were no drones at this one nab it was all drones yeah this one had a sign of the entrance saying no drones allowed anyway we've got lots more video from them they were an instrument that you could crank making a droning sound yes anyway you know there was that actually you know and then there was the wall of symbols which i think i think we actually have some video of that anyway um we'll have we have more video for you coming up from nam and tom dear will be joining us in just a couple of minutes so stay right where you are paul i really like your suit where did you get it looks good on you this is the obs we're here at nam 2018 and we're in the blue microphone booth talking with gay while how you doing i'm doing great thanks for coming today our pleasure one of the things that's really important in your home studio is how you suspend your mic some people will use a boom arm some like a reticulated arm and it appears that blue has a a new model of a reticulated arm tell us about it that's right this is called the compass it's our newest desktop boom arm and as you can see it's an enclosed spring design instead of a scissor spring design and what that does for you not only does it look fantastic but it's quieter and it's smoother looks great on camera we have hidden channel cable management so you don't have to like undo undo the cable and solder it back together inside the arm correct correct and here you also have thumb screws on each of the pivot points so if you like one certain position you can just lock it there let's show that yeah you can see the the thumb screws here that will loosen that up that's great fun or the springs balance it and you can move it around so you can either have it kind of loose and move it around or you could lock it in place it all depends on what you want to do it works with all standard threading on whatever microphone or shock mount you have and it has a great desktop mount that comes with it and but can it be mounted straight on to something yes all right so through our website you'll be able to get a bushing that allows you to insert directly into a desk as well outstanding um it will support even a heavy a heavy condenser microphone supports up to 2.4 pounds which is great for we have a usb microphone called the yeti so yeti together with a shock mount it works perfectly with this or if you happen to have a larger broadcast microphone works great with this as well i want surprise point on something like this so we're not we haven't quite announced the price point yet we'll be shipping in march and we'll be announcing in about two weeks uh but it'll be very competitive and we think you guys will be pleasantly surprised i can't wait to try it myself fantastic all right uh source elements creates the software source connect standard pro and live and many other products the ones you guys probably most interested in are source kicks and that's really well suited for voice actors it's one of the most affordable tools out there that allows you to connect to another studio in very high quality audio reliably and it's definitely the most commonly found connection software available for professional audio use it is going to be in the studio that you're working with 99% of the time more than likely if you're ever working with a studio who doesn't have source connect let us know we'd love to know but if you want to give it a try go to source dash elements.com in a free trial give it a shot see what you think of source connect and also you can always try their new big pool source connect now totally free works between web browsers and it's a great alternative to Skype sounds sounds much better i really appreciate your sponsorship source elements and we'll be right back here with dan and tom back in the studio right after this are you confused about how to set up and maintain a professional quality voiceover studio no wonder the information out there is mostly mythology this is the best microphone to use you'll have to have a preamp you need a soundproof booth this software is the best your audio must be broadcast quality consult with someone who knows the truth someone who's been there in the trenches doing voiceover for over 30 years someone with unparalleled experience with voiceover studios who's worked with hundreds of voice actors and designed hundreds of personal studios he knows how to teach and cares about your success in one of the harshest environments known to voiceover your home dan Leonard the home studio master separate myth from fact and get a handle on your personal voiceover studio contact the home studio master at home voiceover studio dot com drop off a specimen of your dry audio for a free analysis are you confused about how to set up and about it that's right this is called the compass it's our newest desktop boom arm and as you can see it's an enclosed spring design instead of a scissor spring design and what that does for you not only does it look fantastic but it's quieter and it's smoother looks great on camera we have hidden channel cable management so you don't have to like undo undo the cable and solder it back together inside the arm correct correct and here you also have thumb screws on each of the pivot points so if you like one certain position you could just lock it there let's show that yeah you can see the the thumb screws here that will loosen that up that's great fun or the springs balance it and you can move it around so you can either have it kind of loose and move it around or you could lock it in place it all depends on what you want to do it works with all standard threading on whatever microphone or shock mount you have and it has a great desktop mount that comes with it and but can it be mounted straight onto something yes all right so through our website you'll be able to get a bushing that allows you to insert directly into a desk as well outstanding it will support even a heavy a heavy condenser microphone supports up to 2.4 pounds which is great for we have a usb microphone called the yeti so yeti together with a shock mount it works perfectly with this or if you happen to have a larger broadcast microphone works great with this as well i want surprise point on something like this so we're not we haven't quite announced the price point yet we'll be shipping in march and we'll be announcing in about two weeks but it'll be very competitive and we think you guys will be pleasantly surprised i can't wait to try it myself fantastic all right having dinner tonight how about having some vo too voiceover body shop have some voice over with your dinner tonight on voiceover body shop nine eastern six pacific tom dear is a new york based voice actor with over 20 years of experience he's narrated thousands of projects for hundreds of clients in over a dozen countries tom's experience as a corporate trainer as well as a voice talent make him uniquely qualified to help both aspiring and veteran voice talents navigate the voiceover industry and let's say hello to tom dear tom welcome how you doing i'm doing good how are you i'm doing just fabulous it's