 Hey, it's time for tech talk number 19 as 2019 rolls on We continue to provide all that great information on your home voiceover studios and all related tech with that and We need your questions So if you have a question for us throw it in our chat room and George you got lots of cool stuff to talk about about Catalina Catalina and software updates and every year About this time of year. You'll hear the same thing, but it's just some twists in Catalina You really gotta look out for I can't wait to hear about it coming up right now on voiceover body shop tech talk number 19 From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars a Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain the professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a Professional voice talent with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world making the complex simple Debunking the myths of what it takes to create great sounding audio Answering your questions showing you the latest and greatest in VO tech and having a dandy time doing it Welcome to voice over body shop tech talk Voice over body shop tech talk is brought to you by voice over essentials comm home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites comm where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt Vio heroes comm become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training J. Michael Collins demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and Now live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Oh It's time for tech talk one of our favorite things to do in the entire world And we have about tech. Yeah, it's You guys eat this stuff up, you know, this is just George and I talking shop. It's We just love talking about it. It's what we know. It's It's great to keep up to date with What's happening? Because you know tech is Tech, I mean, there's some basic rules to it But there's always new stuff Although most of it is new stuff that perhaps you don't need or you need warnings about There's gonna be a lot of a lot of warnings a lot of reminding you of what you should have known by now Or maybe you just need to be reminded of But we'll get into that tonight. Absolutely and we're gonna talk a little bit about all the sorts of gear You don't need because boy, we get a lot of stuff about that But let's get started with George's tech update for this week Well, if you use any software hardware in your studio and you subscribe to said companies mailing lists and You don't have all your emails being filtered out like I do in my gmail inbox where I never see a newsletter Then maybe by now you've seen an email from one of those companies saying Don't update the Catalina yet So people going Catalina. Why do you keep talking about a small island 20 my 29 miles off the coast of? California Catalina is the new Mac OS version That is being launched. I believe today was today was the launch day officially and Let me just start off by this more generically not just talking about Catalina's and max and everything but More generically, this is just a rule of thumb that is it's pretty much. It's a pretty solid rule It is it's almost a guarantee. This is gonna work. Well for you Do not update anything unless you have a good reason to do it Don't update your OS Don't update your doll Don't mess with your software drivers for your universal audio Apollo Just don't do it especially if you're gonna do it Don't do it at the beginning of your work week or in the middle of your work day It's just unwise and I have some I Mean literally, I'm getting ready to go in the air tonight and one of my long term standing clients Saying I just installed an update and now this is broken and I'm like What are you doing? Why would you do this in the middle of your day? you know so if If you go if you if you just got to have it you're one of those people then you've just got to have another Computer that you can use to futz around and experiment with all these new things But your production computer the one that you make your money with the one that has to work every day Every time you hit record. It's just got to be there. That's not one you take chances on you experiment with so Many companies are sending out warnings about the new Catalina OS What's the problem with it? Well, I mean you guys know I mean every single year we we wax on about don't update right away Give your driver your hardware companies your software companies time to test Vet debug whatever it is do updates whatever they have to do to be working with the new OS. That's That's not new. That's that's really this time of year pretty much every year. We have to we have to do that But what's going on now is like there's security levels are increasing with Operating system. So anybody who upgraded to Mojave and even high Sierra before that You started seeing a lot of error messages when you install software saying maybe this software isn't Licensed or in some way authorized to install on your Mac then you have to go to system preferences Security go to another thing type in a password click another button. It says open anyway Then go another another place say yes allow the microphone to connect, you know on and on Well, the new of the newest one OS is just kind of taking that to another level So what's going on now is and there's a good article about this if you really want to get into it over at pro dash tools dash Expert.com. There's some really good in-depth super geeky articles about this But one of the key things that they're talking about is notarization So the other thing is something called hardened runtime and it's a set of security requirements Controlling how software on the Mac is granted access to your computer So the short version of all that is is there's a lot more security now that every single program on your computer every Driver every plug-in all has to be compliant with in order