 Hey, guess what? It's Monday night. Wait, you don't hear the music? No, the music's gone. Oh, okay Feeling that you're in a department store. I smell the pancake make-up Jean that day and all the other stuff boy that I just ate myself anyway Tonight on our show. We've got lots of really cool stuff along with a really cool guest That's right. Melissa moats will be joining us from Las Vegas And the voice actors studio and she's got a great story and some cool tips for you guys and we'll talk about that You have a pile of Techno's, you know right before the show I sit down and it just starts to flood in so a lot of pot We're talking a lot about plugins tonight. Okay, cool and stuff about Falcon 9 stuff. Oh, baby. Yes. All right all that coming up right here on voiceover body shop two men twin sons from different mothers with a passion for voice over recording technology and The desire to make recording easy for voice actors everywhere together in one place George Whidham 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 voice over superstars and Leading the discussion on how to make the most of your voice over business This is voice over body shop Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials calm home of Harlan Hogan's signature products Source elements remote connections made even easier Vio to go go dot com Everything you need to be a successful voice over artist J. Michael Collins demos award-winning demo production voice actor websites dot com where your voice over website won't be a pain in the butt and Voice over extra your daily resource for Vio success And now live from their super-secret multimedia studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are George Whidham and Dan Leonard Good evening. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whidham and this is voice over body shop or Vio BS Wow, we got a crowd in here We love having a live audience I know it's so much more fun. It's the energy always goes up when we have a lot of audience So feel free to laugh and applaud and do all those things Especially now exactly So we've got Melissa Mote's with us tonight. It's right and we got lots of tech stuff We would love your tech questions If you have a home studio voice over tech question throw it in the chat room either in Facebook or on our website and Jack Daniel our social media czar will be transferring those questions to us and so if you have a like a Problem or something you don't understand Ask and we shall Deliver that's right and you shall receive and if you're watching the show live on the in the website right now You have to have a separate window open We're having a little YouTube problem this week, but the stream is still on live on YouTube and on Facebook live So all right. Well, we've got an adventure coming up this week because you know, I have to Fly to New York to go to Uncle Roy's barbecue. We somehow managed to get the same flight You know, I booked some time before and I'm in the seat right behind you So I'm gonna be lobbying jelly beans Seat there Or maybe we'll get the person next to you to change your yeah people love middle seat Yeah, I had a great middle seat on the way out from Seattle last night Yeah, let's say next to a gentleman, which they would dub as of size Okay, that's the terminology you weren't on Southwest. No, so I was I was sitting like this the entire flight Literally this in the middle seat leaning over to the left and the guy on my left. Fortunately was not of size So maybe in the end that would have worked out better because then it would have been symmetrically squished and I could have just relaxed But no Anyway, I just came back from visiting my daughter up there and it was beautiful up there a little bit of mountain biking We did a perfect rainy day Exercise of roller skating and a roller rink which they do still exist in small town, USA Yeah, they don't really hear anymore in LA, but it was a blast. It was a really great Seattle small town Well, we're outside it We're okay herbs are in the burbs, but it was it was a lot of fun beautiful beautiful area Yeah, big place well We don't have any news tonight. So we're gonna do something a little different because there was news here in southern Definitely news not the news that maybe you guys are thinking of right tech news of a different sort right for years Living up in Buffalo. I I never got to see a rocket launch. You could see it. You know, you'd watch it on TV Oh, look at there. It goes. That's cool. Maybe the kid with an Estes rocket that he got for his birthday Oh, I and I had tons of those about the best Yeah, I did many of those as a kid growing up well last night our friends at the SpaceX They launch a lot from Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is pretty much due east or due west from here Yeah, like North West West straight that way It's amazing to watch this especially when they launch Right after sunset. I'll tell you man. Elon knows how to sell it. Yeah I mean the guy launches it at the perfect time so that the sunlight over the horizon will light up. I mean Yeah, it's like you've probably already seen this I never take the right picture, but Jacob my son is always like, okay, cool It's like I've got my phone and there you can see the the the booster going off one direction and then the second stage going off in another direction and And then you'll start seeing these little swirls on there as the booster maneuvers and turns to come back to earth and land 500 feet from the launch pad. I mean, this is science fiction stuff Even 1010 years ago. This would have been This technology to make this happen is right mind-boggling. Yeah, now here's some more still pictures But this is this took up the entire western sky Oh, man, you can see that the orange at the bottom where the stage separation took place And then you know the rocket going off and then the booster moving off to the side All this is happening in real time and it's like it doesn't look real And I missed it because I was literally in an airplane at the time on the wrong side of the plane Actually, what time was launch time 721? Okay, so this is before I left. I was still waiting to take off Oh, man, it looked like a comet. It was it was and it just kept going and going I can't be real, but it was see now it all makes sense the reason they had a very small launch window apparently Like they had to launch at that minute 721 had it and I realize why now is because if they didn't launch at that minute They would not have gotten the perfect light from the Sun bouncing off Creating the amazing show that it created and everybody and anyone looking west last night saw that one Holy crap and of course my neighbors like So that was that was a lot of fun last night, you know, my wife's like yeah, look at that Jacob and I like You can hear some of that on the video. It was so funny is is totally coincidentally I was having dinner with a person. I was mountain biking with and her husband and I said, what do you do for a living? He's like, oh, I'm a I basically design engines for rockets over at Blue Origin Not the passenger orange. No blue origin is Jeff Bezos's. Oh, right SpaceX. That's his company a matter of fact It's been around longer than space. I think but so I'm sitting there talking to him about what's it like to be on a rocket team? Creating engines for rockets for Blue Origin, you know, and meanwhile this that was it was pretty amazing All right. Well, that's all kind of high-tech news. Although it was very visual What's up in tech news with voiceover gear this week? Yeah, well, just seems to be a plug-in centric time I mainly because I was on my other podcast the pro audio suite We had a just released an episode where we interviewed Someone from waves of the company makes plug-ins. Apparently they have over 150 different plug-ins now and Isotope who we in voiceover certainly talk about a lot the major makers of RX the noise reduction plug-ins and We had a great time discussing All things plug but and the process I learned about a couple plug-ins that either I hadn't heard of before or didn't know How good they were becoming and one of those that I heard about that I'd never actually tried before Let me get to my point mind in my news notes here is RX 7 now or the new version of our ex called RX 7 now has a next generation of their D reverb plug-in and This is one of those things that as this tool improves The ability to fix the one thing that we always tell you you can't fix in post You will eventually be able to fix and that is bad acoustics this thing will allow you to take the reverberation out of a room and Increasingly it's getting better at removing early reflections. What are early reflections? That's the stuff that makes your booth sound boxy like you're in a tube When a tube or the sound of your voice reflecting off the window that kind of thing that's early reflection They're getting closer to being able to remove those elements of the sound and clean it up in post I'm gonna put us out of business Well, we'll see we'll see I know there's a there's a lot of technology putting people out of business And that we're all preparing for like truck drivers Yeah, it's gonna get interesting here, but anyway looks interesting. I have not got you I've got a demo of rx7. I haven't gotten to put it through its paces But as soon as I do I'll let you guys know this is what that plug-in actually looks like not not that guy That's actually the guy by the way the guy sitting behind me is Mike Ferrella. That's the Donna Fontaine voice-over lab But no the plug-in is right there and it's it's it's it's a very geeky plug-in I haven't had much of a chance to play with but as soon as I have it dialed in I'll start offering that as a service to help people get those set up next plug-in that I've been kind of Wedding my appetite to play with is waves WNS Which is what they