great to have you here on voiceover body shop once again um anything new and exciting happening in your life uh as far as voiceover is concerned uh sure uh i got this guy all right you got your transformer guy this is jack's uh it's part of a new game called light seekers uh which is a phone game you play on your phone or tablet and uh it also comes with action figures that have a bluetooth connection with it so when you're running around in the game you can hear me oh cool and then i shoot you yeah so that's that's been the fun thing all right we love sorry so you can go to lightseekers.com and check that out and get your kids to play it yeah we love our job it's we get to do fun stuff like that it's so boring yeah i know but onto some stuff that ain't necessarily so fun and because everybody's been asking about this and there's been a lot of facebook discussion about it in a few seminars about it and that's the new tax code which i guess really isn't going to affect us until next year what are your thoughts on that uh that's a good question um i've written some blogs about this and i've talked about it in some of my classes uh so i've done some research on the tax code um i had some help from fellow voice talent steven j cohen who helped me out a little bit and the tax code is it depends on who you are whether it's going to be a good thing a bad thing or just a thing um i noticed the big difference is whether you are a union voice talent which means you get w twos which means you're filing as a schedule a or whether you're a non-union voice talent where you're most likely going to be getting 10 99s and you're going to be set filing as a schedule we'll see um if you're filing a schedule we'll see it's going to be pretty much the same and maybe even a little bit better in some areas i mean the the tax brackets most of us are going to be paying less taxes yeah i'm assuming the yeah which is good we like that i'm assuming the majority of uh voice talkers that are in here are going to be making somewhere between 30 and 80 000 and that's the case your tax bracket goes from 25 to 22 so that's a good thing um uh if you're schedule a people are still trying to figure out whether if you're a schedule a union voice talent whether you'll still be able to write off your um whether you'll be able to itemize your deductions um it looks like no some people say yes um teachers are still able to write off their uh school supplies and stuff they're able to write off their continuing education certification but we're not sure if that's a carve out just for educators or whether it applies to everybody um i still look around online i look at articles unfortunately the vast majority of articles that i see on the internet are grossly biased politically one way or the other left or right so it's really hard to get a straight answer so when it comes to all of that stuff talk to your cpa um and uh i mean we're pretty much going to have to wait till next year to really see how all of this uh pans out but save all your receipts or you know keep everything organized track all your expenses do everything that you've done in previous years and you know we'll see how it goes yeah might be one of those things we just lump it all in together and just add it up which is right which is what i do anyway so right um on that and to that point if you are schedule a and schedule c um you can take the stuff that if you may not be able to write it off a schedule a any more take it over to your schedule c and use a make it a business deduction but you got to be careful that you don't take a loss too often because then the irs will designate your voiceover career as a hobby and then you can't write off anything so be careful about that okay what would say that one more time if you if you take a loss too much when you file as a schedule c if you take a loss too often i think two out of five years or more than twice out of every five years the irs will declare that you're a hobby and then you can't write off anything anymore okay so don't lose anything spend nothing yes no well yeah spend on good coaching and all that kind of stuff yes all right now as a as a coach for voice actors on voice business type stuff uh i'm sure you you've met people who are very frugal and smart with their money and then a lot of people who are you know not so good right what's your what's your philosophy and how to be smart with your finances as a voice actor the big thing is to understand that you're not an employee anymore you're a business and employees make money spend money and save money differently than a business does you got to get out of that nine to five mentality of the ergonomics also of how you're making your money you're not working for money you're a business that's generating revenue and the way you need to think about that and the way that the laws are structured around that are are are different so you know the big question is should i incorporate should i not incorporate and that's been coming up a lot with this new tax code you know now that these tax code these new tax laws are coming in should i incorporate well first off i'm not a cpa or a financial advisor so i can't give anybody any kind of financial advice if you want that kind of advice you should go to an actual professional financial advisor preferably a fiduciary those are the ones who are by law are sworn to help you invest on your behalf to protect your interest not to you know give them the best commissions but do not incorporate or or unincorporate because of the new tax code based on what i said before nobody knows what's going on so you can't worry about it in that context i will say that if you make more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars it may be a good idea to incorporate and if you make less it's probably not worth it because of the the the fees and everything that's involved depending on which state you do that in too because well that's the other thing that's the other thing there there is a website out there i'm trying to remember the name of it i think it's llc university and llcuniversity.com and it shows you by state all the laws and guidelines and fees if you want to form an llc by the way an llc is not a corporation it's a limited liability company which you can either decide whether you kind of want to go in the direction of sole proprietor or go in the direction of a corporation and that'll you know it's depending on how and in how and which way you want to pay your taxes right it's not a corporation okay good to know that yes uh yeah it's it always amazes me how you know personally i think a lot of people overstate how much money they make and voice over uh it seems to be a popular topic amongst you know if you're if you're talking with a lot of voice actors but sure it's good to know that there's there's that that's a good cutoff point at 150 000 uh what it says you're doing really well and two it's probably a good time to uh to do that uh one of the things you like to talk about is something called the sales funnel sort of changing gears here from the