to be installed on Catalina So you got to be really careful About making that next step to Catalina. So put it off a little while You know, it's it's I Unless I let me know if there's features in Catalina that are going to change your your business life and make things Faster and more efficient for you as a voice actor I'll be the first one to look into it. But as far as I know there really aren't anything there really isn't any real game-changer tools So give yourself a little bit of a a head start by not diving in Yeah, if there's an update I'm like, oh sure you I'll do it I'll like I'll do it on my laptop not my production computer like you said and it's like here's all the changes And I'm like, I don't use any of this stuff Yeah, I mean, there's so many new features that are really designed about integrating the iOS with the macOS world and all that kind of thing You know other companies that are issuing warnings are eyes isotope saying we don't recommend it There's a whole grocery list of companies that have issued warning warnings about it So enough about that just don't update in your system and even folks on windows There are occasional windows updates that get pushed to your machine that do break things Now I was under the understanding that on windows home You cannot turn off the updates, but I actually got to chat with Jeffrey K for last week he's a Windows user and a heck of a geek himself and He said no, no, no, it's not true. You can actually turn off the automatic updates in Windows home So if you're running a Windows system, I definitely and you're using that with your recording software Definitely, I recommend getting in there and turning off automatic updates You don't want to walk into your studio the next morning and have a non-functioning system. So that would suck be careful Well, you guys You've heard about the Sentron's products. We've talked about mixer face the mic port pro And you probably will see an ad for the new mic port pro 2 which are our sponsor Holland Hogan's voice over essentials carries I'm here to say that I have not yet gotten one in my hot little hands to demo I think they're so Yeah, I think they are so incredibly popular that you know, maybe they're going out to all the youtubers first the big time You know the ones with 10,000 subscribers But I haven't gotten one yet But anyway, I do have a client who did buy one pretty much right out of the gate And he's a more of a colleague than a client Jeff Berlin. He's a he's a real geek like us He tested this thing alongside some some really high-end gear that he happens to own and He said this thing sound quality wise absolutely went toe-to-toe with anything he owns Apollo's and RME this and that and he said this thing was absolutely on par with that So, you know this thing while being a very small portable interface that will plug into Mac Windows or iOS devices Despite its size it definitely it patches packs a big punch in terms of quality Yeah, certainly up from the from the original mic port pro Which in its time was great. He said that came out. I'm saying almost I'm saying 10 years ago That thing came out maybe more at least Yeah, maybe 12 it was the reigning champion in terms of ultra portable interfaces that sounded good this one just Picks that it takes the giant gene genealogy of that and the mixer faces new You know 80 converters and preamps and just kind of melds them together and makes a new single channel interface It also has a high-pass filter, which is really handy Takes out the rumble and it has a limiter Which is a recent addition that he added right before release and you know, you're doing your setting your levels light, right? You don't really need a limiter I mean, it's you don't but if you are someone that's having to do a lot of animation and games and things and you're Constantly worried about clipping. It's kind of cool having something to catch those peaks for you and smooth them out So it's a cool piece. It's the real deal. Yeah got a note from Harlan Hogan today because they're running a special on it at voiceover essentials and He said yeah, the limiters are great thing to have because if you if you tend to over modulate or if you're You mean you don't know how to set your levels something like that can really save your butt and The fact that they put it into the the new mic port is is fabulous Yeah, it's really it's really great. I'm glad they did that Moving on to other devices. So last week I installed a new computer in a tiny tiny booth We are doing a video for ACX University And we were doing like narrators like an of basically an audiobook narrator makeover We whisked in that's when I got to see Jeffrey in PJ Oakland and a few others and we all sort of had this makeover event and For her studio, she's a Windows person so I tried to find a computer that was completely silent and In Mac and in Windows there are very few options out there in terms of a Regular off-the-shelf computer not something custom made or made by some website where getting support might be trouble There actually is a real Windows computer you can buy right now and it's called the Surface Pro 6 So if you're looking for a fanless PC that you're gonna have in your booth to record right next to the mic The Microsoft Surface Pro 6, which I believe now is the 7. I think they just launched the 7 Is a great choice just get the absolute base model. It's like 799 It's got an i5 processor. It's it's perfectly adequate. I think it's got eight gigs of RAM It's a little down on storage, you know, it only has 128 gigs of storage But you can buy external USB storage now That's you know unbelievably inexpensive a terabyte for about a hundred dollars now So, you know solid-state that is so it's very easy to take something like this and affordably make it your studio computer So this is a cool device and you just plug you can use Bluetooth or plug a