call a noise suppressor So we're all used to the noise reduction things that are in audacity and audition and they suck They they they're varying the degrees of usefulness and it's sometime They they the problem with them is they introduce a lot of artifacts, right and they're also slow They take a huge amount of reaps resources to run them This tool from waves called WNS is Right there and it is more of a real-time tool You can actually use it as an insert for example on a track in your multi-track Audition sessions or logic or Reaper Studio one pro tools any of those things you can run this in real time and have it remove some of your background noise For you or suppress it as they call it right. It's a very interesting tool It takes some tuning to get it right, but of course once you get it dialed in it works pretty well So so the thing is with noise reduction I always say always better always better to To get the noise level Physically down so you don't have to use this always try I mean that's that's the basis But if it's I mean heck if you live next to an airport one move or two You know try something like this or you know if you're in Chicago when you live next to the L I don't know how people can do or if you just live in any apartment building in anywhere Right if you're an inner apartment building you are going to have trouble with your noise floor You're gonna be picking up vibration and ventilation system noise from everywhere in the building So you know, it's not something you can really soundproof around very easily even if you get an ISO booth They tend to make pick up some noise. So a tool like this could be useful another plug-in that I've gotten to use most recently with very good result is made by Isotope. It's called Nectar Nectar 2 is the new one What I'm always torturing is talking about chains and racks and all these things and there's a lot of software that makes those tools Really easy to use twisted wave Even audacity now has an effects chain function But some other softwares that are not quite as capable like soundforge audio studio Still those tools they make you apply one processor at a time if you want to do a high-pass filter That's one step if you want to do you know on and on and on But this one plug-in is like a plug-in that contains many modules within it So it is basically the one plug-in possibly to rule them all. It's a it's a it's a Ace a rack on one rack. It is exactly in fact There's there's a put that up again. Would you quickly soon explain how that works? It's a rack where you see you've got put my hand more like That's pretty much that's not gonna work. I'll just I'll just explain you'll see there's a row of plot There we go. There's a row of processors here that you can use or not use and frankly when I set it up I'm not using it half of them. I'm not even using because they're not appropriate for a voiceover But you can drag them change the order of them and fine-tune them and then make one preset called an XML file And the beauty of that is that is cross-platform So if somebody is using audition or if they're using Soundforge audio studio or it doesn't matter what they're using if they have that plug-in I can create the same a plug-in preset for them send them an XML file. That's the preset And they have my settings. Wow. So it's it's a really sweet plug-in and I believe it's 199 or 229 so my next it's not crazy expensive like right bang for the buck It's a pretty high bang for the buck plug in cheaper than a boot It's cheaper. It's cheaper than moving for some of you or dealing with some of the other noisy It does not have a D D noise function in it. It has a noise gate noise gate or expand And that's how to know how to use I'm the master of the expander. I've really got the expander dialed. I think it does a really good job Before we move on I will also mention that my I'm still doing my sort of quasi real-world long-term review of my LG G7 Love the phone. It's fantastic. It does everything fast. It has amazing cameras to 16 megapixel cameras It shoots raw files. So you can shoot camera raw and it makes a DNG and a JPEG. I mean, it's amazing. This thing is awesome I am using it on project by and that's Google's wire wireless service Not as enamored with that so far. It's I'll tell you at least here in LA Verizon still is the king of the mountain when it comes to wife wireless Connectivity here. I get better phone call quality on Verizon It's just been a better experience over on Verizon in general. So Not gonna say go for the project five yet Also, if you're a massive data user, you can get unlimited plan from Verizon that goes for about 25 Gigabytes before it's unlimited and slowed down and on this it's about 15 gig and yes I have gone through 15 gig of data. I'll bet you weeks and now I'm being throttled So I'm not too happy about that but it's a it's a sweet phone though. If you're not an Apple person I can highly recommend the the g7 if you like taking pictures and shooting video. It's fantastic. All right Lots of cool tech news Fun stuff to talk about we got more tech stuff. And if you've got a question for us, please throw it in the chat I'll be thrilled to answer your question. I know we have one or two questions there And I'm going to demonstrate something that's really cool for you adobe audition users Which reminds me we've got one of the developers from adobe audition coming up in a couple of weeks With the best name ever durin gleaves Yes Alrighty, all right. We'll be right back with more stuff right here on voiceover body shop. Don't go away Hey guys, this is tom also known as the voice of spongebob squarepants And you want to fill your ear holes and your eye holes with dan and george and the audio body shop Snails like it too How do you think about your voiceover career? Are you frustrated with your lack of success? Wishing you had more auditions and bookings and making more money We all have thoughts like I'm not good enough to be doing this professionally. I'm just faking it I need to join the union as soon as I can. I'm too old to get booked I can't get started until everything is perfect. I hate auditioning because I never book anything Sound familiar? Well, if only you could change your mindset and get rid of these ridiculous rules Well, vo2 gogo's david h. Lawrence the 17th has just what you need He's completed a 21 day journey with nearly 100 voiceover and on camera talent Just like you called believe 2018 and he recorded every single session because that's what david does Meaning you can take this journey now at the pace you want and change things for the better Get the success you deserve by destroying your limiting beliefs and replacing them with powerful productive Enabling beliefs and do so on your own schedule Here is the link go get the 25 hours of Video and audio and daily chat logs and more and begin your own journey The link is vo the number two go go dot com forward slash Believe that's vo to go go dot com forward slash believe it's ridiculously cheap and it's ridiculously effective Once again vo to go go dot com forward slash believe 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 700 dollars So if you watch your voice actor website without the hassle of complexity and dealing with too many options Go to voicehactor websites dot com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know, what? And we're back here on voiceover body shop All right, so you know in march we will have been doing this show for eight years boggles my mind Yes, it's quite amazing boggles my mind that it's october already too Anyway, we do it because you guys keep coming back and seem to enjoy what we do Absolutely, and what is it that we do do what we do is we help you with your home voiceover studios because In 2018 and beyond you're gonna have to have a home voiceover studio or a personal studio Or a personal professional studio personal professional project studio if you like your liberation ppp. I do you know how I love alliteration Uh, so if you need help learning fixing setting up recommendations All that kind of stuff if you know nothing or if you know enough to be dangerous You can talk to george arid because the two of us We're the guys to do this we do it more than anybody else on the face of the earth So you might as well come to us because we're going to give you the right answers And if you want to talk to george, where do you go? You head over to george the tech dot com or george the dot tech if you like the short geeky domains And you can hire me by the hour by the job by the session I can design studios do those plug-in stacks people are always talking about It's all over there and dan is also available on her own his website, which is home voiceover studio dot com And uh, there you'll see all the stuff that I do and uh I have a fun time teaching people by zoo And and going to your house and fiddling around in your closet and stuff like that a remote technology is so awesome People are always thinking wait a minute. You're in la and i'm in chicago. You're not going to be able to help me Uh-huh, uh, but yes, we can And we can help you quite a physically show you how to do things like how to set up your microphone And all the things that go on with that so check us both out and Either one we're gonna help you out also if you if you want to have a sample of your audio Analyzed we both do that. I've got my specimen collection cup I had the sound check and we'll be happy to take a listen to your audio raw audio primarily or You send us the stuff that you're doing going, you know using too much of this too much of that And uh too much paprika. Yeah or a little too not enough oregano. Yes. It's one of those Anyhow tonight. I want to do explain something. So now it's time for Stretching the limits of webcasting technology voice over body shot presents Our good friend of ours Julio Infante