finance stuff yes what's the sales funnel all about the sales funnel it's something i've only discovered in the past year or so um strangely enough in the context of i produce i'm producing comic book i have been for a few years and um we've been trying to figure out uh marketing and advertising strategies online and so in our studies and research we learned about the sales funnel so now i apply that to the voice over industry to the point that i actually have an entire seminar that talks about the um the sales funnel and basically what that is it's literally you know imagine a you know a funnel there's a bunch of different uh interpretations of it but i in the way i like it there's four areas there's your brand awareness consideration decision and advocacy and what you want to do is get voice seekers to enter and push them through that sales funnel cameron greg who's a fellow voice talent i was talking to him about this concept and he said oh you want people to find you that you choose you and love you and he's absolutely right and then figure out what part of your marketing strategy do these areas apply to so and that's all there's a whole lot of that that's a whole lot of detail a lot of serious detail right but um basically brand awareness is get them to know you exist um which implies which involves a lot of inbound and outbound marketing uh consideration is now that they know that you're exist they need to know about you and what you can do and what you can do well the decision they listen to your demos they send you an audition they interview you to maybe be added to their talent roster whether it's a casting site or whether uh whether you're an agent they're an agent and then the advocacy which is once you've booked the gig and you get in the booth and you wow them and you evangelize the client you do such a great job that they they want to come back to you for more and more so you get them as a regular client so that's in a nutshell what the sales funnel is okay so it's it's making sure that you've got lots of different things to throw into the funnel yes lots of content to generate engagement to you know based on where they are in the sales funnel to get them to cast you and adore you and never consider anyone else again for a voice project of course there's also doing a great job for them which that's not sucking is uh is a part of that formula yeah get it right you get it when you get the opportunity do it right now you're just starting a new gig here with uh it's with abacus entertainment tell us all about that abacus entertainment is a great recording studio in new york city and um they are similar to edge studio who i am still a proud member of the edge studio family i'm just spreading my wings um abacus entertainment is a recording studio and also they have a training program so i work with sarah waters who many of you know she is the creative director of abacus entertainment and uh they have a great new uh staff they just started building this coaching group lisa bigs is one of them as well as and ganguza who's out near neck of the woods who i adore um so i'm teaching uh business classes and marketing classes i just taught a few weeks ago get your blank together in 2018 which is the first of a series of classes that i'll be teaching and it's both live so you can be there in new york city at the studio and also you can uh register online and through zoom you can participate in the class as well all right well if you're just joining us where the heck you been uh we're talking with with tom dear in new joysie and he's uh he's a voice over business coach as well as a very accomplished voice actor if you've got a question for him throw it in our chat room either on facebook or in our amazing interactive chat room uh on our website uh and the amazing jack daniel will get that question to him and that will also provoke lots of interesting discussion so how was 2017 for you tom um it was a down year i had a down year um about 20 25 percent down uh and i've talked to a lot of my fellow voice talents who are in the same i guess we'll call it strata of voice over experience and income and a lot of people had a down year last year um me don't worry i'm okay paid all my bills saved for retirement went and had fun you know everything's okay um but but yeah a lot of us made less money than we have in previous years and i've been trying to figure out why why that's been the case and i think it's because of a couple things um i know for a fact i auditioned a lot less especially in the second half of the year because voices dot com bought voice bank and as a result i refused to audition for voice bank projects good for you thank you um it's i've learned it i've noticed it's getting harder and harder to replace clients more and more clients are going away and using other all other methods whether it's a pay to play site or doing it themselves or getting their niece who wants to be a movie star or getting the intern to do it um also i think this is a theory that i have is that i think another reason why there weren't as many projects to go around last year is because i think a lot of businesses were wondering whether the tax bill was going to pass and they knew that if the tax bill passes it's a republican administration republican platform is to lower taxes and that's what they were how they were spinning it and trying to sell the thing and um they would know that if the tax bill passes there is going to be more money for them to do any of a number of things to lower debt if they're a big company to do stock buybacks or cut dividend checks or do bonuses like at and t in a couple of other companies have done i think wal-mart did it too um but also means they have a bigger budget for projects now most of the companies that hire you know blue collar voice talents like you and me aren't all necessarily ford and coca-cola um but they're you know a couple tiers down that may not necessarily be uh they may not necessarily be on the stock market so that means they will have more money for projects and i've already noticed it's what january 29th i've noticed a couple of clients that i didn't work with last year kind of poke their head out and and some of them have actually booked me excellent yeah i so i think that i think the tax code the not knowing if the tax code is going to pass or not did keep a lot of you know hands in their pockets last year yeah that makes a lot of sense so let me ask you this because you were we were talking about the the the voice bank thing a few minutes ago do you tell your clients this that you're not going to work you know if they're going to go through them you're not going to you're not going to audition through that anymore or do do you inform them about what this is what the issue is yeah um what i did was i i do a quarterly newsletter like many voice talents but my quarterly newsletter isn't the me me me show hey listen listen to this great thing i did don't i sound awesome i mean i have plenty of other time to do that um what i do in my news letters is i take that opportunity to educate