mouse and keyboard into a hub And it's it's just a regular old computer at the end of the day with a touchscreen. So that's pretty cool Yeah, um Apple they used to make a fanless computer. It was called the Macbook It was that little 12-inch Macbook that came out a couple years ago That was the only truly fanless computer they made and for some reason they discontinued it They they don't have a Macbook fanless computer anymore. So Apple waiting to see what you come out with the iPad Pro Is a completely fanless device, but it's still running an iOS not a Mac OS You can you can be pretty productive on it, but it always feels a little like a compromise from a real computer It's hard. It's very difficult to record files and send them places You know, which is you know, what we do is voice actors a lot of times It's like, you know, if it's like send it to a link You know, it's you you can do it. It seems to be a little easier than it used to be but Getting better. Yeah, it used to be you all didn't have a storage system on it But now you've got you can do that. So isn't iOS there's an iOS 13 This is the first time where the iOS they forked the iOS. They made a split. So there's an iOS for phones There's an iOS for iPad. Yeah, so now the iPad version is out. It's become more Useful it can do more things that has sort of a file Structure of sorts where you can find things. So it's getting better. It really is It still feels like a compromise. It's not as productive I noticed that on the other day and I had to send a graphic somewhere and I was on my phone and I'm like, oh I can't oh wait a second Give me can we access your photos and like, oh, yeah, sure fine and off it went. I'm like, well, that was easy Yeah, yeah, no, I mean you can do that Yeah, it's I think if you're on the iPhone you kind of become used to certain things that's not working But just try you might be surprised. They've baked a lot more functionality into Ios now in terms of upgrading to 13 Have you done that yet? Dan? Are you running iOS 13? It did it this morning without me asking this morning. Oh, it without you asking Happy birthday. Yeah, I woke up and I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess so, you know It downloads by thinking it'll ask you it'll keep asking you and eventually you'll just hit the wrong button and just install it anyway You know, if you take care of your stuff and you and you're you don't leave a lot of a lot of tabs open and stuff like that Generally, if you do an iOS update on your phone, it generally doesn't interrupt anything except I mean forget your phone numbers It's just like the desktop Try to avoid installing, you know, 13.0 of the OS right install the 13.1 Or the 13.1 point one the one where they start debugging things or that's you know If you can put it off until they've had a bug fix or two, you're gonna be a much better shape or when we tell you Yeah, when we tell you lastly just a little side note about I don't try to single out brands and badmouthing But there's just one company who while they make a product that is renowned for court for sound quality Is not turning out to be great for support and that's called antelope audio They are believe or not because this name of this country was actually brought up earlier in the show it's a product made in Bulgaria and Again hardware awesome sound quality amazing, but support is definitely not real solid drivers and software updates are slow to come and if the product breaks There's only one service center of all of North America happens to be in Burbank I happen also know the company that does it and the guys that fix them. So that's why I know this And when something goes wrong, they have to send out and wait for a new board Like literally a whole piece that goes inside a whole new circuit board to be shipped from Bulgaria So if you're gonna rely on products like that these very high-end esoteric pieces by two Why buy one when you could buy two are they less expensive right expensive units? They're expensive Puts a kink in that thesis But I'm tell you if you if you are a part of your if it's part of your your studio everyday workflow You need to rely on it and you can't wait two to four weeks for repair You're gonna have to buy two of them. So keep keep that in mind. Anyway, that's my tech update in terms of discussion topics Dan What do you want to talk about? Oh Well, you you sort of brought this up when we were talking earlier. It has to do with gear Because we've seemed to be finding a Lot of the email that we get is I want to get this I want to get that I want this bright and shiny thing I want this thing because that's gonna make the difference in my voiceover career, which is complete nonsense How do we get people to stop doing this? I mean they it seems that it's a lot of it is on Facebook and some of the other voiceover forums where everybody is talking about well, I've got this and it makes me sound great And we've talked about this before that's fine and dandy but I think people tend to forget that they're The quality of their audio is not necessarily what satisfies their ears Because people are using a lot of stuff that says oh, I can I can manipulate the audio this way or I can clean it up Using this or if I have a really great mic. It's gonna make me sound great When that's simply not true usually a great mic is going to cause you more problems Because it makes the area that you record in far more susceptible to noise I mean you're going to hear everything so you don't want the most sensitive mic and We try to break it down for you guys to make it really simple. It's the acoustics of the room It's mic technique and it's setting proper levels. The rest of it is all geekery I'm not a geek. I won't say that you're a geek George because you're really not you're you just you're knowledgeable about what you do and But you like you like futzing around