Oh, yeah, you know, I met him out down in Atlanta Atlanta. That's right. Super nice. Yeah, and we'll see him in vegas too for Wovo con He threw me we were talking about how to divide up files on twisted wave and he says there's a way to do it On adobe audition sweet and it's just the way he sounds And and and here's how it works. He showed me this thing called Range markers range markers. Okay. All right. So if you're if you're in adobe audition and and You want to you can put a marker in front of something Like you know there you hit the mk and you put a marker there. I know how to make a marker I know how to name a marker. Well, what these are ranges. Yes. So if you start at an end, right, you can right click On this and see where it says convert to range, okay Suddenly this marker becomes something you can stretch out and so if you're If you're recording a bunch of stuff See, you know, you have to do three takes of something and sometimes I'll do like five or six takes of something And I want to pick the best three Say if I'm doing it for one of my you know, one of the companies that you know That I do network stuff for and they want three distinct takes What I'll do is I'll try this And I'll edit all of them and go well, which three do I want? Well, you can go All right, this one here this one here and there could be a bunch of other stuff on there But it'll only export that which you want to export So you process all your stuff you do all your editing and then you can Name the markers over in The marker section over here And once you name the marker, actually it's over on this side. It's different on my different communities. You can put them in it That's the thing about audition you can move these windows all over the place Yeah, here's the markers over here. Yeah, so you can change the name of the marker And then so whatever that name is what the file That's going to be the file name so it's copy paste change the number all that kind of stuff and then you go to File export I'm sorry file export Audio within range markers got it And what it will do is it will export them to wherever it is you export your audio to in whatever format you want Yeah, yeah, that's right And so it's a quasi batch process thing where you can convert a whole bunch of files to mp3 or so instead of like Copying pasting put it here and then doing it. It's just like boom So this would be good for obviously e-learning right anything where you have to do a whole lot of files different cues right, I think I've seen video of Anthony Mendes doing this right on instagram where he's doing these for jane the virgin right because he's got all these cues And they're exactly the certain length they say this needs to be 3.3 seconds Whatever and then he divides them all up and hold up in a file and there'll be hundreds of these little markers Right, so you are adobe auditionites out there That's how you do that create cool little thing other softwares can do similar things somewhere. We talked about twisted wave I'm not sure markers work very differently though in multitrack systems Like in pro tools and in audacity those markers are not Regions of audio right the markers and audacity is that those are region things well Yeah, they're they're locked in time not to the wave right so when you edit If you don't edit backwards in audacity starting at the end and work backwards the markers get all out of whack So they work very differently in those softwares. Alrighty. Well, we got a couple of questions Yeah, and our first one was mailed in earlier this week from steve hufford He says what's the future of skype? Every time I download their latest version my skype crashes and another New account suddenly appears an account. I did not create So far. I've been able to speak with a I've been able to speak to a warm blooded human able to say not Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, I've not been able to speak to a warm blooded human at their support center if indeed it exists Uh, and should I walk away from skype in favor of zoom or is there another option? Well at the bottom of the hour, you'll tell us about a much better option. I'm sure sure. Well, yeah I'll mention source connect, of course. Yeah, but different tool though. Kind of a different Different need and right skypes. Yeah, I'm still using skype reluctantly, but I am using and I think it's because of momentum Right. I have so many contacts in there. I'm using it for so long And uh, and I still use it to initiate my business phone calls, right? So for me, it still has a specific role in what I do, right? Whereas zoom It's the features of zoom and skype overlap a lot like they do a lot of the same thing But zoom, correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't really use zoom to initiate a phone call Right, he doesn't have a key started up. You send an invite to somebody and they join the conference Different you can still do phone patch type things, right and video chat and everything else But it's not for initiating a call like a phone. That's what I still use skype for personally But I agree. I mean, I don't know what they're doing over there at microsoft. They're they don't they they They run skype and they keep each generation It seems to get more convoluted more integrated with other stuff that you don't want it to be working with And less stable and with the latest version. I think it's version eight Um, I've been trying to tell everybody to roll back to version seven and if you go online you can google old versions of skype And you can find downloads for previous versions 7.6 or whatever it is is the version. I've been sticking with on skype and finding it to be really reliable Um, so that's another option for making phone calls is google hangouts I believe that's still free for making landline calls So if you're looking for ways to make an actual landline phone call, right? That's another way to do it. Yeah, and then of course, there's always my favorite thing All right, my phone patch is set up. Are you ready over there? Okay. Let me hit the button If you don't mind voice acting with the phone to your head, there's always that it can be done I've done it many times Uh, okay, natasha who happens to be in the audience tonight. Oh, hey She has a question and it's interesting because What she's asking has been very prevalent amongst a lot of people and that is my adobe audition is glitching lately Yeah, no, it certainly is Uh, cutting out microseconds of audio randomly advice Well, there's another software that isn't getting better with age. No, they're having lots of interesting glitches 2018 yeah, all right. Yeah, so 2018 they're fixing it. I mean they're you know, I had I was able to version anyone Oh the old one Oh, how many old they've done like not the online version Six, okay. CS6. Oh, okay. My theory is out the window that you're screwed. Yeah. Yeah, I would say yeah You might want to update but um Yeah, I mean the old version should work, but if it's glitching it's usually That's a digital mismatch or something along the or your hard drives like a hard drive problem Yeah, your hard drive's not keeping up So that may not actually be adobe audition and it might not be CS6's fault It may not be like yeah, if you're using a standard How old is the computer approximately? A year is it's a mac or windows Does it have an ssd or a hard drive? Like does the computer say solve these issues does the computer take two minutes to boot up or about 10 seconds Okay, so it has a hard drive So what you should do is immediately upgrade that computer to from a hard drive to what's called an ssd A solid state drive that is going to make the computer Way faster And all of these glitchy dropout issues are going to go away immediately Because the reason why is a hard drive is the spinning magnetic disc that we've been using in computers for 25 years And what happens is it has to um for to write audio to the disc It has to move this little Literally, there's a moving part in there that moves around like a tone arm on a record player Except it moves like this Like really fast And if the hard drive is too fragmented up Then what happens is it's trying to find where to write that audio and it occasionally can't get there fast enough and you get a skip That's probably what's going on if you switch to these flash drives aka ssds solid state That's instantaneous. They don't glitch. Yeah, so it might be worth looking into that It might cost you 200 bucks or so to do it, but it'll turn that computer into a rocket It'll be much faster and that should go away and we all know how fast rockets go And it worth a shot our guest melissa moats is coming up and we're gonna have a great conversation with her And uh, so stay tuned for that. We'll be right back here on voiceover body shop. So do not go away Yeah, hi, this is carlos. I was rocking the voice of brocco and you're watching voiceover body shop V. OBS is still on Seriously This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on voiceover body shop everybody want to tell you about our great lovely wonderful amazing high tech sponsor Source connect or actually source elements. They're the ones that create source connect and bring you source connect This tool is amazing for connecting your studio to others around the world for doing voiceover work Real time that means you connect to the studio They record you when the session's over you say goodbye. You move on to the next job It is awesome to get to work in that kind of environment If you're familiar a little bit with isdn, it's similar to that where the session's being recorded remotely And you hang up and you're done. It's it's a beautiful thing if you're being asked to explore using source connect or you're not getting Opportunities to audition because they need source connect It's not crazy as crazy as you might think to get into using source