my clients or inform them hey this is what's going on and the last one the one that i did in the fourth quarter was to say hey for those of you who aren't aware this is what's happening in the voiceover industry some of you may be using them some of you may not and you know and that's when i did let them know that you know i'm not a fan of this particular business model and i will not be uh engaging in i will not be working with clients who are working with pay to play sites like like voices dot com and that use and that use voice bank i also told my agents that and one of my agents i'm sure it wasn't only because of me i know that many of us told this particular agent that if you send us voice bank generated auditions we just won't do them and then shortly after that they started including in the project description that this is a voice bank project and they said you're welcome to not take that audition if it's a voice bank project and i haven't and a lot of my fellow voice talents haven't so many of them have adjusted and then that other group of agent another group of agents made the vo h an alliance right right yeah so it takes a little bit of chutzpah to actually bring that up with the client there it's an it's an important relationship and you don't necessarily want to you know rock the boat with them but i think if you're a voice actor today and you really want to make a difference making sure that the truth is told out there and that people have the opportunity to hear at least our side of it and how we're not getting ripped off they're getting ripped off in a situation like that yeah that's the thing all relationships are based on communication and trust whether it's a personal relationship or a professional relationship and we need to let our end or let the voice seekers know to let our end clients know that this is what's going on we have standards you know i mean some of us are in the union some of us are not in the union but we i'd like to think that all of us have standards and we have a way that we wish to comport ourselves in this industry and we wish to comport ourselves with professionalism and dignity and integrity and anytime that you make an attempt to communicate that to someone that has the same values that you do it's going to strengthen the relationship and the people who don't share those values will hopefully go away so you know what i mean so like i love it when people unsubscribe from my newsletter it's like what are my favorite things it's like oh good now i don't have to you know that we're not on the same page anymore so great you'll be over there i'll be over here and that's cool right well i'm glad to hear you're doing that it it takes a little bit of gazungas to do that but yeah you really need to i and i i encourage everybody to tell people the truth about what's going on out there it'll only help let me ask you this i mean it's a tough business to start with i mean we're we're auditioning we're doing all the things we need to do to be successful why is it harder now more than ever to market yourself as a voice actor great question um well first off there's just too many of us out there now i truly believe that there is no competition in the voiceover industry however i believe that right now there are too many untrained bottom feeders in the voiceover industry that are screwing it up for everybody else um so there is even more than ever this huge wall of white noise of every deep based yachts with a usb microphone you know trying to do what we do for a living i mean nobody thinks they can pick up a violin and start playing it at a concert level immediately but everybody thinks just because they can talk they can do this for a living you know owning a wrench does not make you a plumber owning a pen does not make you an author you know so but for some reason it's oh i can talk so i can do this for a living right well no you need training you need acumen you need discipline you need integrity so there's just too many of us that are untrained there's plenty of work for everybody that knows what they're doing um i also think the pay to play sites have damaged the industry i think that's making it harder to market yourself um specifically when it comes to seo many of the pay to play sites have dominated uh search engine optimization so when voice seekers or aspiring voice talents are you know looking to get into the industry there's a voice talent or if a voice seeker is looking to cast voice talent and they start typing in stuff on google and the pay to play sites come up first they're like oh okay well then yeah i'll go i'll go do that you know and so that hurts um and um inbound and out marketing inbound marketing is tougher than ever outbound marketing is tougher than ever also because the voice seekers think about it dan think about how many inboxes you have just a few yeah yeah you got your voicemail right you got your text messaging you got your email you got facebook twitter linked in um you can accept you can get messages on instagram i mean what did i just name five six seven yeah i love it when people contact me on facebook messenger it's like i don't check that you didn't get my message what well that's the thing and some people solely rely on facebook messenger for their for their correspondences with friends or clients so there's all these different ways to communicate with people and i can't i can't even imagine what it's like for a casting director's office and how they're just constantly tidal wave over after tidal wave of phone calls and and and emails with their mp3s of their demo attached you know and and and you know stuff stuffed in envelopes and postcards like these people are just being completely crushed with aspiring voice talents and they're crappy marketing i mean did you hear like last in the past couple of weeks there's a production company who's starting to charge yeah voice talents to be put on their roster i mean what the hell is that well there's a lot of these guys who've fallen behind the times that have lost a lot of money and they think that's the model to get it back and i think it'd be much smarter if if agents would jump in and look at how it is we're marketing ourselves and look at the e-learning jobs and the narration jobs and the and the explainer videos and find that work for us but they're relying on a lot of old stuff and if this is how they're reacting to it then they're not going to end up winning in the long run well that's the kind of a good thing when there's like you know seismic changes to industries like you know 15 years ago all the advertising agencies and marketing companies and newspapers just started dying on the vine because they going on and i'm assuming a few agencies and you know sites are going to go out of business as a result of this because they don't know how to adapt and if they don't know how to adapt then you know then they're supposed to go out of business you know one more quick question and again if you have a question for tom dear throw it in the chat room so we can bring it up in our next segment but uh