with this stuff. I think geek out a little bit. Yeah, I mean I do too I mean, I tend to be in some of the analog areas of things that I like to geek geek about right, but geeking is my yeah, go ahead Here's what I think is the problem. So If you're in these Facebook groups, there's there's a couple kind of people in there, right? There's there's some that are just genuinely knowledgeable and also happen to be somewhat available And we'll answer your question Mostly right or totally right. Okay. They are unicorns There's only very very few of those the rest of them are people that are not working so thereby they are on Facebook so they have a lot of spare time to just basically hang out there and distract you with Information that is not necessarily relevant to what you're doing And if you're hanging out any form or Facebook group anything that's tech related Guarantee you're going to get misdirected in the end to trying or buying or getting the latest new thing because well That's what that group is all about. You know, there's group. They're about comparing talking about the new thing getting trying Gear sluts comm for sure. Yeah, one of the worst places for that but if you if you're smart about it and use these as tools to Just dip in get a graze get a little bit of information about something you're interested in They can be useful. Just just, you know, be careful. Don't get sucked up into it Don't get gas Gear acquisition syndrome if you can avoid it If it's something that for you as a hobby and you enjoy it, you know, good for you Yeah, but don't let that distract you from your voice career I'll even have people hire me to tech support their studio because at the end of the day, they're not booking and So the first thing they're gonna think is my studio must be broken or my must be sibilant or that must be noisy And you know, sometimes I'll just at the end of that call say, you know what everything is fantastic It's actually now it's basically you now that need to take the next level of coaching, you know and But it's that happens. Yeah, it's it's rarely it's rarely the gear Back to your point about being a hobby You know being it being a techno geek is a hobby. It is not a way to make a living and So again, you don't want to get sucked into that vortex of all this technology because it will It will distract you like you said the distract you and drain your wallet and definitely drain your wallet and You know, if you like doing that, that's fine, but voiceover is about performance What George and I do is show you how to use this stuff because People are making these recommendations. You know use the Apollo twin use this thing. This is the greatest interface ever Well, what makes it different? Well, it makes different. I own one, you know, I mean essentially that's the only difference there and None of this stuff is gonna work for you if you don't understand What it does How it does it and why you would use it in the first place having it is not the same thing is knowing how to use it So well, well, we'll drop it there and if you have any comments on that We certainly would love to hear from you in our chat room Plus if you have any questions for us We got a couple we got a long question here that should be fun to follow up on in just a couple of minutes here but we'd love your home voiceover studio tech questions throw them in our chat room either on our web page or on our Facebook page and We will get to that question and Enlighten you with what we know and we'll be right back through watching the show and post YouTube as well. We do check in on those YouTube comments. Absolutely or or write to us at the guys at Vobs.tv Throw that up there so just so they can see that it's got to be there somewhere There it is right Anyway, we'll be right back after these incredibly important messages. Don't go away This is Bill Ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with Dan Leonard and George Wittem Hey, we're here at Dan's workstation to talk about Voiceover essentials comm that's Harlan Hogan's place to you because they have a great deal for this week on the amazing Centrance mic port pro 2l The mic port pro 2l is the all-new USB mic preamp that makes it easy to record on the go and at home with Professional quality the state-of-the-art mic port pro 2 turns your phone Tablet laptop or desktop into a professional recording studio smaller the most microphones It's feature rich easy to use and travel friendly now You can record directly to your phone or tablet and leave that laptop behind and for a limited time Get a free VO cap with the purchase of a mic port pro 2l Just add both to your cart and your discount will be automatically deducted a built-in Rechargeable battery sets the mic port pro 2l apart from the other portable audio interfaces making it your ideal companion for the road Get a free VO cap with your order of a mic port pro 2l for a limited time only free shipping in the USA Thanks, Harlan Well, hello there. I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big-voiced announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat Were you this is virgin radio? Well, okay? We're not that innocent. There's genes for wearing and there's genes for working Dickies cuz I ain't here to look pretty. She's a champion of progressive values a leader for California and a voice for America It's smart. It's a phone. It's a smart phone, but it's so much more It's a the files are ready. Don't forget to pick up the eggs. What time is hockey practice? Check out this song It's the end of the road for Rick When hope is lost the I8 from BMW Who said saving the planet couldn't be stylish? Hey, it's Jay Michael Collins bet you think I'm gonna try and sell you a demo now I think they speak for themselves, but I will give you my email It's Jay Michael at JMC voiceover.com now if they will stop waxing this mustache for a