connect You can get a 15 day free trial 15 day free trial and it doesn't cost you a dime to get started Then if you decide you want to keep it you don't even have to have a little usb I lock dongle leaf thing anymore to use source connect standard And if you like you can then subscribe instead of buying it out right you can subscribe and pay us a very reasonable monthly fee To keep your source connect connection going so go give it a try tell them that we sent you and uh I hope you find it gets your booking rate up and you start working more With source connect and we'll be right back here with dan and melissa 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 All right, our guest melissa moats is a season voice Over actor with thousands of booking under her belt during her almost two decade long career She's heard worldwide on everything from national television campaigns for household names like best western hotels Ashley furniture and proactive Documentaries for mega stars justin timberlake and drake and for promos for the ellen show and many other cable networks She's spirited passion passionate and downright loves telling stories Melissa and her husband trey are also the founders of and creators of the voice actor studio in las vegas nevada Where melissa and her talented team share teach and inspire up-and-coming talent To embark on their own voiceover journeys melissa drinks a whole lot of coffee to balance her full-time voiceover career Mentoring new talent and also teaching voice acting at the university of las vegas go rebs All right, let's welcome to the show to a voiceover body shop for the first time here melissa moats There she is Welcome So how are things in las vegas? Things are great. I just said it cooled off out here finally. We're out of the 100s. All right. No, nice Now i'm allowed to come up and visit. Yeah And remember we were we were there last year and it was 102 at midnight And it was like remember my shoes were melting in the parking lot. It was it was Yeah, oh, yeah, exactly not not humid subtropical anyway It's great having you on Are you originally from vegas or are you from other parts unknown? I am a midwestern girl. I grew up in illinois All right We're up in the chicago suburbs in a town called montgomery and I went to oswego high school So a midwestern girl at heart that after school I went west I headed west And then did you just went straight to vegas or you went to los angeles or what? Actually right after school. I went to florida and started working on cruise ships and I was a cruise director and Forming I was fun my my big dream growing up was to be julie mccoy on the love boat so So I did that for a few years and then I met my husband troye Actually while singing on a ship. So it really was the love boat We we were married in 99 and then we moved out to las vegas So i've been out here for most of that time. I did spend two years in los angeles where I tried to live in la but it was was crazy over there Too intense for this midwestern girl So I came back to vegas where it was a lot more calm Yeah, well, no it is calm. It's not quite as big but it's you know It's exciting but it's also very comfortable and nice and suburban It is like going to trader joe's is a piece of cake here You know driving was insane over there But um, but I most of the time I've been out here for about 18 years. We've been in vegas for most of it Great. So what brought you to voiceover from social director on a cruise ship, which I'll bet was a lot of fun It was It was a lot less glamorous than let's say I I intended for it to be And answering really stupid questions like do you generate your own electricity? Yeah People like dan no, I didn't ask that You know, yeah, we have this big extension cord. We just drive it all the way exactly So how did you get into voiceover? I got into voiceover About 2000 when my husband and I moved out here One day I received a catalog from the university of las vegas that had a Introduction to voiceover course And it was something I was always really interested in growing up. I was obsessed with commercials I used to always love to imitate commercials on tv and it was definitely something that I was drawn to even as a kid um, so I took the the introduction course at unlv and Definitely after the first class. I just knew that that was my next my next big journey. That was what I wanted to do Um at the time I'd been singing here in vegas and performing on the strip and stuff and you know The shelf life i'm doing that that kind of life, uh, you know, there's a time limit for that. Let's just say that Yeah, the hours are don't aren't the greatest What's that the hours aren't the greatest your sleep is not something you get gets all messed up No, I think many of my nights singing ended around 4 a.m. And Dealing with uh, all the people who are having fun, you know living it up in vegas It was it was exhausting But but I took that first voiceover class and I just you know when you have a moment in your life Where you know where your next step is where you're headed That's the way I felt when I took my first voice acting class and uh, I just Being in vegas I was all in So I gave it everything I had and uh, just I worked really hard at the craft for a couple of years I found a really good mentor out here. Um, who was teaching at the time through unlv And I just I was religious about going every week to voiceover class and getting on mic and getting that training and getting that feedback And I just fell in love with it So how long are you going to take you to really start booking work? Um, I would say from the time I I cut my first demo, which was about a year and a half into my training Um within about six months. I started wait for it I said I pulled this out to show you guys I started to hustle my tape Hey, those by the way, those are cool now if you go to like a Go to a hip thrift stop and a shop in a cool part of town. You will see cassette tapes for sale. I'm not kidding So I you know, I got in my little works wagon beetle and hustled my tape all around las vegas there were a handful of production companies here and You know, I wasn't shy being the cruise director that I was Uh, I just kind of walked in and said hey, here's my tape I'd love to work with you and I'd say within about a good six months to a year Of really getting my tape out there and mailing it a snail mail, you know to production companies I started working fairly steadily But it was part time for a long time for probably a good year to two years And then about two years in is when I really started to Unplug from singing and performing and other means of income and being able to fully You know pursue voice acting full time Yeah, I mean it's one of those things you can't quit your day job when you're starting out No, you've you've got to have something to you've got to have the resources to survive because it it does take time But it took you two years Plus you you know, you're able to you you learn who was the people in town And and you worked there What other challenges did you face along the way? I think the biggest challenges I faced going in was just letting people know that I existed. Um, I think that's every voice actor struggle even today Um, and then just patience, you know when you're a new voice actor I think that it's easy to have your expectations a little bit out of line because you're eager you're excited You're motivated. Um, you want to you know, you want to quit your day job You want to do voice acting full time, but patience was a huge struggle Um, because I get when I get my mindset on something. I just you know, I want to go for it. Um but Patience and then just learning How to market myself and how to really get my name out there and going back, you know 15 plus years ago That's kind of when things really started changing a little bit where you didn't have to have an agent You didn't have to go through the more I call them like old school proper channels to get work It was people were starting to talent were starting to market themselves directly to production companies A little bit, you know, that was I was right on the cusp of that New school approach if you would um, so that I think those were a couple of my big struggles patience and marketing and getting my name out there So, you know, I can see that you do a lot of different stuff and some people just specialize in one thing They do promo or they're doing imaging or they're doing You know just commercials or just e-learning you seem to go across the the entire gamut Of what what's available out there. How did you find success in each one of those genres? What did you specifically do? Well, I think I just built solid relationships with Production companies and end clients and different ad agencies, etc. You learning companies Um, and I enjoy voiceover In general, I just I love it so much. I'm so passionate about it and pretty much any story anyone wants me to tell I am so game for it and I enjoy each genre. My favorite is commercial. That's where My main bread and butter is doing commercial voice acting. Um, second to that, I would say it's a combination of promo Various narration a little bit of you learning. Um, but I think it's just for me. It's just been building really solid relationships with production companies and them I let them decide what they think that I would be a great fit for that they're working on and They send stuff to me to audition for or to to give a you know Give my take on and if they think I'm a good fit for it I'm a good fit for it and and I enjoy it. So I love it all Do you have a different approach to each one of those different genres? I mean do how do you look at say e-learning or Or promo or you know, what's what's your method for working with each one of these? You're able to change gears real fast or Yeah, well, I mean there are definitely different