so how do we as voice actors adjust to this new environment well that's a big answer that's a big one you need to focus on being a more effective voice talent and how do you do that well there's a there's a lot of ways to do that um first you got to know what's reasonable and possible with who you are what you can do and what you can charge when i say that i mean what you can charge in relation to what the demand is since the barrier for entry is lower rates are lower that's just kind of how it is now um i mean yes i still have a lot of clients that i command rates that are commensurate with the industry standard and there's others where you know some massaging has to take place for everybody to be happy you know um do i have effective specific goals do i have effective cash flow this is one other reason why aspiring voice talents fail by the bushel is because they don't have the capital they are impatient and they start without properly investing in their training in their demo and their equipment and they can't sustain it and if they can't sustain it they're going to go out of business too and do i have an effective marketing strategy which is you know a whole bunch of different things which i assume we're going to talk about a little more hopefully yeah yeah so yeah it's learning how to be effective in 2018 how to be effective because what worked three years ago i don't think even works anymore i mean postcards cold calls i mean do they are i mean i haven't really had an effective cold calling or postmark postcard campaign in a long time i'm sure there's some of our listeners that some stuff have worked for them i know the great announcer Doug Kirchel is in there and he's a brilliant marketer and brander um but you know your conventional marketing strategies just don't work anymore right well it's times they are changing and you have to be astute you've got to be culturally literate you have to really know what's going on in the world and how it affects you and our business yeah anyway we're talking with tom dear again if you've got a question we're going to take a little bit of a longer break because we want to show you some more stuff from nam so it gives you a little bit of time to think up a question to ask him and we'll get to it the next segment thanks for being with us tom we'll be right back on voice of roboticia skittles taste the rainbow she has fought for those who don't have a voice the national zoo because sometimes you just need to struggle mama double doors downloaded and started embarrassing your teenagers today resolve spot and stain because the dog's gonna drag his butt on the carpet he just is four hundred million dollars that's what the mayor wants you to pay for a new basketball stadium chickens were made to be fried sorry buddy kfc engage the droid army with this lego star wars republic fighter tank what you've never seen a girl kill and troll game stop hey i'm the cat meme guy come on you know you love cat memes instagram what's your thing hi it's j michael collins and these are just a few examples of the first class demos my team and i are producing if you'd like to have something similar visit jmc voiceover dot com and click on the demo production tab to find out more all righty home voice a voiceover essentials dot com yes voiceover essentials dot com they have their new led 20 color voiceover recording sign and it is a home run here it is here's what it looks like i have it flashing right there it is the best selling item on voiceover essentials what it's backwards it doesn't if someone was looking at it from the other side it would not have been backwards anyway it's the best selling new item on voiceover essentials since the portables and the vo1 a microphone in in fact they totally sold out the first shipment but they doubled their original order and they have arrived and for a few days only harlan is not ten dollars off the price but that won't last long the one and only vo recording sign now with 20 color led elimination and a credit card sized remote here it is this is the credit it's even smaller than the credit card you know but you can change the mode on it it will it will just it'll stay one color it will flash it'll do all sorts of cool stuff so it's a sign that has saved more relationships than the disciples of Freud make sure your significant others can see it and odds are when it when it is on they will not bother you when you're doing voiceover anyway you want one go over to voiceover essentials dot com and you'll find the sign he's got a special on it ten dollars off go over there right now best way go right to the bottom of our page here click on the picture of harlan hogan talking into his marvelous portabooth plus pro whatever that is and it will take you right there and you can order one right now get yours we're here at nam 2018 and we're talking with kevin zikaro from fluid audio uh well known for your studio monitors but you also have a new thing a digital interface tell us about it so this interfaces is a lot like the other interfaces out there two channels in all right we're back tom dear will be back with us in a second but man was we we got so much stuff that we saw at nam and uh we're gonna we have all these videos where were we gonna put them we're gonna put them on facebook and the youtube's yes so by the subscribe to our youtube channel if you haven't yet i think it's really important i mean we tell you to do that but you know if you go there subscribe and you'll get a lot more content from us and just this amazing show that you watch on monday night anyway uh we got voice over body right four words in case you're wondering uh we got a couple questions here starting from jv martin uh mr wittem all right first question from jv here says oh i see the different one this one's for that's a tech one yeah all right we'll do that later i guess yeah um i'm an escort what's the impact i'm assuming this is about the tax law question um let's start with one do you think there's an impact on him do you know is that something about tom uh as far as i know um escorps uh there shouldn't be too much of an effect i will say that escorps do tend to get audited more so you just might want to make sure that you're you know on the straight and narrow with that um the corporations i mean depending on how you set it up you should be doing better as a result of the tax code the new tax bill was designed to benefit corporations using the and i know this is a bad word the trickle down uh effects which we were from the reagan years we heard and they've been actually using that um using that term and but you know what so far at least on the news there's been indications that a lot of the bigger companies are doing that sort of thing but i think the smaller companies are doing it too because i've just noticed in the past two weeks that like i said more clients are popping up when they didn't for almost all of last year so but do your research talk to your accountant uh to find out if there's any direct impact as far as i know i don't think there is there's a second part of the