minute. We'll get back to the show Source elements know them love them get source connect What else do you need to know? Source connect is really the tool for connecting to studios around the globe It is used all over North America. It is used all over Europe it is used in a lot of other countries But it the key thing is it's what the majority of the pro studios are Using nowadays to connect to their talent to do those higher budget Live-directed live recorded sessions. So you definitely need to have this in your tool belt There's really absolutely no reason not to get at least the demo of it You can go to source dash elements calm get the 15-day free trial install it You know, there's a few steps to install it. There's you have to get an iLock account You don't have to have the iLock USB key But you do need the account and you have to get all those things up and running But once you've done that You're ready to go and even if it's in trial mode when that day comes and the client says do you have source connect? You can say yes, you can activate your license on the spot and be ready to go It's a no-brainer have that ready to go have that in your toolbox Be ready to do those bigger higher level jobs and be able to tailor your agent. Yes, I do have source connect Thanks for watching. Thanks for sponsoring us source elements. I'll be right back with tech stuff Send in your questions. We want them be right back Before time began there was v obs.tv watch or else and we're back and Where we're discussing gear Because that's what we do because what we do is we There's a couple of things you and I do we teach people We teach you how to build a home studio We help you build a home studio and then once you have it. We're there to support you That pretty much describes what we do doesn't it? Yeah, that's in a nutshell So if you want help with your home voiceover studio one You can watch this show because heck we give them that way enough information here to You know to make a career for some people eight and a half years at what the info you got the time Go back and start rewatching There yeah, if you're not doing voice work, it's it's an entertaining way to spend an hour or 30 um But if you want to work with us Individually on a one one to one basis where we can come to your home Or your apartment or you know if you're recording out in the field somewhere Um, we like to get around and and see what other people are doing But we like to make sure that you're recording properly And that's what george and I do and that's why we're here talking to you about it If you want to work with us We got websites you can contact us. We have scheduling widgets. We got all this stuff So if you go to george's website, which is George the dot tech you can head over there and schedule support You can check out some articles over there and faq You can also send me audio files for a sound check Which is probably the most high value thing that dan and I provide is just absolutely objective feedback About the audio you've been sending out It's all right there and like I said, I've got the sound check and dan's got the specimen cup over on his website and that's Home voiceover studio dot com and yeah, I've got the specimen collection cup. A lot of people send me audio It's been picking up a lot lately for 25 dollars. I'll analyze it But what I don't want is I don't want people analyze it one I don't want to analyze people's audio that's been heavily processed because they don't know how to process They process because they're told to process And I want to hear the raw sound george and I both want to hear the raw sound. What is it that what is the base? The baseline that you're working with Because don't try to fool us because we'll know it if you add a process. Oh, we'll know it. Oh, yeah It says don't know no noise Negating here are no noise reduction filters and no compression and like but I thought that's the way you record But no, it's we want it clean and raw So we know what you're working with so we can get your sound sounding as natural as possible So what check us out. Well, we'll help you out. That's what we do Anyway, we got a couple of questions here from our voluminous audience out there The first one is like five parts. I think it's biblical. It's the five books of val essentially, uh, he says, uh, hello fellas. How you doing val? Uh, I have located a low electrical hum in my home that is interfering with my recordings It's a very old fire alarm that's hardwired inside the wall Now that I've learned that it's there when I listen and pay attention I can stand still in that end of the home and hear it. I put my ear to the wall and hear it as well What should I do? That's what your cutters are for Yeah, it's hardwired and inside the wall. Wow those were the days We would never do that these days and hardwired something inside the wall without an access hatch or some way to get in there Um Yeah, I mean if you're if you don't own your house Then you're probably not going to hack a hole in the wall and disable it If you do own your house get in there and get that thing out of there It's not going to be that hard Um, if you if you're renting again, if if that sound is there, you can't move away from it You can't stop it If it's just a fixed hum frequency, that's just like a tone like a sine wave. That's not the end of the world Yeah, it's really annoying to hear it while you're recording. It's always there But with the right processing usually a notch filter like a parametric equalizer set to that frequency I'm guessing it's probably 120 Hertz Um, you can dial it out very very effectively If it's more complicated than that a buzz or something with a lot of different frequencies May not be too possible. We would definitely have to hear what that sound is like to give you Appropriate, you know steps to mitigate it right or tell your landlord if it's an