techniques to different approaches of voice acting But I think the the main ingredient the most important ingredient is I'm true to myself and I'm myself in each genre So if I'm doing e-learning, it's me becoming wearing my expert hat if you would so I'm reading voiceover You know content where I'm teaching so I'm going to approach it slowing down and and basically Instructing and giving the listener that opportunity to absorb and take it all in whereas when I'm doing commercial There's a different energy to it. There's a different pace to it. Um, seems like everything's always overwritten So I've learned that really fun skill of you know reading really fast and not sounding rushed How many voice actors hear that every day, but um, I think for me it's each read each genre It's about believability and it's about authenticity and it's about being myself So I bring myself to every piece of copy. I read no matter the genre and um, that has served me well thankfully Well, and obviously since you're you're doing quite well there Uh, if you're just joining us our guest is melissa moats who's in las vegas very successful voice actor doing all sorts of stuff If you have a question from melissa aside from the millions of questions and I have accumulated today to ask her, uh Throw it in the chat room. You're there in facebook or in our regular chat room jack daniel is there Taking down every word that you guys say and throwing it our way so we can answer your questions So do that right now because in the next segment you get to be the interviewer, which is kind of cool um Okay, so you're doing all this stuff But then you tried something new with your husband and you started teaching Tell us a little bit about uh, how you got the voice actors studio started with your your husband troy Yes, I get this question quite a bit out here in vegas and it's so funny because I did not sit down and write out some kind of uh This plan to become a voiceover mentor voiceover coach All this good stuff out here that i'm doing. Um, it started in about 2009 2010 Um people were just calling me and saying hey, I hear you're a voiceover person or you do voice stuff And how do I get involved and so I spent a lot of time on the phone just answering questions and trying to be helpful And giving people tips and stuff like that And one day my husband said Hey, honey, you know, like it's really nice of you to spend so much time talking to people and giving them tips and stuff But maybe you ought to just be more efficient and get all these people together and just invite them over to do a little Workshop or something here at the home studio and I was like yeah, that makes sense. It's a good idea So pretty much I rounded up all these fine folks that I'd been spending time on the phone with And we just did a little Saturday morning, uh q and a at my home studio in Henderson And everyone had a blast. We ended up reading some copy and I really had no plan And it went so well that everyone said hey melissa Is it cool if we come back next Saturday and we do this again? And some people just kind of kept showing up every saturday at my house And then it got to the point where one saturday, I think we had 36 people show up For a little voiceover gathering and by this time this was like maybe a month or even a year in None of the original people were really there. These were all people I I'd never met they were not friends of friends or People I started with I literally had like 36 strangers in my home And uh, we realized that day that we either were going to continue doing this and do it on a different scale Or we weren't going to be able to do it anymore and that really bummed me out So we figured out a way and we decided to open up the voice actor studio and that's how that's how it was born Hmm. Okay. So what what does it take to start a studio like that? What did you have to go through? Oh my gosh It it was a lot of work. So sure And you know, we took a chance we took a risk because we didn't know of any real brick and mortar Uh voice acting school if you would Um, especially not out out our way. Um that taught voice acting the craft the technology the home studio Um the business and marketing and all that stuff. So my husband has really been Superman throughout all of this We've been together for two years And uh, he has pretty much the backbone of bringing all of this together Um, he did all of the logistics to you know, build the space out for us and then um, You know, we put a lot of trust in the fact that people were going to want to come and and study with us And uh, they showed up. There's a ton of talent out here. Um, but building the actual studio out I have to give full credit to my husband. It was completely his vision And um, it's been a work in progress for the last we're going on four years now We had our Henderson location for three years And then we decided to move the studio to be more centrally located in las vegas. So we opened up We call it lovingly tvas 2.0 here in las vegas We're like five minutes west of the strip now. So now we're we're more accessible for everyone throughout vegas So it was just the biggest undertaking Planning the workshops planning building a website Um, you know, putting all the nuts and bolts together and let's just say I've learned a ton in the last four years about Uh, running a studio and mentoring a lot of people Mm-hmm. Yeah, and the and the community the voiceover community in vegas is a great bunch of people Because we we know a lot of people out there Uh, and and and I think Your your studio has actually had a whole lot to do with that with getting a lot of people involved in the business Getting them together and it's important in any town where you are to have a meet-up group or something along those lines And work with other voice actors So it's great that you did that there and now it's provided a whole business opportunity for you And a great way to teach people. So that that's really cool. Yeah, how's the how has the uh The move from where you were before to where you are now affected the The business you're running. Has it been in a positive impact? It has been a positive impact. Um, we had some people who were driving well over an hour to come to henderson You know each direction. I know for people who live in la. They're probably like an hour. Ha, you know That's quick, but out here. Um, yeah, it's been really positive so many people have thanked me Except all my henderson people. They're like, thanks a lot melissa and now we have to drive, you know 25 minutes and i'm like, hey man, i'm taking one for the team too. I'm driving from henderson too, right? But it's just it's just better for everybody. Um being more central for sure And you guys are in close, uh, really close proximity to really well-known studio In town, um adrenaline has your close proximity to adrenaline studios Been any way a direct benefit. How does how does that relationship between your two businesses is is there one? Yeah, well actually it's kind of a fun story matt smith who owns adrenaline studios He and I go way back. We've been really good friends for a lot of years and um When I first started voice acting when I hustled my tape the one I just held up to um one of the local studios in town At the time it used to be studio center was the one of the studios in town here and They're no longer here in vegas, but matt smith Moved in and adrenaline moved into that that old facility and he completely revamped it and it just turned out just gorgeous. I mean the facelift that he gave The studio center side of the studio and they had a separate entrance in the back The suite that basically was being used as a like a storage closet if you would for for adrenaline And matt knew that I was looking for a space to basically move the voice actor studio More central to las vegas and he breached out to me and he just said hey, I don't know if this is enough room for you I don't know if this would even work But I went and took a look at the room and my husband and I walk in and if you can imagine It was just 1997 at a dark emerald green carpet pink lines I mean this place had not been touched since probably 97 and my husband's like I have the vision I know what i'm gonna do. I'm gonna rip everything out and got this place and just make this amazing thing And I was like thank god you have the vision because I don't see it But um we ended up working it out with matt because it was space. He wasn't using So we have our own little back door entrance, but we share the same roof as adrenaline so it's so fun and The irony for me talk about things coming full circle in my story Um the very first building that that I ever had my first paid voiceover booking in was this very building that now 2.0 is in so it's it's sentimental for me. You know, it means a lot to me It must be cool when you have a student maybe it started with you I mean, maybe this hasn't happened yet, but well eventually happens You'll have students that are working with you out of your facility And then someday they get to walk around the building right and go in the front door and start working Is that already happening? Of course A lot of my students who've been studying with me for like six months to a year You know they get to their point where they're ready to cut a demo and they're ready to start auditioning and stuff and matt He said to me. Hey, you've got some great talent. I you know, I'd love to hear your students Is you know, they evolve and He's super awesome about it. And so of course, I'm always like knocking on his door and I'm like, hey I've got somebody really awesome for you to hear and so of course I'm happy to you know, introduce my students to Adrenaline and then there's also on dog and pony studios in town. John McLean He's always really supportive of hearing a lot of new local talent. And so same thing. He's like