question ironically considering the next person who asked the question but he says also i'm on linkedin but i'm not very active as somebody who wants to expand to e-learning and corporate narration should i be embracing linkedin i don't know tracy lindley do you think so i see her in the chat room i love you tracy um yes you should absolutely embrace linkedin linkedin is a very very powerful engine i have actually gotten long-term clients off of linkedin um as a matter of fact uh tracy has her own course uh she created a an actual training course on how to use linkedin effectively uh the name of it escapes me but tracy could you type it in the chat box for everybody to see and i strongly suggest that everybody goes to that and you can learn everything you need to know about how to build an effective profile on linkedin yeah it's a great program too it's just and i've seen her do her presentation out of she's just wonderful with with her energy on that um well yeah so tracy actually her question actually is this what should we look for in a cpa worth their salt now i'll just insert here not that you haven't made it clear enough but you are not a cpa yourself correct you definitely consult one for yes legal advice yes and i'll give you that disclaimer as many times as necessary do not take my direct advice as the advice of a professional financial advisor nor if you decide to do what i suggest and you lose your shirt you cannot sue me or the voiceover body shop so hit record twice on that one um is that the coa or the cya whatever it is i don't want something something um but a couple things you should look for in an effective uh account a word of mouth is a great one you know ask fellow voice talents or entertainers or um self proprietors in your area um a couple other things make sure that your accountant has what's called a ptin basically it's this you know registration thing or number that shows that they are allowed to you know file taxes on your behalf um also if an accountant promises you big rent refunds or promises you bigger refunds than the competition run fast okay because that's not what it's about um an effective cpa will make sure that you're filing your taxes legally and effectively and properly and if they're good at what they do and they are experienced in tax law and they're experienced in working with someone who's filing a schedule c or you know then they will find you you will get deductions you should i mean there's no guarantee you're going to get a refund because you may have had a good year and you had minimal expenses because you did all this investment last year in your tools and your marketing and your technique and this year's the payoff so you're going to pay more in taxes because you made more and your expenses were down because you did all the investing last year um another important thing is make sure that the accountant works all year round you know that they're just a seasonal accountant make sure because um you may have questions for them you may need to make an amendment to your to your tax filing because of a mistake of some kind either your favor in your favor or not in your favor um and the tax code is obviously changed and everyone's still trying to figure out what's going on and the way we file next year could be a lot different than the way we file now so make sure that they are available to um to answer questions so yeah those are the big things that i would suggest when it comes to finding a good cpa yeah not one that's a podiatrist or a chiropractor the rest of the year exactly that could be a bit of a problem a question for maxine done she says it's so great go ahead george oh it's so great to see you here top thank you so much for this great interview awesome and yeah and she says uh what's your favorite way to connect with prospective clients is it or phone or email to reach out to new clients that that's a very good question maxine and it's great to see you thank you um i have decided and this is a direct result of going to fafcon nine in charlotte last fall that i'm going to be making some changes to my business model one of them is as a result of uh joining the voiceover bulletin board back in 2006 which was my first introduction to meeting many of the great people in the voiceover yeah exactly yeah uh um i kind of scoffed at the oh i'm not going into new york city and do the rat race of just being another yachts going on this audition with 400 people that sound just like me i'm not doing that anymore i am a 21st century voice talent um i'm going to audition exclusively online i even told my new york based agents not to send me in for auditions anymore for in-person auditions and my career improved immediately but that was a while ago that was like 10 years ago things are different now um so i'm going to start paying attention to my backyard it's over there um that being new york city which is like the biggest voiceover market in the world right there with la for you know different genres and stuff so um i am trying very hard to go with the mantra one client at a time and do everything i can to interact with them in person uh the vast majority of voice talents are hiding in their booths because it's just easier it's more convenient it's safe in here it is safe in here and you got your little amy amy snively faf con dude ad that you could look at and poked with a little ducky and stuff you know and you know and if if you feel lonely or down you just go to a facebook group and be like oh i love you guys you know and that's true and i love all of you guys too but you have a much better chance of establishing developing and nurturing a meaningful relationship if you interact with them in person yeah it's it's you know so and yes and there are many of you who are in and i hate this term because it's just so rude and dismissive the flyover states um but you know what there are still a lot of opportunities uh what what corvo said in his um and what he was writing about you know marketing in your hometown marketing in your backyard um uh there is the chamber of commerce like he said there's toast masters the rotary club litip um meet-up group you guys know that meet-up we work bought meet-up did you guys know that yep so uh the marriage of the meet-up group you know has like hey you know we want to get together but you know we're sick of doing it at panera you know and we work which is all these wonderful professional spaces have now combined forces so now you have better venues that the higher quality meet-up groups are actually putting money in their pocket and going and using we work to use these great spaces right so um and yes maxine i do sometimes cold call i do sometimes email it all depends it depends on the individual client um i mean there is an adage you know it's better if they if the voice seeker hears you on the phone and it's a more personal engagement but you know what it's harder and harder to get voice seekers on the phone it is easier to email them so yeah it's a little more impersonal but you have a better chance of getting their uh attention or getting