apartment, you know Could you like get rid of this thing and remove it for me? Uh, because it's interfering with what I'm doing. What I mean, I've never heard a smoke alarm You know or a fire alarm make noise like that You know, it's not a transformer or something attached to it. That's possible. Yeah We have a we have a we have a a smoke alarm in the house that goes off by itself every now and again And you know, it's like it's there's no carbon monoxide. There's no smoke and I'm thinking It's probably some spider in there smoking Yeah, this is a quiet place It's just Anyway, uh, okay more questions from val Yeah, there's more to his question. It is also comma I submitted a a finished audiobook to our good friends at acx and heard nothing back about whether or not it passed I guess it did pass because it was published live last saturday end of problem Um, I made sure my noise floor was low enough for them and had them check some samples as well In my finished files. I did not hear background static noise behind the speaking parts It is an audiobook. It's all speaking parts and still cannot when I listen to these finished lines I wonder if acx raised the gain or did something that has made this sound more prominent It sounds like They did hear it. I don't know. I get confused here Uh, I am disappointed because I worked hard to make sure I removed the noise I'm happy with the audio except with this back static. It ruins it for me and I assume listeners ah He's hearing it, but They're not hearing it So yeah, I made sure my noise floor was low enough for them and had them check the samples So obviously they approved it it passed the uh, the um qc But he's saying in my finished files. I did not Hear a background static noise behind the speaking parts Does he mean he did hear a background noise? Maybe he did but I'm a little confused by the question. Yeah, I'll maybe um ACX definitely applies their own processing algorithm to all these all the files Before it gets, you know, it gets compressed and squished it's like Get you got you know, let me go camping and you got a stuff sack your sleeping bag into that sack And you're looking at the sleeping bag and you got the sack and you're going there's no freaking way This is gonna fit in there Stuff and you stuff and eventually you get it in there and you're going that's impossible That's basically what audible does to your wave files Uh before they go up on their server Because think about it. They've got tens of thousands of audiobooks Average probably is now 10 hours They can't put Large versions of all these files on the servers and they want people to go to play them back While they're driving in the car and they want to download them to their phone Not take up six 10 gigabytes the files are mega compressed And in that process it does accentuate some noise sometimes that may not have been noticeable before so I don't know acx there I don't know if it's acx audible both, but qc is kind of all over the place You know the file quality is they're not They're picky sometimes and not picky about other times It's it's kind of hard to suss that out, you know, but when the file makes it to the finished product and ends up on audible It's a done deal and it's there forever. So you do hope it sounds as good as it can Yeah, chances are it could be what he's listening to his own playback on It might be some noise there and it may not actually be on the file Which is that's possible happens an awful lot When it comes to acx or some other places when you submit audio Generally, I have been told and it's born out to be true is no news is good news Unless they get right back to you and say there's no problem with this Move on to what's next Makes sense. Well another part of this question is he kind of outlines what he's using the studio And he's saying that like I bought a flat screen monitor to have in there. It's quieter than his old his old monitor um It's quieter to my ear, but when I look at the metering the noise floor is exactly the same And that's another thing about like noise like you can have two different noise profiles, you know, that sound audibly different But then on the meters they can be the same And so depending on what's in the noise, whether it's higher frequency stuff versus lower frequency It may sound a lot louder like a white noise has a lot of high frequency That kind of thing if it meters at minus 55 that white noise could be quite prominent Whereas another kind of tonal noise or room tone Might meter it like minus 40 But not sound as loud. Yeah, because it's under or low. Yeah, it's like yeah It's a really low frequency under under 100 hertz or 180 hertz or something like that, right? So yes, it's noise is really interesting. It's not all it's not all the same The meters don't tell the whole story for sure. You do have to rely on your Rely on your ears and your monitoring and if you can't Then you send that file to us. Let us take a listen because uh, We're really gonna have the ones too We're gonna have that objective ear that you need right to be sure what you're sending out sounds the way you think it does Yeah, we we listen on really good studio monitors We hear exactly what's going on and we know what to listen for we know what to look for And if you really don't understand it, I mean if it obviously val knows a fair amount of things But it sounds like he knows the terminology but not necessarily the finer points of the terminology. So We'd like to hear it Yeah, I think he's just second guessing what he's doing a lot of the right things. He's done a lot of research He's gotten help obviously But he's second guessing it because he's hearing a result. That's not what he expected. So right um, I can understand that val I can understand the frustration Yeah, I mean sometimes If you're if you're reading about how to set up a home voiceover studio and and what settings to