send it over So, uh, it's awesome. You know, we're a really tight-knit community here and everybody likes to see You know, each other thrive for sure Absolutely. Once again, we're talking with melissa moats who has the voice actor studio in las vegas. You got a question for I'm sure you do. There's probably lots of cool stuff that she can probably give you some tips on Because she's been there. She's done it. She's been in the trenches dug her way out of them And so and look how clean she is after doing that. Uh, and uh So toss those into the chat room. We'll get to that Uh What do you teach there? I mean, it's not a recording studio so much as it is a teaching facility. What do you teach there? We teach everything So that's one of the things that was a huge struggle for me when I started out on my voiceover journey I was taught the craft and I you know, put all of my time and attention into Basically, you know, mastering quote unquote. I use that loosely, you know, as much as I could with voice acting But I didn't have anyone who really guided me on the business and marketing side of things or the technology That was such a huge scary undertaking learning about home studios and self recording and you know, all of the things I mean, you guys give so much great advice on that But we teach everything we have everything from social media classes to Learning quick books or learning fresh books. Uh, I teach a pretty awesome class on rates quoting and billing I think that's a real scary part of the business for up and coming talent is knowing what to charge and Knowing, you know, how to have those kind of conversations with people who want to hire you So literally every aspect of our career I really pride myself on giving my students a very well-rounded experience so that they feel really Solid when they get out there and start auditioning they feel like They have us there as backup They can ask us anything if they they get stuck on quoting something or if they have a home studio issue Um, we cover it all we've got um ongoing classes every week So people can come in and get on mic and get feedback from our coaches We also have I call them my specialty workshops. It's like an all-apart menu So we have a ton of special guests who come in we just had Dave Finoy out who did a two-day interactive Uh video game an interactive media Workshop that he led but I bring in people from all over the place. I'm going to get you guys out here It's gonna be awesome On the road Viva Las Vegas. So there's a video of us doing that over on what is that dream on street? Yeah, yes Viva lost voice over. Yes Yes Yes, and we and we've got the wovo con coming up where our theme is viva los wovos Yes Looking forward to seeing everybody as a person Come into town. So it's gonna be fun. All righty One of the things that's really important to you and again if you've got a question from elisa, please Now's a great time to ask it. Uh in our chat room One of the things that's really important to you that that you know george and I understand a lot and that's giving back To the community you've had your success What is it that drives you to give back? What is what is your philosophy on that? I just think it's the right thing to do. Um, I remember when I was a brand new talent and There were so many unanswered questions and Um, it was hard to find the answers to everything that I wanted to know and believe me There were many people along the way. I've had some fantastic mentors and dear friends who Any question that I asked them they were happy to answer but I had to Do a lot of trial and error. I had to stumble and fall a lot and make a lot of mistakes to figure things out and I just it feels good to help people streamline that process and I just I feel like I know the questions that they have floating around in their head and all of those um The questions they have and the questions they don't know to ask if you would And it makes me feel good to see people become successful and We all have dreams. We all have goals. We all have things we want to do and I just I really enjoy watching people succeed It's just one of my favorite things in life. I I love voice acting and I also love teaching voice acting I don't know what I love more. Um, I kind of am crazy like that. I can't get enough of it Yeah, well teaching is a great is a great fun thing, especially when someone comes to you Years later, maybe six months later two years later five years later and says Thank you so much for teaching that class that one tip you gave me was Something that really made a difference not only my career, but in my life Yes, and I used to teach social studies. They all hated me so That was not my favorite subject. It was nobody's favorite subject seventh grade 11th grade I talk US history and constitution. Oh my goodness Anyway, it's it is really special so many people have said to me like The studios changed their life, you know And not only just with their voice over career, but it feels good to give the voice over community in las vegas a home I love for everybody to feel like they have their place to come where they're understood because It's hard for you know When you're when you have people in your household your family your friends It's hard for other people to really understand what our day-to-day life looks like or what our struggles are So it's like we're like cheers, you know, we're the place where everybody knows your name And we like we're just there for you, you know, it's it's it's such an isolating business and so um It just feels good. It's the right thing to do and I love to pay it forward Yeah, or as I like to say home isn't where you live. It's where they understand you That's correct. I agree. Alrighty All right, melissa moats is our guest and we've got your questions coming up and lots more here on voiceover body shop So stay we are we'll be right back Skittles taste the rainbow She has fought for those who don't have a voice the national zoo Because sometimes you just need to stroke a llama Instagram Download it and start embarrassing your teenagers today resolve spot and stain Because the dog's gonna drag his butt on the carpet. He just is 400 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 a 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 So I was talking to our good friend harlin hogan this morning Yeah, and he related a story to me. He said that He was recording in his studio And his wife Needed to take a shower. Mm-hmm as we all do I whether once a week whether I need it or not and But she noticed that his sign the led voiceover sign was red Let me get the red on Come on. Where's red red means red means There we go. No red means here. Hold it up like right here On the white background on the no on the dirt background. There you go Red means I'm recording now. The problem is is that Their shower is right above his studio She saw The red light was on And she knew not to take a shower and waited until the light changed probably to green And oh look at that it changed a green transparent Yeah, put it up a little higher that yeah, well, that's interesting All right, let's go to another color here. There we go. How's that? Okay Anyway, this is a very valuable piece of equipment because it will save your relationships As we all know in the voiceover business your partner spouse or whoever else is living there Also has to deal with the fact that you're recording in your home voiceover studio slash professional personal studio Whatever it is we want to call it This is the answer to that is to have one of these hanging just outside your studio Where you can change the color and have different codes and stuff like that You know or you can have you can change so it's like changing all the time And you can party night. Yeah, exactly. It's it's a disco sign So uh one of the it's look at that even does that just by using this little credit card sized remote that it comes with You can change the the the colors the mode that it's in you can slow it down You can speed it up. There we go. How's that? Well speed it up just a little bit. There we go. I want Thai food. I don't know why Yeah, anyway, the led voiceover studio sign is available at voice over essentials dot com That's the only place you can get this they don't have this anywhere else Only harlan has these custom made for you the wonderful people in the voiceover community and the way you get there And see how wonderful this thing is is you go to his website voiceover essentials dot com The easiest way is if you're on our web page go to the bottom of the web page way down to see him Right down there is harlan hogan and he's talking into his port of booth pro you click on that link It'll take you right to voiceover essentials look for the led voiceover sign and You can have one too have two give perhaps a spouse is watching right now along with one of our voice actor Friends watching voiceover body shop They know the value of something like that as opposed to just putting a tie on the door Or a sock or something else this works much better Go get one of these signs from harlan hogan at voiceover essentials dot com. It will save your relationships Thanks for being our sponsor harlan. We love you. We'll be right back This is bill ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv And we're back with melissa moats who's joining us from los vegas. Hi there Hey guys. Alrighty great to have you with us Well, we've got a pile of questions from our voluminous audience watch the show live Out in the four corners of the globe Or or whatever Yeah, the four corners of the globe across the seven seas who coined that phrase anyway, it was not i That's right being I taught geography. That is definitely not something that I would you actually I did Just to get attention. Anyway, we've got questions from our great audience. Mr. Widham May you do the honors? Sure starting with one from right here in the room. Wendy Shapiro asks What do you find was the best approach when reaching out to the ad agents? Lots of follow-ups um taking them out to lunch What what what was the thing that seemed to work for you or things? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think the thing that worked best for me and continues to work well is um making it more about them And becoming a solution presenting myself as a solution for them and letting them know that I care about their needs and I think when voice actors oftentimes solicit themselves they They write really lengthy emails and they put a lot of fluff in and they think that they need to say a lot And I think keeping emails if you're doing it via email Doing it keeping it brief maybe three or four sentences and making it more about them And doing research on them and what their needs are and addressing them when you write them an email if you're doing a cold call and just I think frame it in the light that you are wanting to become a solution for them and Keep it simple keep it short Very effective for me Short and sweet absolutely And now it's time for our weekly jack attack attack attack attack attack Should we have them stand up and one of the mics over there? Yeah, we can do that. All right I'm not sure which one's the live mic in there I have to find my question again. Okay. We got you. I'll read it to you. How's that sound? Okay? Are we are we good? Yeah, we're good. All right. Hi Melissa Hi So uh when starting promo for a new show we're even over different seasons within a show What are your steps for finding the right tone outside of the direction you do receive? I think for me a lot of it's just trusting your gut. Um Being familiar with you're talking about promo for mostly promo. Yeah Yeah, I mean, I think familiarizing yourself with the content and and that particular cable network, but trust the trust your gut trust your gut on what the what the copy saying, um I think a lot of times we overthink stuff and I think our instincts truly guide us And if we listen more to our instincts as opposed to all of the obsessing and overthinking that happens in a creative's mind Um, usually the first reader to that comes out Is the right one? I love that answer. That's a great answer. Um, and I have a follow-up question How has booth directing others affected your reads and I'll take my answer on the couch I love it. I think booth directing other people Has definitely made me a stronger voice actor I think that when you are directing others You are paying attention to Not only all the basic, you know fundamentals and foundation of of the craft But I think that all the different nuances and all of the other decisions that other people make Can definitely help you shape your ear and help your ear grow So that when you're looking at copy it it opens up your Your ability to interpret that helps I love directing other people. I learn a ton from other people's creative process Yeah, I would agree with that. That's always fun to direct, you know, it's like sometimes you're like I'm not that great a voice actor, but somehow you listen to other people You're like wait do it like this and you get to mold the sound and it's really cool Yeah, it's funny when you're playing someone else's instrument How things are clearer to you than when you're doing it yourself It's like I always say to my students There's not enough room for a creative and a critic in the booth at the same time So make sure you leave your critic outside of the booth and let your creative inside the booth So that's your that's your sandbox golden nugget golden nugget alert All right All right, we've got we have another someone else from our studio audience. Natasha has a question. You're right Thanks, Dan. Hi, Melissa. So great to see you I I'm I'm under the impression that you get a lot of work out of LA I'm wondering um, how much you get out of LA versus the rest of the country and globally my work from los angeles, um, I would say actually Surprisingly I get a lot of work from my midwest agencies And production companies that I have direct relationships with I am repped with CESD in LA. It's a new relationship for me Um, I just actually had my first booking with them. I was super excited. It was for the Ellen show Um, but I surprisingly don't get a ton of my work from the LA market I think there's so much saturation of talent in Los Angeles that I put my effort Um elsewhere. I put my effort in other regions of the country Um, I I definitely pursue work in LA, but that's not where I get the majority of it Alrighty another member of our audience. We got a crowd in here and you could be here too But we'll talk about that a little bit Uh, Emily has a question you're on Hi there melissa I wanted to know are you going to be having any classes at your studio the day or two before wofo con In november because I'm going to be there in vegas and I really want to go to your studio Oh, that would be so awesome. I'd love to have yeah Um, I'd have to actually look at my schedule and see what the heck's going on that week We have about 28 different workshops happening. Um Per month at our work at our at our studio. Um Wednesday nights, we always have like a an ongoing open mic night If you check our schedule on the voice actor studio dot com you can get the specific details But every wednesday night, um, we do have an ongoing on mic Uh workshop that you can drop into if that's something that interests you to get some feedback Thank you. Alrighty Yeah, thanks. All right divox gets the last question. Mr. Whitton All right over on the tab where those questions are there it is right there. Oh and over it is over here too Got so many screens to look at I'm gonna stick with the one I'm looking at now divox says What are one or two exercises or tips? As examples, you would teach an advanced student. Something's already working. Yeah I mean you just dropped a good one just a minute ago But do you have something else that comes to mind in terms of something you would Give somebody who's already been in it for a while and looking to take a get a leg up Yeah, um, one of the things that I do a lot when I'm auditioning at home Um is I like to read I like to go in and do anywhere from two to five Auditions at a time. That's my personal process And I'll go in and I like to always cold read my audition So the first time I read an audition I have not reviewed it I have not um given myself a chance to overthink it or overwork it in any way So what I like to do is go in. Um, I read off my ipad I'll read my audition two or three times Then I go to the next audition Two or three times next audition two or three times and then I actually circle back Then I read the specs and then I do each audition again two or three times. We all struggle Oftentimes with coming up with an a and a b take for an audition So I like to read the script before I read the specs or the direction And then I like to like I said go through the process of reading it only up to three times per audition For for one given, you know round if you would Move right on to the next script same process and then circle back read the specs and do it again. And then what I find is I Definitely have you know some really nice different nuances different approaches different mindsets coming in To my performances and uh, I just feel like sometimes there's a lot of magic that happens in the very first read Before I've had a chance to even process too much of it I hope that's a helpful tip for you Works for me Alrighty, melissa. It has been such a pleasure having you on can't wait to see you in uh a month When we're down in vegas for for wobble con and uh, we can continue this conversation, but amongst ourselves Private conversation in las vegas it happens easier as you know, absolutely So how can one contact you if they have further question for you? Yeah, well if anyone wants to reach out about the voice actor studio or any of our workshops You can drop us a line at info at the voice actor studio dot com Um, or you can write me directly through super vio girl at yahoo. I'm still a yahoo person I'm not a gmail person yet. I haven't grown up Probably not a bad idea learn to speak with a russian accent if you use that I So you drop me a line anywhere I always welcome everyone with open arms get a lot of people from across the country who come to vegas to have some fun And they pop into a workshop or they want to come see our studio. We always love it We love visitors. We'd love to see you So all your classes are in the studio. You're not doing any remote stuff Um, right now everything's in the studio one of the things I haven't even shared with our local talent I was kind of excited to share tonight is coming up in the beginning of 2019 We're going to be rolling out some online tools And some of our stuff will be streaming So we're going to get a chance to to meet our people across the country who write to us and say I want to learn from you guys, you know So Excellent It's time. We're getting ready to do that in 2019. Yeah, nothing too streaming easy as pie piece of cake. Absolutely Teach me some pointers on all that Absolutely. Well melissa. Thanks for being with us. Always a pleasure and we'll see you soon Thanks, you guys. It's awesome to be here. Alrighty well George and I have more stuff to say because we got lots of exciting stuff coming up. So stay tuned. We'll be right back 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 Audio books auditioning casting home studio setup and equipment marketing performance techniques and much more It's time to hit your one stop daily resource for 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 voice over x t r a dot com And we're back to say goodbye, but we still got a lot of stuff to talk about before we say goodbye Like plug plug plug plug plug plug