them to uh you know call you back yeah so it all depends on the it all depends on the client and what you want to do with that client and whether they're local or they're you know another part of the country or another part of the world right got one more question here from christopher thorn that you and i will have a fun time with uh he says i'm relatively new to the business and simply don't understand the pushback with regards to voices dot com any chance you're willing to expound i i i've got my own opinions too but what do you have to say about that the first thing i'll say about pay-to-play sites is they're like guns fire or polka music it's not what they are it's what you do with them that makes them an instrument of good or evil okay um there are a couple a number of pay-to-play sites out there that are wonderful uh bedalgo we all sing the praises of armin and bedalgo which for those of you who don't know is a german uh based uh pay-to-play site run by armin who believes and practices 100 transparency on both the part of the voice talent and the voice seeker uh e-learning voices in canada run by rick gordon i've been on there for many many years um he focuses primarily on e-learning projects industrials employee stuff he's also fantastic he is also transparent and allows you to negotiate uh rates with your client um voices dot com there have been multiple accounts uh one of which i'm actually going to be publishing in my blog tomorrow um of business practices that were not entirely sure that we understand so many of us in the voiceover industry have been confused when you see a project that's on voice 123 and the pay to the voice talent is a certain amount and then you see the same exact job posting on voices dot com but the amount that the voice talent supposed to get is in the neighborhood of 90 less yeah so from what we seem to understand is that you pay what 400 dollars to be on voices dot com and then they have various levels it seems to depend on how long you've been there and and how much you're going to invest that in itself is a little yeah interesting and then they um try to take money on the back end some say what 20 percent or something like that but then also there seems to be this odd disconnect disparity between what they say they're what they tell the voice seeker they're paying the voice talent and what they actually pay the voice talent and we're talking differences of we'll call them commissions of 50 60 80 percent yeah so this is not the way in my humble opinion if all of these things are true this is not how an ethical business would comport themselves yeah and and then yeah how about you well i've you know you i've you explained it really well i mean you've you've got a company here that is trying to shove its hand into the pocket of a pile of voice actors who should be making better money and they all they see is dollars and we're not fighting their dollars the people we need to talk to as we mentioned earlier is our own clients and the producers and have them spread the word that this really unethical thing is going on and that they're being completely untransparent they're not telling the clients where their budget is going they have a budget of a thousand dollars in there suddenly 800 of it is going to the pocket of voices dot com and uh and it shouldn't be that way we're the ones that worked hard to get where we are and trained and worked with our coaches and invested in our equipment where do they get off taking that much money out of our pockets and that's what's wrong with it yeah uh does anybody know if the vio atlanta uh panel from 2016 that j michael collins moderated is still around um if you can find it it may still be on youtube and they have representatives from voices dot com and bedalgo and a couple of others talking about the subject it's very interesting you may want to check that out absolutely well tom as always it's a pleasure having you on our show and your expertise which everybody appreciates again if they want to get a hold of you where can they get a hold of you uh vio strategist dot com if you want to contact me directly uh if you want to work through the fine folks at edge studio or abacus entertainment you can go to their respective websites and you can book me either for an individual consult i can help you do a diagnosis of your voiceover business where i ask you a series of very uncomfortable questions about your voiceover business and help put together an action plan fabulous that was great tom you're just great tonight that's all really good information thanks uh we're looking forward to seeing you again soon thanks for being here thanks tom oh thanks for having me all righty thank you have a good night thanks all right we'll be back to wrap things up into a nice tight little ball right after these words your dynamic voiceover career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead now there's one place where you can explore everything the voiceover industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com whether you're just exploring a voiceover career or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls voiceover extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions bringing you the most current information on topics like audiobooks auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more it's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voiceover success sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voiceover audition it's all here at voiceover extra dot com that's voiceover x t r a dot com george for voiceover body shop and we're here with the amazing cat microphones who has made just amazingly well designed products at a great price point but i wanted to hear about one that maybe hasn't been heard about as much in the voiceover community that's really interesting and here to tell us about it is kelly how you doing kelly i'm doing great nice to meet you nice to meet you too so thank you for stopping by my pleasure a lot of us know about the famous e100 s which is behind you back here we talk about it a lot we love it for voiceover but the 179 has some tricks up its sleeve and i've heard some good things about it what's unique about that well what's really great if typically most studio condenser mics you'll see they have a single pattern or maybe they have two or three sometimes four right well what we've done with this the m179 has an infinitely adjustable polar pattern that you can dial up on the fly it goes all the way from figure of eight you open up in a bit to to hypercardioid supercardioid cardioid in the center then you get looser cardioids and it goes all the way to omni directional and it's instantaneous it's noise free and you can do it on the fly when you're checking your audio so that's the magic of the m179 so like in for example in a small booth dialing that in what would you be listening for well what you'll be listening to ambient noise or your reflections okay and also proximity effect all that changes with the polar pattern and that's that's natural physics yeah what are the switches