use I find that to be kind of counterproductive because The end result is what does it sound like? And if you use certain settings, it may not sound good to you Uh, and the fact is there's only a couple of settings you should be using in the first place And I actually did have a client recently say that Um, he's using like an equalizer. Yeah, and he's actually EQing by Picture or by visual. So he's looking at he's using some kind of a spectrum spectrum analyzer looking at the balance of frequencies and making adjustments based on what he's seeing and That may be logical to some people. But to me that it's It doesn't it's just it you have to it has to be done by ear. I don't know how else to do it That's right. Absolutely has to sound good. Yeah val. You think way too much about this stuff, but it's important. So We're here to help you uh question from get freds voice He says, uh, we're getting ready to head south through the winter and my new booth will be a large closet Do acoustic blankets work or I can go with the cheap harbor freight moving blankets? Yes with harbor freight He just tagged on to the end of that just a minute ago Oh, there's more the way the closet won't be stuffed with clothes So it's going to be a closet that is often empty Yeah, and he's going to be in there. So now he's got a mostly empty closet Can he get away with just moving blankets? Well, you can A lot of them. Yeah, just just get a lot. They're cheap enough. I mean, that's the greatest thing about it I've built a lot of closet studios with harbor freight blankets and people are just thrilled with them You know, how many layers do you do Dan? I mean, you're probably doing more than one layer oftentimes, right? It depends depends on how much clothing's in a closet. Um, it depends on How big the closet is if it's a big if it's a big unit if it's a big big size closet I may double up on it, you know get a couple of the large 84 by 72 blankets And and just nail them up and maybe leave a little bit of airspace between them Let them drape a little bit because that only not only absorbs the sound but it also diffuses it a little bit They're great for for what they are and uh, I mean you can get the more expensive ones and those are really good, too Uh, but if you double up for one tenth the price on these on the harbor freight blankets Go for it. You know, it's it's a temporary situation and when you leave you can wrap your furniture in it So, yeah, it's it's true. It solves all sorts of problems I found that it's surprising that um house I find it really surprising how just adding a second layer Of the sound blankets or the moving blankets can make a dramatic difference on certain frequencies So, you know, if in doubt double up, you know, they are so inexpensive Yeah, I sometimes I wonder because you know people like it's got to be dead You don't want it to sound boomy or Like a tube or something like that But you still have to have some bit of liveliness to it You don't want to suck in all the energy out of your voice I mean if you if you really listen the most voice over today, it's It's not it's not Just dead, you know, there's there's a there's a lot of there's a lot of Nuance to a voice and sometimes over over patting a room. We will remove some of that. So Yeah, I know I've when I'm in a really small space There's a definitely a trade-off because in order to get rid of as much of the resonance of that room Uh as possible Then I do have to make it really dead Um, and it's tough in a really small space. We're talking 20 inch deep closet You know by six feet by yeah And I've as of late I've had to deal with several 18 to 22 inch deep closets The 18 inch closet with a sliding door. It's those are It's better with the french doors at least you can move the doors out. Yeah, exactly Um, a question came in and thanks to focus locus who got my attention there um Saying, um, I use a usb mic for the time being and I'm plotting my upgrades So he's he's thinking about that up eventual upgrade Um, once I obtain an xlr mic I'm leaning toward a portable digital recorder instead of a big girl interface initially Um, do either of you have a recommendation? And for what it's worth the majority of my voice over dollars have gone to training. So, you know, she's being very, um You know sensible Good job. Yeah, I don't understand why she would want to go for a portable digital recorder I find that something like the zoom Is great if you're doing field recording and stuff like that and it can be used as an interface Uh, if you have multiple uses for it, I'd say yeah, that's okay But generally we like to recommend that you use an actual interface Or a high-end usb mic more definitely probably a A better a better, uh, you know studio condenser mic And yeah, and that solves a lot of problems because When you start getting into the you know, one of the the the field recorders They've got all these settings and little tiny screens and trying to set the levels right It's not worth it as far as I'm concerned, but yeah, they can get a really complicated There's only one self-contained portable recorder that Gets rid of all of the confusion and boils it down to the absolute basics And that is the one built into the mixer face Um the mixer face r4. There's a there's a model. I can't remember what it's called, but it actually takes a micro sd um I I think it's cool because it doesn't have a screen right so there is no menus Nothing you put the card in you press the record button and that's it and in terms of having a secondary backup I think that's cool, but recording to a standalone recorder for everything Um, it's going to become cumbersome You're having to transfer files, you know from the device to a computer to edit and post um, if you're wanting to do anything over skype google voice any kind of audio connection to the computer for direction or a phone patch That you're