plug exactly first on who's on next week Nobody because we won't be here We have to go to new york to be with uncle roy and all the east coasters that we don't get to spend enough time We meaning all of us even sue is going to be unavailable next week right so we're just totally shutting the doors right I mean we could try and do it on you know on our iphone Hi, it's but now you could be sure there'll be some facebook live action going on right in fact I'm going to be there and sure dan's going to help out too Getting uncle roy's party streamed. Yes, that's part of what i'm i'm earning a night in his vio B and b or whatever he calls it doing streaming for his barbecue. So We'll be busy. I'm gonna sleep in his whisper room Probably the only the only space left is to sleep on a diagonal like that Probably he has a great collection of memorabilia from from the the time when you know he and i were kids You know stuff tv shows that you wouldn't even know but it is a Super car and and and fireball excel 5 and katelin radios And then there's the pez the pez collection in the bathroom. So it's That's why we're going all the way across the country just to see that Because that's a lot of voice over friends and colleagues. Exactly. So we won't be here next week But you can watch any any episode of this show. They're all on youtube. They're on our website Just go look at past episodes. Maybe there's somebody you really want to see like how You know aside from melissa. Yeah, we got carlos alls rocky and some and and we and we had uh, bill ratner on last week If you missed that one, uh bergen all these great talents who come on the show And uh, you can watch those interviews too along with all the tech tips and we're going to of course Have more tech tip videos going out on our youtube channel as well Uh, however in two weeks, we've got durin gleves from adobe audition. Yep One of the developers there, you know, he's a guy you run into with the trade shows and stuff like that Hey, there's a glitch Well, let me see if I can if I can recreate that He does a lot of training too. I mean that's where I've seen a nice team in it seeing him at nam a couple of times and We've tried to get him on for a while finally got him. We're really excited to have that So it'll be a geeky evening But it'll also be important because some of the stuff in adobe audition Translates to other software. It's an amazing time If you if you are an addition user to be here live so you can have that interaction with him ask your questions Yeah, on the 29th of october. It's just rolling through it'll be christmas before you know Uh, jonathan tilly will be our guest. We're gonna record an interview with him. He's an expert on marketing Massive marketing. That's that's what he does. He's really good at it Yeah, uh, he's in town. So we'll get an interview with him on November 5th, and I know you're so looking forward to this. It's gonna be a blast really actually we're going to do We're going to stream a live concert here on our show With solicanto, which is bryan and rosy amador and their daughter elissa So on our usual format. We're just it's just gonna be a show. It's gonna be a party It's gonna be a backyard concert and we're gonna just stream it live and uh, And I hear that I may actually be singing Is that right? Yes, your house your mic your rules. That's right As as will the mrs. Who will also cool who sings a lot better than i actually a pretty good She's actually at a choir rehearsal right now So if he's quite good that would explain why you know, so we're gonna have some fun with that So if you want to see that we'll be you know, we'll have more information on how you're gonna convince her to drag her piano outside No, no, we'll we'll it'll be an appearance of the ukulele nerds. Yeah, the ukulele We'll get our ukulele's at nice Uh, who are our donors of the week? Well, we got a lot of familiar names in here because a lot of these folks subscribe on Using paypal. We've got tracy h. Reynolds Let's hit the jakey because that should show me more donations. Well, there you go and moving down the list here I've got a nice one from stanley allen. Thanks stanley. Is that a very generous of you new name to you? It is a new name to me. Thanks stanley. Really cool Andrew Kaufman one of the subscribers we've got Eric Aragone has been just an every single week donor for of quite a few years now Larry Hudson last week gave us a nice donation. Thank you professor Hudson Yeah, great guy So nice batch of donations and if you want to donate it even even a buck if we heard something tonight that benefited you You can do that on the website on the subscribe button or the donate button I should say you can subscribe at that point if you want you don't have to you can just make a one-time donation Whatever feels good to you It helps and it keeps the show looking as clean and pristine and colorful and live as it is and completely Transparent just the way you like it Fascinating One of the other things and you remind people on twitter all the time is to join our mailing list We're up to 520 people on our mailing list. It's been growing amazing It's so funny, but mailing lists as retro as they sound, you know this whole email mailing has to be there It's it's really becoming really more valuable and I myself am paying more attention to newsletters than I used to And I think it's just because there's so much noise Coming from social media, you know, so we need a new way to connect So yeah, we are using that to let you know what's going on Yeah, so make sure you check it up because I think on our website There's a little tab you can join the mailing list from there So and that'll help you get updates on the show and let you'll know who's being on Before everybody I'm sure we'll let everybody know how to be at that show if they want to be at the concert Absolutely, if you happen to be in the greater Los Angeles area Uh, if you want to work with George and have your studio professionally tuned created designed Where do they go? They go to George the dot tech That's all you gotta know Dan you go over to home voiceover studio dot com and that's where you'll find me. I hang out there I like living a little corner Love the website Alrighty, let's see here. We've got what? Oh, I'm sorry. I stepped on you. Oh I've already done the webinar that's dead and gone So I can delete that from the queue of things to talk about my instagram george the tech at george the tech instagram My podcast the pro audio suite As I mentioned, we get the geek out last episode. We just posted it was about plugins And oh that must have been really geeky. Oh, we had a good old time Well, it's you know, we get to actually speak to two competitive competing companies I mean waves and isotope are really two of the big competitors And they were both there Uh, complimenting each other. I was gonna say they are That doesn't do nothing. They're a way too professional to get into a fight on the air, but we tried Um, by the way, you could be in our audience Yes, and we have people in the audience tonight. Do we have the audience cam working? No, the audience cam is not working What oh, there it is there even still there's a still in the audience At least everybody's smiling. Yeah, they they look totally excited to be here If you would like to be in a still photo of our audience just put up cardboard cutouts there You Can join us by writing to us if you're in the greater Los Angeles area on a Monday night You know, you're gonna be here or you live in Encino or tarzana or studio city or one of those places Uh, you can write to us at the guys at v obs dot tv And we will give you the secret handshake and let you in here. We'll set a chair out for you Yeah, we go. Um, let's see. We're here every Monday night except next Monday night at 6 p.m. Pacific time 9 p.m In the east coast areas if you're listening as a podcast join us live so you can be interactive and Ask questions of our guests sometime. That's right. Like our audience did tonight Uh, the show logs the show logs are just there now Is it youtube just apparently youtube's doing these things? I haven't taken a look to see how you see them yet, but Apparently you click on the right thing and there's what's that? They've been doing for years, but now it now it's all sudden come to our attention That they're there Actually, I think it's jacked us is like really I've been doing this by hand all Yeah, but that's the kind of guy jack is anyway, uh, okay, we need to thank our sponsors, of course Harlan Hogan's voiceover essentials Voiceover extra source elements view to go go voice actor websites.com and j. Michael collins demos Alrighty, we also need to thank of course the dan and marcie lennard foundation for the betterment of live webcasting Our producer catherine curden for giving us great guests like melissa moats and all this great lineup Of guests we got coming up over the next couple of weeks keeping it flowing. Absolutely and jack daniel on chat room duty tonight Yes, you may applaud Just to boost his ego a little bit Um Also, and he also helps us out with our youtube stuff. Yes, which is a big help Yes, uh, and of course our technical director Extraordinaire who gets it done sumer lino once again. Thank you for the work she does And of course lee penny for being lee penny Well, that's gonna do it for us this week And for next week too, but uh, we look forward to seeing all you guys and uncle roy's barbeque next week and We'll be back in two weeks. We know it's a tough business You got to have the right information And we're here to help you with your sound because if it sounds right or if it sounds good It's right and good. It's right and good. I'll figure it out one of these days That's gonna do it for us tonight. I'm dan lennard and i'm george winnow and this is voiceover body shot or vio bs Have a great week everybody