on there too okay it also comes with a low cut switch like most microphones and a pad for loud sound sources very cool it's a 1.1 inch double condenser two diaphragms one in the back one in the front that's how we create the polar patterns very nice what's the price point on that hey i gotta look it up i lost the sign the price is 229 oh that's very nice well i really appreciate it i think you're stopping by is great George appreciate it the awkward hand there's your at mic back shake hands hey you have to always cover the logo thanks again Tom had some great information there and so we really appreciate him joining us tonight on voiceover body shop also if you're if you're interested in Tracy Lindley's program on LinkedIn it's called the linkedin edge dot com the linkedin edge dot com great program it's very enlightening and she's done a great job of putting that course together um next week on this show and this very show in this very room the one and only Debbie Dairyberry will be joining us once again you know the voice of Jimmy Neutron for those of you who don't know her but you know and a lot of stuff that she's working on right now like F is her family and a number of other shows you hear like hey there's Debbie Dairyberry's voice she'll be joining us and i think her band honey pig may also be with us so that could be interesting uh February 12th a guy that we've wanted to have on for a while tim tippets who is one of that handful of people on the face of god's green earth that know the stuff that George and i know about home studios and we're going to have a very interesting discussion with him and his thoughts on all this stuff that we talk about and what the show is about which is studio tech um you know tim at all have you talked to him here and there um we're gonna we're gonna commiserate a bit about some stuff especially the universal audio Apollo which he and i've been both geeking out about pretty much since it came that's interesting yeah it's gonna be a pretty geeky show yeah uh then on February 19th a guy who if you were in radio you know who he was because he's just he was a guy who was involved in letting disc jockeys know what was funny and and stuff like that but he's been very involved in the voiceover business and uh he's got a course out on acx the acx master class and that's dano day who's a funny guy and a great guy to talk to and we're gonna have him on on February 19th learn a little bit more how to do audiobooks better on February 26th it says roger rose but we're waiting to see uh and on march 4th carlos aleg rezaki did i say that not even close i was rocky that was better yeah he's uh he's he does animation work and stuff so we got a huge line of people coming on over the next month so that's gonna be really cool who are our donors of the week i was just copying pasting them in right now uh we've got we got a handful of these are these are all folks who are our perennial donors to the show which is really great thank you so much uh to andrew kaufman uh antlion productions shana pennington eric eric aragoni pretty much every single show diana birdsall and patty it's really kind of you to have give us a little bit of extra money out of your hard-earned royalty checks from coming in now we really we really appreciate it and uh if you want to help us out you can donate as well there's a donate button on the page if you can donate a buck for the show if you like to tom particularly you can donate a little right up there the show tonight or you can subscribe and send a buck to 10 whatever on on a regular basis so we really appreciate that little bit of extra help yeah and of course george and i are the guys that know how to do the home studio stuff if you want to get a hold of george you talk to george the tech dot com george the tech dot com for anything home studio audio home studio acoustics uh even podcasting and webcasting done it for a while now i can help you out cool all right and if you need help with your home studio and you're in the valley or you're anywhere i can talk to you uh i am at homevoiceoverstudio.com and i have a drop box which is a specimen collection cup go to my home's page click on that it will take you in there i get the most interesting stuff from people some of it's audio and some of it i also want to slip one more extra little plug in there i'm also working from my home away from home here in boulder colorado this week and if you like a house call from me and you're you know within about an hour so from boulder uh let me know i will be uh make myself available to you we can talk again just find me over at georgethetech.com and you get a rare house visit from myself in that area yeah and we we love to go into people's closets we really do it's sniffer up where's the best place for you to do your voiceover work anyway we've got a podcast of the show if you if you can't if you can't watch us here on on our website you can listen to the podcast on stitcher radio itunes anywhere fine podcasts are sold if you actually would ever pay for one uh let's see uh if you'd like to be in our audience we actually have an audience tonight look at two of our buddies are in here john and and denny are here along with jack there they are wave all right it's a fun show to watch you would love to have you here if you're in the greater los angeles area uh let us know the monday night you can come and write to us at the guys at vobs.tv the survey we use the survey don't we use the survey we absolutely do we definitely value your input about the show how we produce it who's on what we talk about what you guys buy from our sponsors also important for us to know so we appreciate any input you do have for us all right you can click on the survey link right on there on vobs.tv right up there all righty uh well wait speaking of sponsors we need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vo to go go uh voice actor websites dot com and and j michael collins for providing uninterrupted live stream and bandwidth tonight all righty well we need to thank marcy i tell you it sounds like a tuberculosis ward in my house everybody's got me zycam it didn't stop me that's the that's the secret to it but we need to thank her for letting us be here out in the garage our producer kathryn curidan for finding great guest like tom dear who was so informative tonight uh jack daniel on chat room duty thanks jack yeah give yourself a round of applause and uh our our wonderful technical director susan merlino who's working her butt off trying to get this thing to work tonight and jack degole for the show notes and of course lee pinney simply for being lee pinney one of these days he's going to watch us well we'll drop in anyway we know this is not an easy business that's why we bring you this type of information on home voiceover studios on your business on how to be a better voice actor join us here monday nights six p.m. pacific east eight it's nine eastern time and eight thirty in newfoundland i'm dan lenard and i'm george and this is voiceover body shop or vio bs have a great week everybody