gonna have to figure out another way to do that So it's it's it's wise because it's it is reliable But other than that That's there's too many other reasons to spend less money for something more reliable like or more convenient like a Steinberg ur12 for under 100 us It's fantastic device. Yeah sound quality is great works great Well, that's why we're here to make those recommendations. It's like keep it simple kids You know the other important thing is the idea is not to sound great But the most part it's to try and not sound bad You're not trying to sound like you're on the radio or you're not trying to sound like you're in that tv commercial You're trying to sound like the way you should sound Or what's the whistle acronym dan what it's supposed to know? What it's supposed to sound like yeah And if you don't know what that is we're here to help you with that. That's right Anyway, all right. Well, we're gonna clean things up and sweep this off into the the sunset right after these messages. Don't go away Before time began there was v obs dot tv watch or else Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead Now there's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer that place is voiceover extra dot com Whether you're just exploring a voice over 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 Voice over 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 voice over success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports and get 14 bonus reports on how to ace the voice over audition It's all here at voiceover extra dot com. That's voice over x t r a dot com So you've thought deeply about it You've discussed it with friends and family and you've decided that it is your future audiobook narration and the doors to that future swung wide open for you this morning Registration for the upcoming acx master class is now open and there's a happy twist Register right now and david and dan will pay the first $300 of your tuition no strings attached That offer is only good through tuesday night at 9 p.m. Pacific time So you have to act right now if building an amazing audiobook narration career is what you dream of Or if your current audiobook narration career isn't all you want it to be This is your shot go to acx masterclass.com to register for the 2019 acx masterclass That's acx masterclass.com class begins this coming monday The 300 dollar tuition payment special offers only good for the next day or so Take that step walk through those doors and register for this amazing four week class Visit acx masterclass.com. That's acx masterclass.com 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 a breaker 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.com like our name implies voice actor websites.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.com where your vo website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what This is Bill Ratner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv Well, we've done it again We've educated everybody on what they should not do I think sometimes we talk about more about what not to do than what to do Well, I think it's valid though. We do it because we have to sorry. It's right exactly Um, hey, we got donors people who are actually contributing to the success of our show, which we really appreciate names like Yeah, we just just got a donation in from dwayne desalvo. Thank you um valerie burges stephanie southerland shanna pennington baird ant land productions Don griffith And harlo rudriguez. We appreciate it very very much. Yeah. Hey, we'd like to show you Everybody else's booth show us your booths Go us your booths, please. Yeah, send them to us. We get to We get to show off what your place looks like no matter how lowly it is right. We love closets Well, maybe not that much, but yeah Tonight tonight we have a really amazing booth on the top of the space. Yeah, we can actually see mount ranier, but that's kind of cool Um, let's end it in. Yes. Uh, remember if you want help with your home studio There's only two places to go you can go to george over at George the tech or george the dot tech For those short nerdy don't names. I got that one, but george the tech comm is where all my tech support stuff is All kinds of things different ways we can work together So go give it a look if you get confused too many darn options Just send me a message in the contact area. We'll get back to you with what we think will be the most helpful for you Right, and then yeah, if george is too busy Which he always is You can go over to home voiceover studio dot com and i'll be happy to help you out with your questions Listen to your audio and show you how to do it right so it will sound the way it's supposed to sound like All righty. Well, we need to thank our sponsors like uh harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra source elements vo dash heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com And jay michael collins demos and the dan and marsy lennard foundation for the betterment of live and recorded webcasting Uh, our own sumer lino does a great job with our technical direction It's been fabulous here and we appreciate all she does and of course lee pennie for being lee pennie And all of you for sending us your questions Uh, that's going to do it for us this week next week joe davis will be with us Oh, if you got questions on websites He knows everything there is to know co What master he's a master of sco too a master and he stays up to date with it So make sure you send in your questions and maybe show us your websites. We'll be thrilled to take a look at that as well So that's going to do it for us this week. Thanks so much for hanging with us and uh We'll time to say good night. I'm dan lennard I'm george widdum and this is voiceover Body shop or vo B s tech talk tech talk. All right. We'll see you next time guys. Have a great week